Note 19 — EXPLANATORY LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS TO VOLUME I.
Henry Yule translation
Persian history seems to fix the arrival of the lady Kokáchin in the North of Persia to the winter of 1293–1294. The voyage to Sumatra occupied three months (vol. i.
p. 34
); they were five months detained there (ii. 292); and the remainder of the voyage extended to eighteen more (
i. 35
),—twenty-six months in all.
The data are too slight for unexceptional precision, but the following adjustment will fairly meet the facts. Say that they sailed from Fo-kien in January 1292. In April they would be in Sumatra, and find the S.W. Monsoon too near to admit of their crossing the Bay of Bengal. They remain in port till September (five months), and then proceed, touching (perhaps) at Ceylon, at Kayal, and at several ports of Western India. In one of these, e.g. Kayal or Tana, they pass the S.W. Monsoon of 1293, and then proceed to the Gulf. They reach Hormuz in the winter, and the camp of the Persian Prince Gházán, the son of Arghún, in March, twenty-six months from their departure.
I have been unable to trace Hammer’s authority (not Wassáf I find), which perhaps gives the precise date of the Lady’s arrival in Persia (see infra, p. 38). From his narrative, however (Gesch. der Ilchane, ii. 20), March 1294 is perhaps too late a date. But the five months’ stoppage in Sumatra must have been in the S.W. Monsoon; and if the arrival in Persia is put earlier, Polo’s numbers can scarcely be held to. Or, the eighteen months mentioned at vol. i. p. 35, must include the five months’ stoppage. We may then suppose that they reached Hormuz about November 1293, and Gházán’s camp a month or two later.