prologue; but he certainly never reached it from the Yun-nan side, and he
had, as we shall presently see (infra, ch. lix. note 6), a wrong
notion as to its position. Indeed, if he had visited it at all, he would
have been aware that it was essentially a part of India, whilst in fact he
evidently regarded it as an _Indo-Chinese_ region, like Zardandan,
Mien, and Caugigu.

There is no notice, I believe, in any history, Indian or Chinese, of an
attempt by Kublai to conquer Bengal. The only such attempt by the Mongols
that we hear of is one mentioned by Firishta, as made by way of Cathay and
Tibet, during the reign of Alauddin Masa'ud, king of Delhi, in 1244, and
stated to have been defeated by the local officers in Bengal. But Mr.
Edward Thomas tells me he has most distinctly ascertained that this
statement, which has misled every historian "from Badauni and Firishtah to
Briggs and Elphinstone, is founded purely on an erroneous reading" (and
see a note in Mr. Thomas's _Pathan Kings of Dehli_, p. 121).

The date 1290 in the text would fix the period of Polo's final departure
from Peking, if the dates were not so generally corrupt.

The subject of the last part of this paragraph, recurred to in the next,
has been misunderstood and corrupted in Pauthier's text, and partially in
Ramusio's. These make the _escuilles_ or _escoilliez_ (vide _Ducange_ in
v. _Escodatus_, and _Raynouard, Lex. Rom._ VI. 11) into _scholars_ and
what not. But on comparison of the passages in those two editions with the
Geographic Text one cannot doubt the correct reading. As to the fact that
Bengal had an evil notoriety for this traffic, especially the province of
Silhet, see the _Ayeen Akbery_, II. 9-11, _Barbosa's _chapter on Bengal,
and _De Barros_ (_Ramusio_ I. 316 and 391).

On the cheapness of slaves in Bengal, see _Ibn Batuta_, IV. 211-212. He
says people from Persia used to call Bengal _Duzakh pur-i ni'amat_, "a
hell crammed with good things," an appellation perhaps provoked by the
official style often applied to it of _Jannat-ul-balad_ or "Paradise of
countries."

Professor H. Blochmann, who is, in admirable essays, redeeming the long
neglect of the history and archaeology of Bengal Proper by our own
countrymen, says that one of the earliest passages, in which the name
_Bangalah_ occurs, is in a poem of Hafiz, sent from Shiraz to Sultan
Gbiassuddin, who reigned in Bengal from 1367 to 1373. Its occurrence in
our text, however, shows that