Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 12.djvu/479

 n s. xii. DEC. 11, mo.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

471

on

Cathay and the Way Thither. Vols. II. and 111.

(Hakluyt Society.)

THE new edition undertaken by Dr. Cordier, of mediaeval notices of China originally translated and annotated by Sir Henry Yule, gives us in the first of these volumes the travels of Odoric of Pordenone (c. 1286-1331) and in the second, letters and reports of Missionary Friars of the fourteenth century ; extracts concerned with Cathay under the Mongols from the ' Mongol History ' of Rashid-ud-din ; Pegolotti's notices of the Land Route to Cathay ; and such portions from Marignolli's ' Chronicle of Bohemia, ' as relate to the writer's Eastern travels. Yule's work stands well, but the notes of the new editor, models of scholarly thoroughness, add a good deal of in- formation as well as some illuminating conjectures.

Odoric of Pordenone improves on acquaintance. The narrative dictated by a sick man to a more or less illiterate one, and covering wanderings and a sojourn in the East which together occupied a dozen years or so is extraordinarily close-packed, and its crudeness appears to us to come from the manner and circumstances of its production rather than from the want of refinement in observation which Yule imputes. The general effect of re- editing is further to substantiate it though one or two of the more startling statements remain unexplained. Thus, to our regret, Dr. Cordier is not able to add much to Yule on the question of what or where was the " terrible valley."

The Introduction to Vol. III. strikes one as highly satisfactory, and we must not omit to recall that there is included in it an important dissertation on Prester John. From the stand- point of the severer student Rashid-ud-din furnishes the most solid portion of the book ; for lively touches of men and manners we turn to the Friars and to Marignolli. Three letters are given from John de Monte Corvino, for many years Archbishop of Cambalec, highly revered by the " Great Caan " and all his people ; and this striking figure reappears in the valuable record by a Dominican translated from Latin into French by Friar John the Long of Ypres of ' The Estate of the Great Caan,' c. 1330.

The item which illustrates in the most lively manner the enthusiasm with which these fourteenth - century missions to the East were inspired is that of Friar Pascal of Vittoria, who, not long after he penned it, suffered martyrdom. Marignolli is dealt with rather more disparagingly than he deserves in the Introduction. He gives us many pieces of curious information, and, when relating matters of his own experience and observation, shows ability and precision.

One topic dealt with by Rashid-ud-din deserves mention, as it is further illustrated by a lengthy note. Rashid says : "It is usual in Cathay, when any contract is entered into, for the out- line of the fingers of the parties to be traced upon the document. For experience shows that no two individuals have fingers precisely alike. The hand of the contracting party is set upon the back of the paper containing the deed, and lines are then traced round his fingers up to the knuckles...." Dr. Cordier makes this the oc- casion for some remarks on the antiquity of the use of the finger-print system in China as against the claim of Sir William Her&chel to have

invented it in 1858, and exhibited it in 1877 ; and he alludes to the work of our valued corre- spondent MR. KUMAGUSU MINAKATA in making^ good the claim for China and Japan. The process mentioned by Rashid would seem, however, to be different from what we now under- stand by the taking of finger-prints, and some note upon the text as it stands would have been welcome.

The Genealogist. Editfd by H. W. Forsvth Harwood. New Series, Vol. XXXI. (Bell & Sons, 12s. net.)

THE editor, in his Preface, does well to emphasize- the interest and value of the contents of this- volume with a view to enlisting greater atten- tion for them when the war is over.

Sir J. H. Ramsay's ' Notes on Early Ramsay Pedigrees, 1200-1600,' is a fine piece of work, and brings some definite addition to our knowledge of the early history of the family and the details of the descent of its present representatives. Mr. E. R. Nevill continues the ' Marriage Licences of Salisbury ' and also contributes a paper on the Nevills of Suffolk. Papers which will attract our own readers are Mrs. Suckling's account of entries in a " Breeches " Bible which give interesting genealogical particulars of the family of Sandys ; Mr. W. D. Pink's pedigree of Stafford of Southwick, Grafton, and Blatherwick ; and Mr. Swynnerton's lively ' Notes on the Family- of Swynnerton,' the principal part of which is an attempt to establish the identity of Maud, the wife of Sir Roger de Swynnerton, a magnate of the early fourteenth century. Two other articles deserving of mention are Mr. V. C. Sanborn's ' Thomas Levet and Richard Berry,' two worthies of the earlier half of the seventeenth century, and ' The Family of Peter Davall, F.R.S.,' by Mr. R. T. Berthon, which, with its abundant detail, concerning the French families of Berthon, Crucefix, Lestourgeon, and others settled in London in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, offers many matters of unusual interest. The Inquisitiones Post Mortem (Henry VIII. to Charles I.) are continued ; as is Dugdale's ' Visitation of Yorkshire.' Perhaps the most gener- ally attractive of the serial articles is the diary of Henry Oxenden, contributed by Mr. Keith W. Murray, Portcullis, of which there are here three further instalments with promise of more. A. reproduction of the diarist's portrait by Cornelius Janssen is given as a frontispiece to the volume..

Surnames of the United Kingdom : a Concise Etymological Dictionary. By Henry Harrison. (Vol. II.) (Eaton Press, Is. net.) WE have received Part 13 of this publication,, which comprises the names between Stonehill and Tapeser (inclusive). A great number of those names are explained as signifying " dweller by " such or such ar object, no doubt correctly. Some- times, however, the explanation seems rather difficult to verify as in the case of Sweetapple r which is said to mean " Dweller by the Sweet-apple (tree)." The importance of swine in Old English social economy is shown by the number of names; which are to be referred back to the word " swine." An alternative derivation for Swinburne (i.e.. dweller at the Swine-brook) is given as O.N. auinn-r, wise+&id>n, a bear. The well- known form Swiney does not appear. The