a region separated by China by the Great Wall and possibly some mountains and/or wilderness (as in a 1610 map by Jodocus Hondius, or a 1626 map by John Speed). J. J. L. Duyvendak hypothesized that it was the ignorance of the fact that "China" is the mighty "Cathay" of Marco Polo that allowed the Dutch governor of East Indies Jan Pieterszoon Coen to embark on an "unfortunate" (for the Dutch) policy of treating the Ming Empire as "merely another 'oriental' kingdom". The last nail into the coffin of the idea of there being a Cathay as a country separate from China was, perhaps, driven in 1654, when the Dutch Orientalist Jacobus Golius met with the China-based Jesuit Martino Martini, who was passing through Leyden. Golius knew no Chinese, but he was familiar with Zij-i Ilkhani, a work by the Persian astronomer Nasir al-Din al-Tusi, completed in 1272, in which he described the Chinese ("Cathayan") calendar. Upon meeting Martini, Golius started reciting the names of the 12 divisions into which, according to Nasir al-Din, the "Cathayans" were dividing the day – and Martini, who of course knew no Persian, was able to continue the list. The names of the 24 solar terms matched as well. The story, soon published by Martini in the "Additamentum" to his Atlas of China, seemed to have finally convinced most European scholars that China and Cathay were the same. Even then, some people still viewed Cathay as distinct from China, as did John Milton in the 11th Book of his Paradise Lost (1667). In 1939, Hisao Migo (, a Japanese botanist) published a paper describing Iris cathayensis (meaning "Chinese iris") in the Journal of the Shanghai Science Institute. Etymological progression Below is the etymological progression from Khitan to Cathay as the word travelled westward: Mongolian/Classical Mongolian: Qitad, Хятад (Khyatad) Uyghur: خىتاي (Xitay) Persian: (khatāy) Kyrgyz: Кытай (Kytai) Kazakh: قىتاي, Қытай, Qıtay Kazan Tatar: Кытай (Qıtay) Russian: (Kitay) Ukrainian: (Kytaj) Belarusian: (Kitaj) Bulgarian: (Kitay) Georgian: (Khataeti (archaic or obsolete)) Uzbek: Хитой (Xitoy) Polish: Kitaj Serbian: Kitaj (Китаj) Croatian: Kitaj Medieval Latin: Cataya, Kitai Italian: Catai Spanish: Catay Portuguese: Cataio or Catai French, English, German, Dutch, Scandinavian: Cathay In many Turkic and Slavic languages a form of "Cathay" (e.g., , Kitay) remains the usual modern name for China. In Javanese, the word ꦏꦠꦻ (Katai, Katé) exists, and it refers to 'East Asian', literally meaning 'dwarf' or 'short-legged'