[11] [It is a strange fact that Polo never mentions the use of _Tea_ in China, although he travelled through the Tea districts in Fu Kien, and tea was then as generally drunk by the Chinese as it is now. It is mentioned more than four centuries earlier by the Mohammedan merchant Soleyman, who visited China about the middle of the 9th century. He states (_Reinaud, Relation des Voyages faits par les Arabes et les Persans dans l’Inde et à la Chine_, 1845, I. 40): “The people of China are accustomed to use as a beverage an infusion of a plant, which they call _sakh_, and the leaves of which are aromatic and of a bitter taste. It is considered very wholesome. This plant (the leaves) is sold in all the cities of the empire.” (_Bretschneider, Hist. Bot. Disc._ I. p. 5.)—H. C.] [12] It is probable that Persian, which had long been the language of Turanian courts, was also the common tongue of foreigners at that of the Mongols. _Pulisanghin_ and _Zardandan_, in the preceding list, are pure Persian. So are several of the Oriental phrases noted at p. _84_. See also notes on _Ondanique_ and _Vernique_ at pp. 93 and 384 of this volume, on _Tacuin_ at p. 448, and a note at p. _93_ _supra_. The narratives of Odoric, and others of the early travellers to Cathay, afford corroborative examples. Lord Stanley of Alderley, in one of his contributions to the Hakluyt Series, has given evidence from experience that Chinese Mahomedans still preserve the knowledge of numerous Persian words. [13] Compare these errors with like errors of Herodotus, _e.g._, regarding the conspiracy of the False Smerdis. (See Rawlinson’s Introduction, p. 55.) There is a curious parallel between the two also in the supposed occasional use of Oriental state records, as in Herodotus’s accounts of the revenues of the satrapies, and of the army of Xerxes, and in Marco Polo’s account of Kinsay, and of the Kaan’s revenues. (Vol. ii pp. 185, 216.) [14] An example is seen in the voluminous _Annali Musulmani_ of _G. B. Rampoldi_, Milan, 1825. This writer speaks of the Travels of Marco Polo with his _brother_ and uncle; declares that he visited _Tipango_ (_sic_), Java, Ceylon, and the _Maldives_, collected all the geographical notions of his age, traversed the two peninsulas of the Indies, examined the islands of _Socotra, Madagascar, Sofala_, and traversed with _philosophic eye_ the regions of Zanguebar, Abyssinia, Nubia, and Egypt! and so forth (ix. 174). And whilst Malte-Brun bestows on Marco the sounding and ridiculous title of “_the Humboldt of the 13th century_,” he shows little real acquaintance with his Book. (See his _Précis_, ed. of 1836, I. 551 _seqq._)