90. It will be clear from what has been said in the preceding pages that I should not regard as a fair or full representation of Polo’s Work, a version on which the Geographic Text did not exercise a material influence. But to adopt that Text, with all its awkwardnesses and tautologies, as the absolute subject of translation, would have been a mistake. What I have done has been, in the first instance, to translate from Pauthier’s Text. The process of abridgment in this text, however it came about, has been on the whole judiciously executed, getting rid of the intolerable prolixities of manner which belong to many parts of the Original Dictation, but _as a general rule_ preserving the matter. Having translated this,—not always from the Text adopted by Pauthier himself, but with the exercise of my own judgment on the various readings which that Editor lays before us,—I then compared the translation with the Geographic Text, and transferred from the latter not only all items of real substance that had been omitted, but also all expressions of special interest and character, and occasionally a greater fulness of phraseology where condensation in Pauthier’s text seemed to have been carried too far. And finally I introduced _between brackets_ everything peculiar to Ramusio’s version that seemed to me to have a just claim to be reckoned authentic, and that could be so introduced without harshness or mutilation. Many passages from the same source which were of interest in themselves, but failed to meet one or other of these conditions, have been given in the notes.[1] [Sidenote: Mode of rendering proper names.] 91. As regards the reading of proper names and foreign words, in which there is so much variation in the different MSS. and editions, I have done my best to select what seemed to be the true reading from the G. T. and Pauthier’s three MSS., only in some rare instances transgressing this limit. Where the MSS. in the repetition of a name afforded a choice of forms, I have selected that which came nearest the real name when known. Thus the G. T. affords _Baldasciain, Badascian, Badasciam, Badausiam, Balasian_. I adopt BADASCIAN, or in English spelling BADASHAN, because it is closest to the real name _Badakhshan_. Another place appears as COBINAN, _Cabanat, Cobian_. I adopt the first because it is the truest expression of the real name _Koh-benán_. In chapters 23, 24 of Book I., we have in the G. T. _Asisim, Asciscin, Asescin_, and in Pauthier’s MSS. _Hasisins, Harsisins_, etc. I adopt ASCISCIN, or in English spelling ASHISHIN, for the same reason as before. So with _Creman, Crerman, Crermain_, QUERMAN, Anglicè KERMAN; Cormos, HORMOS, and many more.[2]