in the text is erroneous or corrupted. We have been already on the
ocean or bay of Nankin, the eastern boundary of China and of the land;
yet the text persists continually to travel _south-east_, which is
impossible. The direction of the itinerary must have been westwards,
probably south-west.--E.

[15] This was probably Turmeric, so much used in the Eastern cookery,
though it is the root which is employed.--E.

[16] Obviously what are now called Friesland, but more properly frizzled
hens.--E.

[17] In the manufacture of sugar it is necessary to neutralize a certain
redundant acid in the juice of the cane, by a fit proportion of some
alkaline ingredient to enable the sugar to crystallize: The ordinary
_temper_, as it is called, for this purpose, in the West Indies, is
lime, but any alkali will produce nearly the same effect. This subject
will be fully elucidated in that part of our work which is peculiarly
appropriated to the sugar colonies in the West Indies,--E.

[18] There can hardly be a doubt that the Zaiturn of Marco is the modern
Canton; yet from the causes already mentioned in several notes, it is
next to an impossibility to trace the route or itinerary from Quinsai
to this place.--E.

[19] This is an obvious error, corruption, or interpolation; for on no
conceivable hypothesis of the situations of Quinsai and Zaitum, can
any river be found in China which answers to this description.--E.

[20] This is the only hint in Marco, of the peculiarly famous manufacture
of China, from which all the best _earthen ware_ of Europe has
acquired this name as _par excellence_. From this circumstance, and
from the fame of Nankin for this manufacture, I strongly suspect that
this passage has been foisted in by some ignorant or careless editor
in a wrong place.--E.

[21] It is singular that Marco should make no mention whatever of the
peculiar beverage of the Chinese, _tea_, though particularly described
both in name and use, by the Mahometan travellers in the _ninth_
century, four hundred years earlier, as used in all the cities of
China.--E.

SECTION XVII

_Of the island of Zipangu, and of the unsuccessful attempts made by the
Tartars for its Conquest_.

I shall now leave the country of Mangi, and proceed to discourse of India
the greater, the middle, and lesser; in which I have been, both in the
service of