—— Memoir of Major-Gen. J. T. Boileau, R.E., F.R.S. By C. R. Low, I.N., F.R.G.S. With a Preface by Col. H. Yule, C.B., London, Allen, 1887.
—— The Diary of William Hedges, Esq. (afterwards Sir William Hedges), during his Agency in Bengal; as well as on his voyage out and return overland (1681–1687). Transcribed for the Press, with Introductory Notes, etc., by R. Barlow, Esq., and illustrated by copious extracts from unpublished records, etc., by Col. H. Yule. Pub. for Hakluyt Society. London, 1887–1889, 3 vols. 8vo.
1888 Concerning some little known Travellers in the East. (Asiatic Quarterly Review, V. 1888, pp. 312–335.)
No. I.—George Strachan.
—— Concerning some little known Travellers in the East. (Asiatic Quarterly Review, VI. 1888, pp. 382–398.)
No. II.—William, Earl of Denbigh; Sir Henry Skipwith; and others.
—— Notes on the St. James's of the 6th Jan. [A Budget of Miscellaneous interesting criticism.] (Letter to St. James' Gazette, 9th Jan. 1888.)
—— Deflections of the Nile. (Letter in The Times, 15th Oct. 1888.)
—— The History of the Pitt Diamond, being an excerpt from Documentary Contributions to a Biography of Thomas Pitt, prepared for issue [in Hedges' Diary] by the Hakluyt Society. London, 1888, 8vo. pp. 23.
Fifty Copies printed for private circulation.
1889 The Remains of Pagan. By H. Yule. (Trübner's Record, 3rd ser. vol. i. pt. i. 1889, p. 2.)
To introduce notes by Dr. E Forchammer.
—— A Coincident Idiom. By H. Yule. (Trübner's Record, 3rd ser. vol. i. pt. iii. pp. 84–85.)
—— The Indian Congress [a Disclaimer], (Letter to The Times, 1st Jan. 1889.)
—— Arrowsmith, the Friend of Thomas Poole. (Letter in The Academy, 9th Feb. 1889, p. 96.)
BIOGRAPHIES OF SIR HENRY YULE.
—— Colonel Sir Henry Yule, K.C.S.I., C.B., LL.D., R.E. By General Robert Maclagan, R.E. (Proceed. Roy. Geog. Soc. XII. 1890, pp. 108–113.)
—— Colonel Sir Henry Yule, K.C.S.I., C.B., LL.D., R.E., etc. (With a Portrait). By E. Delmar Morgan. (Scottish Geographical Magazine, VI. 1890, pp. 93–98.) Contains a very good Bibliography.
—— Col. Sir H. Yule, R.E., C.B., K.C.S.I., by Maj.-Gen. T. B. Collinson, R.E., Royal Engineers' Journal, March, 1890. [This is the best of the Notices of Yule which appeared at the time of his death.]
—— Sir Henry Yule, K.C.S.I, C.B., LL.D., R.E., by E. H. Giglioli. Roma, 1890, ppt. 8vo, pp. 8.
Estratto dal Bollettino della Società Geografica Italiana, Marzo, 1890.
—— Sir Henry Yule. By J. S. C[otton]. (The Academy, 11th Jan. 1890, No. 923, pp. 26–27.)
—— Sir Henry Yule. (The Athenaeum, No. 3245, 4th Jan. 1900, p. 17; No. 3246, 11th Jan. p. 53; No. 3247, 18th Jan. p. 88.)
—— In Memoriam. Sir Henry Yule. By D. M. (The Academy, 29th March, 1890, p. 222.)
See end of Memoir in present work.
—— Le Colonel Sir Henry Yule. Par M. Henri Cordier. Extrait du Journal Asiatique. Paris, Imprimerie nationale, MDCCCXC, in-8, pp. 26.
—— The same, Bulletin de la Société de Géographie. Par M. Henri Cordier. 1890, 8vo, pp. 4.
Meeting 17th Jan. 1890.
1889 Baron F. von Richthofen. (Verhandlungen der Gesellschaft für Erdkunde zu Berlin, xvii. 2.)
—— Colonel Sir Henry Yule, R.E., C.B., K.C.S.I. Memoir by General R. Maclagan, Journ. R. Asiatic Society, 1890.
—— Memoir of Colonel Sir Henry Yule, R.E., C.B., K.C.S.I., LL.D., etc. By Coutts Trotter. (Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 1891. p. xliii. to p. lvi.)
1889 Sir Henry Yule (1820–1889). By Coutts Trotter. (Dict. of National Biography, lxiii. pp. 405–407.)
1903 Memoir of Colonel Sir Henry Yule, R.E., C.B., K.C.S.I., Corr. Inst. France, by his daughter, Amy Frances Yule, L.A.Soc. Ant. Scot., etc. Written for third edition of Yule's Marco Polo. Reprinted for private circulation only.
[1] This list is based on the excellent preliminary List compiled by E. Delmar Morgan, published in the Scottish Geographical Magazine, vol. vi., pp. 97–98, but the present compilers have much more than doubled the number of entries. It is, however, known to be still incomplete, and any one able to add to the list, will greatly oblige the compilers by sending additions to the Publisher.—A. F. Y.
MARCO POLO AND HIS BOOK.
INTRODUCTORY NOTICES.
I. OBSCURITIES IN THE HISTORY OF HIS LIFE AND BOOK. RAMUSIO'S STATEMENTS.
[Illustration: Doorway of the House of Marco Polo in the Corte Sabbionera, at Venice]
[Sidenote: Obscurities of Polo's Book, and personal History.]
1. With all the intrinsic interest of Marco Polo's Book it may perhaps be doubted if it would have continued to exercise such fascination on many minds through succesive generations were it not for the difficult questions which it suggests. It is a great book of puzzles, whilst our confidence in the man's veracity is such that we feel certain every puzzle has a solution.
And such difficulties have not attached merely to the identification of places, the interpretation of outlandish terms, or the illustration of obscure customs; for strange entanglements have perplexed also the chief circumstances of the Traveller's life and authorship. The time of the dictation of his Book and of the execution of his Last Will have been almost the only undisputed epochs in his biography. The year of his birth has been contested, and the date of his death has not been recorded; the critical occasion of his capture by the Genoese, to which we seem to owe the happy fact that he did not go down mute to the tomb of his fathers, has been made the subject of chronological difficulties; there are in the various texts of his story variations hard to account for; the very tongue in which it was written down has furnished a question, solved only in our own age, and in a most unexpected manner.
[Sidenote: Ramusio, his earliest biographer. His account of Polo.]
2. The first person who attempted to gather and string the facts of Marco Polo's personal history was his countryman, the celebrated John Baptist Ramusio. His essay abounds in what we now know to be errors of detail, but, prepared as it was when traditions of the Traveller were still rife in Venice, a genuine thread runs through it which could never have been spun in later days, and its presentation seems to me an essential element in any full discourse upon the subject.
Ramusio's preface to the Book of Marco Polo, which opens the second volume of his famous Collection of Voyages and Travels, and is addressed to his learned friend Jerome Fracastoro, after referring to some of the most noted geographers of antiquity, proceeds:[1]—
"Of