The peculiarities of this version are very remarkable. Ramusio seems to imply that he used as one basis at least the Latin of Pipino; and many circumstances, such as the division into Books, the absence of the terminal historical chapters and of those about the Magi, and the form of many proper names, confirm this. But also many additional circumstances and anecdotes are introduced, many of the names assume a new shape, and the whole style is more copious and literary in character than in any other form of the work. Whilst some of the changes or interpolations seem to carry us further from the truth, others contain facts of Asiatic nature or history, as well as of Polo’s own experiences, which it is extremely difficult to ascribe to any hand but the Traveller’s own. This was the view taken by Baldelli, Klaproth, and Neumann;[14] but Hugh Murray, Lazari, and Bartoli regard the changes as interpolations by another hand; and Lazari is rash enough to ascribe the whole to a _rifacimento_ of Ramusio’s own age, asserting it to contain interpolations not merely from Polo’s own contemporary Hayton, but also from travellers of later centuries, such as Conti, Barbosa, and Pigafetta. The grounds for these last assertions have not been cited, nor can I trace them. But I admit _to a certain extent_ indications of modern tampering with the text, especially in cases where proper names seem to have been identified and more modern forms substituted. In days, however, where an Editor’s duties were ill understood, this was natural. [Sidenote: Injudicious tamperings in Ramusio.] 61. Thus we find substituted for the _Bastra_ (or _Bascra_) of the older texts the more modern and incorrect _Balsora_, dear to memories of the Arabian Nights; among the provinces of Persia we have _Spaan_ (Ispahan) where older texts read _Istanit_; for _Cormos_ we have _Ormus_; for _Herminia_ and _Laias_, _Armenia_ and _Giazza_; _Coulam_ for the older _Coilum_; _Socotera_ for _Scotra_. With these changes may be classed the chapter-headings, which are undisguisedly modern, and probably Ramusio’s own. In some other cases this editorial spirit has been over-meddlesome and has gone astray. Thus _Malabar_ is substituted wrongly for _Maabar_ in one place, and by a grosser error for _Dalivar_ in another. The age of young Marco, at the time of his father’s first return to Venice, has been arbitrarily altered from 15 to 19, in order to correspond with a date which is itself erroneous. Thus also Polo is made to describe Ormus as on an Island, contrary to the old texts and to the fact; for the city of Hormuz was not transferred to the island, afterwards so famous, till some years after Polo’s return from the East. It is probably also the editor who in the notice of the oil-springs of Caucasus (i. p. 46) has substituted _camel-loads_ for _ship-loads_, in ignorance that the site of those alluded to was probably Baku on the Caspian.