the
Dalai Lama, situate on a branch of the Sampoo, or great Brahma-pootra,
or Barampooter river, which joins the Ganges in the lower part of
Bengal.--E.

[3] This sentence most probably is meant to imply the use of cowries,
sometimes called porellane shells, both for money and ornament.--E.

[4] Pinkerton, from the Trevigi edition, names the country Cariam, and the
governor Cocagio.--E.

[5] The ordinary European price is about fourteen for one.--E.

[6] The description of this creature seems to indicate an alligator or
crocodile; which probably Marco had not seen, and only describes from
an imperfect account of the natives.--E.

[7] According to Pinkerton, this province is named Cariti, and its
principal town Nociam, in the edition of Trevigi.--E.

[8] Named previously Carazam and Caraian, afterwards Caraiam, or Carian.
--E.

[9] In some modern maps, Mien is introduced as a large province on the
river of Pegu, immediately to the south-west of Yunnan in China, and
divided from Bengal by the whole country of Ava. But the distribution
of eastern dominion has been always extremely fluctuating; and Mien
may then have included all the north of Ava.--E.

[10] In the original text this animal is called the unicorn; a word of the
same import with rhinoceros.--E.

[11] This either implies that Bengal on the borders of India is to the
south of Thibet; or _south_ is here an error for _east_, Bengal being
the eastern frontier province of India proper.--E.

[12] The difficulty, or rather impossibility of tracing the steps of Marco
Polo, may proceed from various causes. The provinces or kingdoms,
mostly named from their chief cities, have suffered infinite changes
from perpetual revolutions. The names he gives, besides being
corrupted in the various transcriptions and editions, he probably set
down orally, as given to him in the Tartar or Mogul dialect, very
different from those which have been adopted into modern geography
from various sources. Many of these places may have been destroyed,
and new names imposed. Upon the whole, his present course appears to
have been from Bengal eastwards, through the provinces of the farther
India, to Mangi or southern China; and Cangigu may possibly be
Chittigong. Yet Cangigu is said in the text to be an inland country.
--E.

[13] Kathay and Mangi, as formerly mentioned, are