asty was placed upon the throne, and the Chinese retorted upon their
late conquerors by overrunning vast Mongolia and making it Chinese
Tartary. The barriers thrown down by the liberal policy of the Mongol
sovereigns were now put up again, and no more foreigners were allowed to
set foot upon the sacred soil of the Flowery Kingdom.

[Footnote 335: Odoric mentions Juggernaut processions and the
burning of widows; in Sumatra he observed cannibalism and
community of wives; he found the kingdom of Prester John in
Chinese Tartary; "but as regards him," says wise Odoric, "not
one hundredth part is true of what is told of him as if it were
undeniable." Yule's _Cathay_, vol. i. pp. 79, 85, 146.]

[Footnote 336: Colonel Yule gives a list of fourteen important
passages taken bodily from Odoric by Mandeville. _Op. cit._ i.
28. It is very doubtful if that famous book, "Sir John
Mandeville's Travels," was written by a Mandeville, or by a
knight, or even by an Englishman. It seems to have been
originally written in French by Jean de Bourgogne, a physician
who lived for some years at Liege, and died there somewhere
about 1370. He may possibly have been an Englishman named John
Burgoyne, who was obliged some years before that date to flee
his country for homicide or for some political offence. He had
travelled as far as Egypt and Palestine, but no farther. His
book is almost entirely cribbed from others, among which may be
mentioned the works of Jacques de Vitry, Plano Carpini, Hayton
the Armenian, Boldensele's Itinerary, Albert of Aix's chronicle
of the first crusade, Brunetto Latini's _Tresor_, Petrus
Comestor's _Historia scholastica_, the _Speculum_ of Vincent de
Beauvais, etc., etc. It is one of the most wholesale and
successful instances of plagiarism and imposture on record. See
_The Buke of John Mandevill, from the unique copy (Egerton MS.
1982) in the British Museum. Edited by G. F. Warner._
Westminster, 1889. (Roxburghe Club.)]

[Footnote 337: One piece of Pegolotti's advice is still useful
for travellers in the nineteenth century who visit benighted
heathen countries afflicted with robber tariffs: "And don't
forget that if you treat the custom-house of