place that we want a great deal more information
about the custom in the widely isolated cases where it has been reported,
and secondly, that the authenticity of some of the reported cases is
doubtful in consequence of authors repeating their predecessors' tales, as
Colquhoun did Marco Polo's, and V. der Haart did Schouten's. I should not
be at all surprised if ultimately both Polo's and Schouten's accounts
turned out to be myths, both these travellers making their records at a
time when the Old World was full of the tales of the New, so that in the
end, we may yet find the custom is not, nor ever has been, so widespread
as is generally supposed to have been the case."

I do not very well see how Polo, in the 13th and 14th centuries could make
his _record at a time when the Old World was full of the tales of the
New_, discovered at the end of the 15th century! Unless Mr. Ling Roth
supposes the Venetian Traveller acquainted with the various theories of
the Pre-Columbian discovery of America!!

9.--ALACAN. (Vol. ii. pp. 255 and 261.)

Dr. G. Schlegel writes, in the _T'oung Pao_ (May, 1898, p. 153): "_Abakan_
or _Abachan_ ought to be written _Alahan_. His name is written by the
Chinese _Ats'zehan_ and by the Japanese _Asikan_; but this is because they
have both confounded the character _lah_ with the character _ts'ze_; the
old sound of [the last] character [of the name] was _kan_ and is always
used by the Chinese when wanting to transcribe the title _Khan_ or _Chan_.
Marco Polo's A_b_acan is a clerical error for A_l_acan."

10.--CHAMPA. (Vol. ii. p. 268.)

In Ma Huan's account of the Kingdom of Siam, transl. by Mr. Phillips
(_Jour. China B.R.A.S._, XXI. 1886, pp. 35-36) we read: "Their marriage
ceremonies are as follows:--They first invite the priest to conduct the
bridegroom to the bride's house, and on arrival there the priest exacts
the 'droit seigneurial,' and then she is introduced to the bridegroom."

11.--RUCK QUILLS. (Vol. ii. p. 421.)

Regarding Ruck Quills, Sir H. Yule wrote in the _Academy_, 22nd March,
1884, pp. 204-405:--

"I suggested that this might possibly have been some vegetable production,
such as a great frond of the Ravenala (_Urania speciosa_) cooked to pass
as a ruc's quill. (_Marco Polo_, first edition, ii. 354; second edition,
ii. 414.) Mr. Sibree, in his excellent book on Madagascar (_The Great
African Island_, 1880) noticed this, but said:

"'It is much more likely that they [the