“Marcvs Polvs Venetvs Totivs Orbis et Indie Peregrator Primus.”

Copied by permission from a painting bearing the above inscription in the Gallery of Monsignore Badia in Rome.

THE TRAVELS OF
MARCO POLO

THE COMPLETE
YULE-CORDIER EDITION

Including the unabridged third edition (1903) of
Henry Yule’s annotated translation, as revised
by Henri Cordier; together with Cordier’s later
volume of notes and addenda (1920)

IN TWO VOLUMES

Volume II

Containing [the second volume of the 1903 edition]
and [the 1920 volume of addenda]
(two original volumes bound as one)

CONTENTS OF VOL. II.

SYNOPSIS OF CONTENTS.

BOOK SECOND—(Continued).

[PART II.]

Journey to the West and South-West of Cathay.

BOOK SECOND.
(Continued.)

[PART III.]

Journey Southward through Eastern Provinces of Cathay and Manzi.

[BOOK THIRD.]

Japan, the Archipelago, Southern India, and the Coasts and Islands of the Indian Sea.

[BOOK FOURTH.]

Wars among the Tartar Princes, and some Account of the Northern Countries.

† Of chapters so marked nothing is given but the substance in brief.

APPENDICES.

1. [The Polos at Acre.]
2. [Sorcery in Kashmir.]
3. [Paonano Pao.]
4. [Pamir.]
5. [Number of Pamirs.]
6. [Site of Pein.]
7. [Fire-arms.]

1. [La Couvade.]
2. [Alacan.]
3. [Champa.]
4. [Ruck Quills.]
5. [A Spanish Marco Polo.]
6. [Sir John Mandeville.]

EXPLANATORY LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS TO VOLUME II.

INSERTED PLATES AND MAPS.

1. Yuen-Tu-Kwan (Tauist Monastery).
2. Chapel of Hien-ning Prince.
3. Leih-Ching Square (Fang).
4. Tauist Monastery.
5. Kie-lin General Court.
6. Ancestral Chapel of Yang-Wan-Kang.
7. Chapel of the Mid-year Genius.
8. Temple of the Martial Peaceful King.
9. Stone where officers are selected.
10. Mews.
11. Jasper-Waves Square (Fang).
12. Court of Enquiry.
13. Gate of the Făng-Yuen Circuit.
14. Bright Gate.
15. Northern Tribunal.

1. Refectory.
2. Chapel of the Făng-Yuen Prince.
3. Embroidery manufactory.
4. Hwa-li Temple.
5. Old Superintendency of Investigations.
6. Superintendent of Works.
7. Ka-yuen Monastery.
8. Prefectural Confucian Temple.
9. Benevolent Institution.
10. Temple of Tu-Ke-King.
11. Balustrade enclosure.
12. Medicine-Bazar Street.
13. Tsin and Ching States Chapel.
14. Square of the Double Cassia Tree.

WOODCUTS PRINTED WITH THE TEXT.

Book Second.—Part Second.

Book Second.—Part Third.

Book Third

Book Fourth.

Appendices.

Marco Polo in the Prison of Genoa.

THE
BOOK OF MARCO POLO

BOOK II.—CONTINUED.

Part II.—JOURNEY TO THE WEST AND SOUTH-WEST OF CATHAY.

CHAPTER XXXV.

Here begins the Description of the Interior of Cathay, and first of the River Pulisanghin.

Now you must know that the Emperor sent the aforesaid Messer Marco Polo, who is the author of this whole story, on business of his into the Western Provinces. On that occasion he travelled from Cambaluc a good four months’ journey towards the west.[{1}] And so now I will tell you all that he saw on his travels as he went and returned.

When you leave the City of Cambaluc and have ridden ten miles, you come to a very large river which is called Pulisanghin, and flows into the ocean, so that merchants with their merchandise ascend it from the sea. Over this River there is a very fine stone bridge, so fine indeed, that it has very few equals. The fashion of it is this: it is 300 paces in length, and it must have a good eight paces of width, for ten mounted men can ride across it abreast. It has 24 arches and as many water-mills, and ’tis all of very fine marble, well built and firmly founded. Along the top of the bridge there is on either side a parapet of marble slabs and columns, made in this way. At the beginning of the bridge there is a marble column, and under it a marble lion, so that the column stands upon the lion’s loins, whilst on the top of the column there is a second marble lion, both being of great size and beautifully executed sculpture. At the distance of a pace from this column there is another precisely the same, also with its two lions, and the space between them is closed with slabs of grey marble to prevent people from falling over into the water. And thus the columns run from space to space along either side of the bridge, so that altogether it is a beautiful object.[{2}]

The Bridge of Pulisanghin. (Reduced from a Chinese original.)

“—et desus cest flum a un mout biaus pont de pieres: car sachiez qe pont n’a en tout le monde de si biaus ne son pareil.”

[Note 1.]—[When Marco leaves the capital, he takes the main road, the “Imperial Highway,” from Peking to Si-ngan fu, viâ Pao-ting, Cheng-ting, Hwai-luh, Taï-yuan, Ping-yang, and T’ung-kwan, on the Yellow River. Mr. G. F. Eaton, writing from Han-chung (Jour. China Br. R. As. Soc. XXVIII. No. 1) says it is a cart-road, except for six days between Taï-yuan and Hwai-luh, and that it takes twenty-nine days to go from Peking to Si-ngan, a figure which agrees well with Polo’s distances; it is also the time which Dr. Forke’s journey lasted; he left Peking on the 1st May, 1892, reached Taï-yuan on the 12th, and arrived at Si-ngan on the 30th (Von Peking nach Ch’ang-an). Mr. Rockhill left Peking on the 17th December, 1888, reached T’aï-yuan on the 26th, crossed the Yellow River on the 5th January, and arrived at Si-ngan fu on the 8th January, 1889, in twenty-two days, a distance of 916 miles. (Land of the Lamas, pp. 372–374.) M. Grenard left Si-ngan on the 10th November and reached Peking on the 16th December, 1894 = thirty-six days; he reckons 1389 kilometres = 863 miles. (See Rev. C. Holcombe, Tour through Shan-hsi and Shen-hsi in Jour. North China Br. R. A. S. N. S. X. pp. 54–70.)—H. C.]

[Note 2.]—Pul-i-Sangín, the name which Marco gives the River, means in Persian simply (as Marsden noticed) “The Stone Bridge.” In a very different region the same name often occurs in the history of Timur applied to a certain bridge, in the country north of Badakhshan, over the Wakhsh branch of the Oxus. And the Turkish admiral Sidi ’Ali, travelling that way from India in the 16th century, applies the name, as it is applied here, to the river; for his journal tells us that beyond Kuláb he crossed “the River Pulisangin.”

A Housselin d.

The Bridge of Pulisanghin. (From the Livre des Merveilles.)

We may easily suppose, therefore, that near Cambaluc also, the Bridge, first, and then the River, came to be known to the Persian-speaking foreigners of the court and city by this name. This supposition is however a little perplexed by the circumstance that Rashiduddin calls the River the Sangín, and that Sangkan-Ho appears from the maps or citations of Martini, Klaproth, Neumann, and Pauthier to have been one of the Chinese names of the river, and indeed, Sankang is still the name of one of the confluents forming the Hwan Ho.

[“By Sanghin, Polo renders the Chinese Sang-kan, by which name the River Hun-ho is already mentioned, in the 6th century of our era. Hun-ho is also an ancient name; and the same river in ancient books is often called Lu-Kou River also. All these names are in use up to the present time; but on modern Chinese maps, only the upper part of the river is termed Sang-Kan ho, whilst south of the inner Great Wall, and in the plain, the name of Hun-ho is applied to it. Hun ho means “Muddy River,” and the term is quite suitable. In the last century, the Emperor K’ien-lung ordered the Hun-ho to be named Yung-ting ho, a name found on modern maps, but the people always call it Hun ho.” (Bretschneider, Peking, p. 54.)—H. C.]

The River is that which appears in the maps as the Hwan Ho, Hun-ho, or Yongting Ho, flowing about 7 miles west of Peking towards the south-east and joining the Pe-Ho at Tientsin; and the Bridge is that which has been known for ages as the Lu-kou-K’iao or Bridge of Lukou, adjoining the town which is called in the Russian map of Peking Feuchen, but in the official Chinese Atlas Kung-Keih-cheng. (See Map at ch. xi. of Bk. II. in the first Volume.) [“Before arriving at the bridge the small walled city of Kung-ki cheng is passed. This was founded in the first half of the 17th century. The people generally call it Fei-ch’eng.” (Bretschneider, Peking, p. 50.)—H. C.] It is described both by Magaillans and Lecomte, with some curious discrepancies, whilst each affords particulars corroborative of Polo’s account of the character of the bridge. The former calls it the finest bridge in China. Lecomte’s account says the bridge was the finest he had yet seen. “It is above 170 geometrical paces (850 feet) in length. The arches are small, but the rails or side-walls are made of a hard whitish stone resembling marble. These stones are more than 5 feet long, 3 feet high, and 7 or 8 inches thick; supported at each end by pilasters adorned with mouldings and bearing the figures of lions.... The bridge is paved with great flat stones, so well joined that it is even as a floor.”

Magaillans thinks Polo’s memory partially misled him, and that his description applies more correctly to another bridge on the same road, but some distance further west, over the Lieu-li Ho. For the bridge over the Hwan Ho had really but thirteen arches, whereas that on the Lieu-li had, as Polo specifies, twenty-four. The engraving which we give of the Lu-kou K’iao from a Chinese work confirms this statement, for it shows but thirteen arches. And what Polo says of the navigation of the river is almost conclusive proof that Magaillans is right, and that our traveller’s memory confounded the two bridges. For the navigation of the Hwan Ho, even when its channel is full, is said to be impracticable on account of rapids, whilst the Lieu-li Ho, or “Glass River,” is, as its name implies, smooth, and navigable, and it is largely navigated by boats from the coal-mines of Fang-shan. The road crosses the latter about two leagues from Cho-chau. (See next chapter.)

[The Rev. W. S. Ament (M. Polo in Cambaluc, p. 116–117) remarks regarding Yule’s quotation from Magaillans that “a glance at Chinese history would have explained to these gentlemen that there was no stone bridge over the Liu Li river till the days of Kia Tsing, the Ming Emperor, 1522 A.D., or more than one hundred and fifty years after Polo was dead. Hence he could not have confounded bridges, one of which he never saw. The Lu Kou Bridge was first constructed of stone by She Tsung, fourth Emperor of the Kin, in the period Ta Ting 1189 A.D., and was finished by Chang Tsung 1194 A.D. Before that time it had been constructed of wood, and had been sometimes a stationary and often a floating bridge. The oldest account [end of 16th century] states that the bridge was pu 200 in length, and specifically states that each pu was 5 feet, thus making the bridge 1000 feet long. It was called the Kuan Li Bridge. The Emperor, Kia Tsing of the Ming, was a great bridge builder. He reconstructed this bridge, adding strong embankments to prevent injury by floods. He also built the fine bridge over the Liu Li Ho, the Cho Chou Bridge over the Chü Ma Ho. What cannot be explained is Polo’s statement that the bridge had twenty-four arches, when the oldest accounts give no more than thirteen, there being eleven at the present time. The columns which supported the balustrade in Polo’s time rested upon the loins of sculptured lions. The account of the lions after the bridge was repaired by Kia Tsing says that there are so many that it is impossible to count them correctly, and gossip about the bridge says that several persons have lost their minds in making the attempt. The little walled city on the east end of the bridge, rightly called Kung Chi, popularly called Fei Ch’eng, is a monument to Ts’ung Chêng, the last of the Ming, who built it, hoping to check the advance of Li Tzu ch’eng, the great robber chief who finally proved too strong for him.”—H. C.]

Bridge of Lu-ku k’iao.

The Bridge of Lu-kou is mentioned more than once in the history of the conquest of North China by Chinghiz. It was the scene of a notable mutiny of the troops of the Kin Dynasty in 1215, which induced Chinghiz to break a treaty just concluded, and led to his capture of Peking.

This bridge was begun, according to Klaproth, in 1189, and was five years a-building. On the 17th August, 1688, as Magaillans tells us, a great flood carried away two arches of the bridge, and the remainder soon fell. [Father Intorcetta, quoted by Bretschneider (Peking, p. 53), gives the 25th of July, 1668, as the date of the destruction of the bridge, which agrees well with the Chinese accounts.—H. C.] The bridge was renewed, but with only nine arches instead of thirteen, as appears from the following note of personal observation with which Dr. Lockhart has favoured me:

“At 27 li from Peking, by the western road leaving the gate of the Chinese city called Kwang-’an-măn, after passing the old walled town of Feuchen, you reach the bridge of Lo-Ku-Kiao. As it now stands it is a very long bridge of nine arches (real arches) spanning the valley of the Hwan Ho, and surrounded by beautiful scenery. The bridge is built of green sandstone, and has a good balustrade with short square pilasters crowned by small lions. It is in very good repair, and has a ceaseless traffic, being on the road to the coal-mines which supply the city. There is a pavilion at each end of the bridge with inscriptions, the one recording that K’ang-hi (1662–1723) built the bridge, and the other that Kienlung (1736–1796) repaired it.” These circumstances are strictly consistent with Magaillans’ account of the destruction of the mediæval bridge. Williamson describes the present bridge as about 700 feet long, and 12 feet wide in the middle part.

[Dr. Bretschneider saw the bridge, and gives the following description of it: “The bridge is 350 ordinary paces long and 18 broad. It is built of sandstone, and has on either side a stone balustrade of square columns, about 4 feet high, 140 on each side, each crowned by a sculptured lion over a foot high. Beside these there are a number of smaller lions placed irregularly on the necks, behind the legs, under the feet, or on the back of the larger ones. The space between the columns is closed by stone slabs. Four sculptured stone elephants lean with their foreheads against the edge of the balustrades. The bridge is supported by eleven arches. At each end of the bridge two pavilions with yellow roofs have been built, all with large marble tablets in them; two with inscriptions made by order of the Emperor K’ang-hi (1662–1723); and two with inscriptions of the time of K’ien-lung (1736–1796). On these tablets the history of the bridge is recorded.” Dr. Bretschneider adds that Dr. Lockhart is also right in counting nine arches, for he counts only the waterways, not the arches resting upon the banks of the river. Dr. Forke (p. 5) counts 11 arches and 280 stone lions.—H. C.]

(P. de la Croix, II. 11, etc.; Erskine’s Baber, p. xxxiii.; Timour’s Institutes, 70; J. As. IX. 205; Cathay, 260; Magaillans, 14–18, 35; Lecomte in Astley, III. 529; J. As. sér. II. tom. i. 97–98; D’Ohsson, I. 144.)

Bridge of Lu-ku k’iao.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

Account of the City of Juju.

When you leave the Bridge, and ride towards the west, finding all the way excellent hostelries for travellers, with fine vineyards, fields, and gardens, and springs of water, you come after 30 miles to a fine large city called Juju, where there are many abbeys of idolaters, and the people live by trade and manufactures. They weave cloths of silk and gold, and very fine taffetas.[{1}] Here too there are many hostelries for travellers.[{2}]

After riding a mile beyond this city you find two roads, one of which goes west and the other south-east. The westerly road is that through Cathay, and the south-easterly one goes towards the province of Manzi.[{3}]

Taking the westerly one through Cathay, and travelling by it for ten days, you find a constant succession of cities and boroughs, with numerous thriving villages, all abounding with trade and manufactures, besides the fine fields and vineyards and dwellings of civilized people; but nothing occurs worthy of special mention; and so I will only speak of a kingdom called Taianfu.

[Note 1.]—The word is sendaus (Pauthier), pl. of sendal, and in G. T. sandal. It does not seem perfectly known what this silk texture was, but as banners were made of it, and linings for richer stuffs, it appears to have been a light material, and is generally rendered taffetas. In Richard Cœur de Lion we find

“Many a pencel of sykelatoun

And of sendel of grene and broun,”

and also pavilions of sendel; and in the Anglo-French ballad of the death of William Earl of Salisbury in St. Lewis’s battle on the Nile—

“Le Meister du Temple brace les chivaux

Et le Count Long-Espée depli les sandaux.”

The oriflamme of France was made of cendal. Chaucer couples taffetas and sendal. His “Doctor of Physic”

“In sanguin and in persë clad was allë,

Linëd with taffata and with sendallë.”

[La Curne, Dict., s.v. Sendaus has: Silk stuff: “Somme de la delivrance des sendaus.” (Nouv. Compt. de l’Arg. p. 19).—Godefroy, Dict., gives: “Sendain, adj., made with the stuff called cendal: Drap d’or sendains (1392, Test. de Blanche, duch d’Orl., Ste-Croix, Arch. Loiret).” He says s.v. Cendal, “cendau, cendral, cendel, ... sendail, ... étoffe légère de soie unie qui paraît avoir été analogue au taffetas.” “‘On faisait des cendaux forts ou faibles, et on leur donnait toute sorte de couleurs. On s’en servait surtout pour vêtements et corsets, pour doublures de draps, de fourrures et d’autres étoffes de soie plus précieuses, enfin pour tenture d’appartements.’ (Bourquelot, Foir. de Champ. I. 261).”

“J’ay de toilles de mainte guise,

De sidonnes et de cendaulx.

Soyes, satins blancs et vermaulx.”

—Greban, Mist. de la Pass., 26826, G. Paris.—H. C.]

The origin of the word seems also somewhat doubtful. The word Σενδἑς occurs in Constant. Porphyrog. de Ceremoniis (Bonn, ed. I. 468), and this looks like a transfer of the Arabic Săndăs or Sundus, which is applied by Bakui to the silk fabrics of Yezd. (Not. et Ext. II. 469.) Reiske thinks this is the origin of the Frank word, and connects its etymology with Sind. Others think that sendal and the other forms are modifications of the ancient Sindon, and this is Mr. Marsh’s view. (See also Fr.-Michel, Recherches, etc. I. 212; Dict. des Tissus, II. 171 seqq.)

[Note 2.]—Jújú is precisely the name given to this city by Rashiduddin, who notices the vineyards. Juju is Cho-chau, just at the distance specified from Peking, viz. 40 miles, and nearly 30 from Pulisanghin or Lu-kou K’iao. The name of the town is printed Tsochow by Mr. Williamson, and Chechow in a late Report of a journey by Consul Oxenham. He calls it “a large town of the second order, situated on the banks of a small river flowing towards the south-east, viz. the Kiu-ma-Ho, a navigable stream. It had the appearance of being a place of considerable trade, and the streets were crowded with people.” (Reports of Journeys in China and Japan, etc. Presented to Parliament, 1869, p. 9.) The place is called Jújú also in the Persian itinerary given by ’Izzat Ullah in J. R. A. S. VII. 308; and in one procured by Mr. Shaw. (Proc. R. G. S. XVI. p. 253.)

[The Rev. W. S. Ament (Marco Polo, 119–120) writes, “the historian of the city of Cho-chau sounds the praises of the people for their religious spirit. He says:—‘It was the custom of the ancients to worship those who were before them. Thus students worshipped their instructors, farmers worshipped the first husbandman, workers in silk, the original silk-worker. Thus when calamities come upon the land, the virtuous among the people make offerings to the spirits of earth and heaven, the mountains, rivers, streams, etc. All these things are profitable. These customs should never be forgotten.’ After such instruction, we are prepared to find fifty-eight temples of every variety in this little city of about 20,000 inhabitants. There is a temple to the spirits of Wind, Clouds, Thunder, and Rain, to the god of silk-workers, to the Horse-god, to the god of locusts, and the eight destructive insects, to the Five Dragons, to the King who quiets the waves. Besides these, there are all the orthodox temples to the ancient worthies, and some modern heroes. Liu Pei and Chang Fei, two of the three great heroes of the San Kuo Chih, being natives of Cho Chou, are each honoured with two temples, one in the native village, and one in the city. It is not often that one locality can give to a great empire two of its three most popular heroes: Liu Pei, Chang Fei, Kuan Yu.”

“Judging from the condition of the country,” writes the Rev. W. S. Ament (p. 120), “one could hardly believe that this general region was the original home of the silk-worm, and doubtless the people who once lived here are the only people who ever saw the silk-worm in his wild state. The historian of Cho-Chou honestly remarks that he knows of no reason why the production of silk should have ceased there, except the fact that the worms refused to live there.... The palmy days of the silk industry were in the T’ang dynasty.”—H. C.]

[Note 3.]—“About a li from the southern suburbs of this town, the great road to Shantung and the south-east diverged, causing an immediate diminution in the number of carts and travellers” (Oxenham). [From Peking “to Cheng-ting fu”, says Colonel Bell (Proc. R. G. S., XII. 1890, p. 58), “the route followed is the Great Southern highway; here the Great Central Asian highway leaves it.” The Rev. W. S. Ament says (l.c., 121) about the bifurcation of the road, one branch going on south-west to Pao-Ting fu and Shan-si, and one branch to Shantung and Ho-nan: “The union of the two roads at this point, bringing the travel and traffic of ten provinces, makes Cho Chou one of the most important cities in the Empire. The magistrate of this district is the only one, so far as we know, in the Empire who is relieved of the duty of welcoming and escorting transient officers. It was the multiplicity of such duties, so harassing, that persuaded Fang Kuan-ch’eng to write the couplet on one of the city gateways: Jih pien ch’ung yao, wu shuang ti: T’ien hsia fan nan, ti yi Chou. ‘In all the world, there is no place so public as this: for multiplied cares and trials, this is the first Chou.’ The people of Cho-Chou, of old celebrated for their religious spirit, are now well known for their literary enterprise.”—H. C.] This bifurcation of the roads is a notable point in Polo’s book. For after following the western road through Cathay, i.e. the northern provinces of China, to the borders of Tibet and the Indo-Chinese regions, our traveller will return, whimsically enough, not to the capital to take a fresh departure, but to this bifurcation outside of Chochau, and thence carry us south with him to Manzi, or China south of the Yellow River.

Of a part of the road of which Polo speaks in the latter part of the chapter Williamson says: “The drive was a very beautiful one. Not only were the many villages almost hidden by foliage, but the road itself hereabouts is lined with trees.... The effect was to make the journey like a ramble through the avenues of some English park.” Beyond Tingchau however the country becomes more barren. (I. 268.)

CHAPTER XXXVII.

The Kingdom of Taianfu.

After riding then those ten days from the city of Juju, you find yourself in a kingdom called Taianfu, and the city at which you arrive, which is the capital, is also called Taianfu, a very great and fine city. [But at the end of five days’ journey out of those ten, they say there is a city unusually large and handsome called Acbaluc, whereat terminate in this direction the hunting preserves of the Emperor, within which no one dares to sport except the Emperor and his family, and those who are on the books of the Grand Falconer. Beyond this limit any one is at liberty to sport, if he be a gentleman. The Great Kaan, however, scarcely ever went hunting in this direction, and hence the game, particularly the hares, had increased and multiplied to such an extent that all the crops of the Province were destroyed. The Great Kaan being informed of this, proceeded thither with all his Court, and the game that was taken was past counting.][{1}]

Taianfu[{2}] is a place of great trade and great industry, for here they manufacture a large quantity of the most necessary equipments for the army of the Emperor. There grow here many excellent vines, supplying great plenty of wine; and in all Cathay this is the only place where wine is produced. It is carried hence all over the country.[{3}] There is also a great deal of silk here, for the people have great quantities of mulberry-trees and silk-worms.

From this city of Taianfu you ride westward again for seven days, through fine districts with plenty of towns and boroughs, all enjoying much trade and practising various kinds of industry. Out of these districts go forth not a few great merchants, who travel to India and other foreign regions, buying and selling and getting gain. After those seven days’ journey you arrive at a city called Pianfu, a large and important place, with a number of traders living by commerce and industry. It is a place too where silk is largely produced.[{4}]

So we will leave it and tell you of a great city called Cachanfu. But stay—first let us tell you about the noble castle called Caichu.

[Note 1.]—Marsden translates the commencement of this passage, which is peculiar to Ramusio, and runs “E in capo di cinque giornate delle predette dieci,” by the words “At the end of five days’ journey beyond the ten,” but this is clearly wrong.[1] The place best suiting in position, as halfway between Cho-chau and T’ai-yuan fu, would be Cheng-ting fu, and I have little doubt that this is the place intended. The title of Ak-Báligh in Turki,[2] or Chaghán Balghásun in Mongol, meaning “White City,” was applied by the Tartars to Royal Residences; and possibly Cheng-ting fu may have had such a claim, for I observe in the Annales de la Prop. de la Foi (xxxiii. 387) that in 1862 the Chinese Government granted to the R. C. Vicar-Apostolic of Chihli the ruined Imperial Palace at Cheng-ting fu for his cathedral and other mission establishments. Moreover, as a matter of fact, Rashiduddin’s account of Chinghiz’s campaign in northern China in 1214, speaks of the city of “Chaghan Balghasun which the Chinese call Jintzinfu.” This is almost exactly the way in which the name of Cheng-ting fu is represented in ’Izzat Ullah’s Persian Itinerary (Jigdzinfu, evidently a clerical error for Jingdzinfu), so I think there can be little doubt that Cheng-ting fu is the place intended. The name of Hwai-luh’ien (see Note 2), which is the first stage beyond Cheng-ting fu, is said to mean the “Deer-lair,” pointing apparently to the old character of the tract as a game-preserve. The city of Cheng-ting is described by Consul Oxenham as being now in a decayed and dilapidated condition, consisting only of two long streets crossing at right angles. It is noted for the manufacture of images of Buddha from Shan-si iron. (Consular Reports, p. 10; Erdmann, 331.)

[The main road turns due west at Cheng-ting fu, and enters Shan-si through what is known among Chinese travellers as the Ku-kwan, Customs’ Barrier.—H. C.]

Between Cheng-ting fu and T’ai-yuan fu the traveller first crosses a high and rugged range of mountains, and then ascends by narrow defiles to the plateau of Shan-si. But of these features Polo’s excessive condensation takes no notice.

The traveller who quits the great plain of Chihli [which terminates at Fu-ch’eng-i, a small market-town, two days from Pao-ting.—H. C.] for “the kingdom of Taianfu,” i.e. Northern Shan-si, enters a tract in which predominates that very remarkable formation called by the Chinese Hwang-tu, and to which the German name Löss has been attached. With this formation are bound up the distinguishing characters of Northern Interior China, not merely in scenery but in agricultural products, dwellings, and means of transport. This Löss is a brownish-yellow loam, highly porous, spreading over low and high ground alike, smoothing over irregularities of surface, and often more than 1000 feet in thickness. It has no stratification, but tends to cleave vertically, and is traversed in every direction by sudden crevices, almost glacier-like, narrow, with vertical walls of great depth, and infinite ramification. Smooth as the löss basin looks in a bird’s-eye view, it is thus one of the most impracticable countries conceivable for military movements, and secures extraordinary value to fortresses in well-chosen sites, such as that of Tung-kwan mentioned in Note 2 to chap. xli.

Agriculture may be said in N. China to be confined to the alluvial plains and the löss; as in S. China to the alluvial plains and the terraced hill-sides. The löss has some peculiar quality which renders its productive power self-renewing without manure (unless it be in the form of a surface coat of fresh löss), and unfailing in returns if there be sufficient rain. This singular formation is supposed by Baron Richthofen, who has studied it more extensively than any one, to be no subaqueous deposit, but to be the accumulated residue of countless generations of herbaceous plants combined with a large amount of material spread over the face of the ground by the winds and surface waters.

[I do not agree with the theory of Baron von Richthofen, of the almost exclusive Eolian formation of loess; water has something to do with it as well as wind, and I think it is more exact to say that loess in China is due to a double action, Neptunian as well as Eolian. The climate was different in former ages from what it is now, and rain was plentiful and to its great quantity was due the fertility of this yellow soil. (Cf. A. de Lapparent, Leçons de Géographie Physique, 2^e éd. 1898, p. 566.)—H. C.]

Though we do not expect to find Polo taking note of geological features, we are surprised to find no mention of a characteristic of Shan-si and the adjoining districts, which is due to the löss; viz. the practice of forming cave dwellings in it; these in fact form the habitations of a majority of the people in the löss country. Polo has noticed a similar usage in Badakhshan (I. p. 161), and it will be curious if a better acquaintance with that region should disclose a surface formation analogous to the löss. (Richthofen’s Letters, VII. 13 et passim.)

[Note 2.]—Taianfu is, as Magaillans pointed out, T’ai-yuan fu, the capital of the Province of Shan-si, and Shan-si is the “Kingdom.” The city was, however, the capital of the great T’ang Dynasty for a time in the 8th century, and is probably the Tájah or Taiyúnah of old Arab writers. Mr. Williamson speaks of it as a very pleasant city at the north end of a most fertile and beautiful plain, between two noble ranges of mountains. It was a residence, he says, also of the Ming princes, and is laid out in Peking fashion, even to mimicking the Coal-Hill and Lake of the Imperial Gardens. It stands about 3000 feet above the sea [on the left bank of the Fen-ho.—H. C.]. There is still an Imperial factory of artillery, matchlocks, etc., as well as a powder mill; and fine carpets like those of Turkey are also manufactured. The city is not, however, now, according to Baron Richthofen, very populous, and conveys no impression of wealth or commercial importance. [In an interesting article on this city, the Rev. G. B. Farthing writes (North China Herald, 7th September, 1894): “The configuration of the ground enclosed by T’ai-yuan fu city is that of a ‘three times to stretch recumbent cow.’ The site was chosen and described by Li Chun-feng, a celebrated professor of geomancy in the days of the T’angs, who lived during the reign of the Emperor T’ai Tsung of that ilk. The city having been then founded, its history reaches back to that date. Since that time the cow has stretched twice.... T’ai-yuan city is square, and surrounded by a wall of earth, of which the outer face is bricked. The height of the wall varies from thirty to fifty feet, and it is so broad that two carriages could easily pass one another upon it. The natives would tell you that each of the sides is three miles, thirteen paces in length, but this, possibly, includes what it will be when the cow shall have stretched for the third and last time. Two miles is the length of each side; eight miles to tramp if you wish to go round the four of them.”—H. C.] The district used to be much noted for cutlery and hardware, iron as well as coal being abundantly produced in Shan-si. Apparently the present Birmingham of this region is a town called Hwai-lu, or Hwo-luh’ien, about 20 miles west of Cheng-ting fu, and just on the western verge of the great plain of Chihli. [Regarding Hwai-lu, the Rev. C. Holcombe calls it “a miserable town lying among the foot hills, and at the mouth of the valley, up which the road into Shan-si lies.” He writes (p. 59) that Ping-ting chau, after the Customs’ barrier (Ku Kwan) between Chih-li and Shan-si, would, under any proper system of management, at no distant day become the Pittsburg, or Birmingham, of China.—H. C.] (Richthofen’s Letters, No. VII. 20; Cathay, xcvii. cxiii. cxciv.; Rennie, II. 265; Williamson’s Journeys in North China; Oxenham, u.s. 11; Klaproth in J. As. sér. II. tom. i. 100; Izzat Ullah’s Pers. Itin. in J. R. A. S. VII. 307; Forke, Von Peking nach Ch’ang-an, p. 23.)

[“From Khavailu (Hwo-luh’ien), an important commercial centre supplying Shansi, for 130 miles to Sze-tien, the road traverses the loess hills, which extend from the Peking-Kalgan road in a south-west direction to the Yellow River, and which are passable throughout this length only by the Great Central Asian trade route to T’ai-yuan fu and by the Tung-Kwan, Ho-nan, i.e. the Yellow River route.” (Colonel Bell, Proc. R. G. S. XII. 1890, p. 59.) Colonel Bell reckons seven days (218 miles) from Peking to Hwo-lu-h’ien and five days from this place to T’ai-yuan fu.—H. C.]

[Note 3.]—Martini observes that the grapes in Shan-si were very abundant and the best in China. The Chinese used them only as raisins, but wine was made there for the use of the early Jesuit Missions, and their successors continue to make it. Klaproth, however, tells us that the wine of T’ai-yuan fu was celebrated in the days of the T’ang Dynasty, and used to be sent in tribute to the Emperors. Under the Mongols the use of this wine spread greatly. The founder of the Ming accepted the offering of wine of the vine from T’ai-yuan in 1373, but prohibited its being presented again. The finest grapes are produced in the district of Yukau-hien, where hills shield the plain from north winds, and convert it into a garden many square miles in extent. In the vintage season the best grapes sell for less than a farthing a pound. [Mr. Theos. Sampson, in an article on “Grapes in China,” writes (Notes and Queries on China and Japan, April, 1869, p. 50): “The earliest mention of the grape in Chinese literature appears to be contained in the chapter on the nations of Central Asia, entitled Ta Yuan Chwan, or description of Fergana, which forms part of the historical records (Sze-Ki) of Sze-ma Tsien, dating from B.C. 100. Writing of the political relations instituted shortly before this date by the Emperor Wu Ti with the nations beyond the Western frontiers of China, the historian dwells at considerable length, but unluckily with much obscurity, on the various missions despatched westward under the leadership of Chang K’ien and others, and mentions the grape vine in the following passage:—‘Throughout the country of Fergana, wine is made from grapes, and the wealthy lay up stores of wine, many tens of thousands of shih in amount, which may be kept for scores of years without spoiling. Wine is the common beverage, and for horses the mu-su is the ordinary pasture. The envoys from China brought back seeds with them, and hereupon the Emperor for the first time cultivated the grape and the mu-su in the most productive soils.’ In the Description of Western regions, forming part of the History of the Han Dynasty, it is stated that grapes are abundantly produced in the country of K’i-pin (identified with Cophene, part of modern Afghanistan) and other adjacent countries, and referring, if I mistake not, to the journeys of Chang K’ien, the same work says, that the Emperor Wu-Ti despatched upwards of ten envoys to the various countries westward of Fergana, to search for novelties, and that they returned with grape and mu-su seeds. These references appear beyond question to determine the fact that grapes were introduced from Western—or, as we term it, Central—Asia, by Chang K’ien.”

Dr. Bretschneider (Botanicon Sinicum, I. p. 25), relating the mission of Chang K’ien (139 B.C. Emperor Wu-Ti), who died about B.C. 103, writes:—“He is said to have introduced many useful plants from Western Asia into China. Ancient Chinese authors ascribe to him the introduction of the Vine, the Pomegranate, Safflower, the Common Bean, the Cucumber, Lucerne, Coriander, the Walnut-tree, and other plants.”—H. C.] The river that flows down from Shan-si by Cheng-ting-fu is called “Putu-ho, or the Grape River.” (J. As. u.s.; Richthofen, u.s.)

[Regarding the name of this river, the Rev. C. Holcombe (l.c. p. 56) writes: “Williamson states in his Journeys in North China that the name of this stream is, properly Poo-too Ho—‘Grape River,’ but is sometimes written Hu-t’ou River incorrectly. The above named author, however, is himself in error, the name given above [Hu-t’o] being invariably found in all Chinese authorities, as well as being the name by which the stream is known all along its course.”

West of the Fan River, along the western border of the Central Plain of Shan-si, in the extreme northern point of which lies T’aï-yuan fu, the Rev. C. Holcombe says (p. 61), “is a large area, close under the hills, almost exclusively given up to the cultivation of the grape. The grapes are unusually large, and of delicious flavour.”—H. C.]

[Note 4.]—✛In no part of China probably, says Richthofen, do the towns and villages consist of houses so substantial and costly as in this. Pianfu is undoubtedly, as Magaillans again notices, P’ing-yang fu.[3] It is the Bikan of Shah Rukh’s ambassadors. [Old P’ing yang, 5 lis to the south] is said to have been the residence of the primitive and mythical Chinese Emperor Yao. A great college for the education of the Mongols was instituted at P’ing-yang, by Yeliu Chutsai, the enlightened minister of Okkodai Khan. [Its dialect differs from the T’aï-yuan dialect, and is more like Pekingese.] The city, lying in a broad valley covered with the yellow löss, was destroyed by the T’aï-P’ing rebels, but it is reviving. [It is known for its black pottery.] The vicinity is noted for large paper factories. [“From T’ai-yuan fu to P’ing-yang fu is a journey of 185 miles, down the valley of the Fuen-ho.” (Colonel Bell, Proc. R. G. S. XII. 1890, p. 61.) By the way, Mr. Rockhill remarks (Land of the Lamas, p. 10): “Richthofen has transcribed the name of this river Fuen. This spelling has been adopted on most of the recent maps, both German and English, but Fuen is an impossible sound in Chinese.” (Read Fen ho.)—H. C.] (Cathay, ccxi.; Ritter, IV. 516; D’Ohsson, II. 70; Williamson, I. 336.)

[1]And I see Ritter understood the passage as I do (IV. 515).

[2]Báligh is indeed properly Mongol.

[3]It seems to be called Piyingfu (miswritten Piyingku) in Mr. Shaw’s Itinerary from Yarkand (Pr. R. G. S. XVI. 253.) We often find the Western modifications of Chinese names very persistent.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

Concerning the Castle of Caichu.

On leaving Pianfu you ride two days westward, and come to the noble castle of Caichu, which was built in time past by a king of that country, whom they used to call the Golden King, and who had there a great and beautiful palace. There is a great hall of this palace, in which are pourtrayed all the ancient kings of the country, done in gold and other beautiful colours, and a very fine sight they make. Each king in succession as he reigned added to those pictures.[{1}]

[This Golden King was a great and potent Prince, and during his stay at this place there used to be in his service none but beautiful girls, of whom he had a great number in his Court. When he went to take the air about the fortress, these girls used to draw him about in a little carriage which they could easily move, and they would also be in attendance on the King for everything pertaining to his convenience or pleasure.[{2}]]

Now I will tell you a pretty passage that befell between the Golden King and Prester John, as it was related by the people of the Castle.

It came to pass, as they told the tale, that this Golden King was at war with Prester John. And the King held a position so strong that Prester John was not able to get at him or to do him any scathe; wherefore he was in great wrath. So seventeen gallants belonging to Prester John’s Court came to him in a body, and said that, an he would, they were ready to bring him the Golden King alive. His answer was, that he desired nothing better, and would be much bounden to them if they would do so.

So when they had taken leave of their Lord and Master Prester John, they set off together, this goodly company of gallants, and went to the Golden King, and presented themselves before him, saying that they had come from foreign parts to enter his service. And he answered by telling them that they were right welcome, and that he was glad to have their service, never imagining that they had any ill intent. And so these mischievous squires took service with the Golden King; and served him so well that he grew to love them dearly.

And when they had abode with that King nearly two years, conducting themselves like persons who thought of anything but treason, they one day accompanied the King on a pleasure party when he had very few else along with him: for in those gallants the King had perfect trust, and thus kept them immediately about his person. So after they had crossed a certain river that is about a mile from the castle, and saw that they were alone with the King, they said one to another that now was the time to achieve that they had come for. Then they all incontinently drew, and told the King that he must go with them and make no resistance, or they would slay him. The King at this was in alarm and great astonishment, and said: “How then, good my sons, what thing is this ye say? and whither would ye have me go?” They answered, and said: “You shall come with us, will ye, nill ye, to Prester John our Lord.”

[Note 1.]—The name of the castle is very doubtful. But of that and the geography, which in this part is tangled, we shall speak further on.

Whilst the original French texts were unknown, the king here spoken of figured in the old Latin versions as King Darius, and in Ramusio as Re Dor. It was a most happy suggestion of Marsden’s, in absence of all knowledge of the fact that the original narrative was French, that this Dor represented the Emperor of the Kin or Golden Dynasty, called by the Mongols Altun Khán, of which Roi D’Or is a literal translation.

The “Roi d’Or.” (From a MS. in the Royal Asiatic Society’s Collection.)

“Et en ceste chastiaus ha un mout biaus paleis en quel a une grandisme sale là ou il sunt portrait à mout belles pointures tout les rois de celes provences que furent ansienemant, et ce est mout belle viste à voir.”

Of the legend itself I can find no trace. Rashiduddin relates a story of the grandfather of Aung Khan (Polo’s Prester John), Merghuz Boirúk Khan, being treacherously made over to the King of the Churché (the Kin sovereign), and put to death by being nailed to a wooden ass. But the same author tells us that Aung Khan got his title of Aung (Ch. Wang) or king from the Kin Emperor of his day, so that no hereditary feud seems deducible.

Mr. Wylie, who is of opinion, like Baron Richthofen, that the Caichu which Polo makes the scene of that story, is Kiai-chau (or Hiai-chau as it seems to be pronounced), north of the Yellow River, has been good enough to search the histories of the Liao and Kin Dynasties,[1] but without finding any trace of such a story, or of the Kin Emperors having resided in that neighbourhood.

On the other hand, he points out that the story has a strong resemblance to a real event which occurred in Central Asia in the beginning of Polo’s century.

The Persian historians of the Mongols relate that when Chinghiz defeated and slew Taiyang Khan, the king of the Naimans, Kushluk, the son of Taiyang, fled to the Gur-Khan of Karakhitai and received both his protection and the hand of his daughter (see i. 237); but afterwards rose against his benefactor and usurped his throne. “In the Liao history I read,” Mr. Wylie says, “that Chih-lu-ku, the last monarch of the Karakhitai line, ascended the throne in 1168, and in the 34th year of his reign, when out hunting one day in autumn, Kushluk, who had 8000 troops in ambush, made him prisoner, seized his throne and adopted the customs of the Liao, while he conferred on Chih-lu-ku the honourable title of Tai-shang-hwang ‘the old emperor.’”[2]

It is this Kushluk, to whom Rubruquis assigns the rôle of King (or Prester) John, the subject of so many wonderful stories. And Mr. Wylie points out that not only was his father Taiyang Khan, according to the Chinese histories, a much more important prince than Aung Khan or Wang Khan the Kerait, but his name Tai-Yang-Khan is precisely “Great King John” as near as John (or Yohana) can be expressed in Chinese. He thinks therefore that Taiyang and his son Kushluk, the Naimans, and not Aung Khan and his descendants, the Keraits, were the parties to whom the character of Prester John properly belonged, and that it was probably this story of Kushluk’s capture of the Karakhitai monarch (Roi de Fer) which got converted into the form in which he relates it of the Roi d’Or.

The suggestion seems to me, as regards the story, interesting and probable; though I do not admit that the character of Prester John properly belonged to any real person.

I may best explain my view of the matter by a geographical analogy. Pre-Columbian maps of the Atlantic showed an Island of Brazil, an Island of Antillia, founded—who knows on what?—whether on the real adventure of a vessel driven in sight of the Azores or Bermudas, or on mere fancy and fogbank. But when discovery really came to be undertaken, men looked for such lands and found them accordingly. And there they are in our geographies, Brazil and the Antilles!

The cut which we give is curious in connection with our traveller’s notice of the portrait-gallery of the Golden Kings. For it is taken from the fragmentary MS. of Rashiduddin’s History in the library of the Royal Asiatic Society, a MS. believed to be one of those executed under the great Vazír’s own supervision, and is presented there as the portrait of the last sovereign of the Dynasty in question, being one of a whole series of similar figures. There can be little doubt, I think, that these were taken from Chinese originals, though, it may be, not very exactly.

[Note 2.]—The history of the Tartar conquerors of China, whether Khitan, Churché, Mongol, or Manchu, has always been the same. For one or two generations the warlike character and manly habits were maintained; and then the intruders, having adopted Chinese manners, ceremonies, literature, and civilization, sank into more than Chinese effeminacy and degradation. We see the custom of employing only female attendants ascribed in a later chapter ([lxxvii.]) to the Sung Emperors at Kinsay; and the same was the custom of the later Ming emperors, in whose time the imperial palace was said to contain 5000 women. Indeed, the precise custom which this passage describes was in our own day habitually reported of the T’ai-P’ing sovereign during his reign at Nanking: “None but women are allowed in the interior of the Palace, and he is drawn to the audience-chamber in a gilded sacred dragon-car by the ladies.” (Blakiston, p. 42; see also Wilson’s Ever-Victorious Army, p. 41.)

[1] [There is no trace of it in Harlez’s French translation from the Manchu of the History of the Kin Empire, 1887.—H. C.]

[2] See also Oppert (p. 157), who cites this story from Visdelou, but does not notice its analogy to Polo’s.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

How Prester John treated the Golden King his Prisoner.

And on this the Golden King was so sorely grieved that he was like to die. And he said to them: “Good, my sons, for God’s sake have pity and compassion upon me. Ye wot well what honourable and kindly entertainment ye have had in my house; and now ye would deliver me into the hands of mine enemy! In sooth, if ye do what ye say, ye will do a very naughty and disloyal deed, and a right villainous.” But they answered only that so it must be, and away they had him to Prester John their Lord.

And when Prester John beheld the King he was right glad, and greeted him with something like a malison.[1] The King answered not a word, as if he wist not what it behoved him to say. So Prester John ordered him to be taken forth straightway, and to be put to look after cattle, but to be well looked after himself also. So they took him and set him to keep cattle. This did Prester John of the grudge he bore the King, to heap contumely on him, and to show what a nothing he was, compared to himself.

And when the King had thus kept cattle for two years, Prester John sent for him, and treated him with honour, and clothed him in rich robes, and said to him: “Now Sir King, art thou satisfied that thou wast in no way a man to stand against me?” “Truly, my good Lord, I know well and always did know that I was in no way a man to stand against thee.” And when he had said this Prester John replied: “I ask no more; but henceforth thou shalt be waited on and honourably treated.” So he caused horses and harness of war to be given him, with a goodly train, and sent him back to his own country. And after that he remained ever friendly to Prester John, and held fast by him.

So now I will say no more of this adventure of the Golden King, but I will proceed with our subject.

[1] “Lui dist que il feust le mal venuz.”

CHAPTER XL.

Concerning the Great River Caramoran and the City of Cachanfu.

When you leave the castle, and travel about 20 miles westward, you come to a river called Caramoran,[{1}] so big that no bridge can be thrown across it; for it is of immense width and depth, and reaches to the Great Ocean that encircles the Universe,—I mean the whole earth. On this river there are many cities and walled towns, and many merchants too therein, for much traffic takes place upon the river, there being a great deal of ginger and a great deal of silk produced in the country.[{2}]

Game birds here are in wonderful abundance, insomuch that you may buy at least three pheasants for a Venice groat of silver. I should say rather for an asper, which is worth a little more.[{3}]

[On the lands adjoining this river there grow vast quantities of great canes, some of which are a foot or a foot and a half (in girth), and these the natives employ for many useful purposes.]

After passing the river and travelling two days westward you come to the noble city of Cachanfu, which we have already named. The inhabitants are all Idolaters. And I may as well remind you again that all the people of Cathay are Idolaters. It is a city of great trade and of work in gold-tissues of many sorts, as well as other kinds of industry.

There is nothing else worth mentioning, and so we will proceed and tell you of a noble city which is the capital of a kingdom, and is called Kenjanfu.

[Note 1.]—Ḳará-Muren, or Black River, is one of the names applied by the Mongols to the Hwang Ho, or Yellow River, of the Chinese, and is used by all the mediæval western writers, e.g. Odoric, John Marignolli, Rashiduddin.

The River, where it skirts Shan-si, is for the most part difficult both of access and of passage, and ill adapted to navigation, owing to the violence of the stream. Whatever there is of navigation is confined to the transport of coal down-stream from Western Shan-si, in large flats. Mr. Elias, who has noted the River’s level by aneroid at two points 920 miles apart, calculated the fall over that distance, which includes the contour of Shan-si, at 4 feet per mile. The best part for navigation is above this, from Ning-hia to Chaghan Kuren (in about 110° E. long.), in which Captain Prjevalski’s observations give a fall of less than 6 inches per mile. (Richthofen, Letter VII. 25; Williamson, I. 69; J. R. G. S. XLIII. p. 115; Petermann, 1873, pp. 89–91.)

[On 5th January, 1889, Mr. Rockhill coming to the Yellow River from P’ing-yang, found (Land of the Lamas, p. 17) that “the river was between 500 and 600 yards wide, a sluggish, muddy stream, then covered with floating ice about a foot thick.... The Yellow River here is shallow, in the main channel only is it four or five feet deep.” The Rev. C. Holcombe, who crossed in October, says (p. 65): that “it was nowhere more than 6 feet deep, and on returning, three of the boatmen sprang into the water in midstream and waded ashore, carrying a line from the ferry-boat to prevent us from rapidly drifting down with the current. The water was just up to their hips.”—H. C.]

[Note 2.]—It is remarkable that the abundance of silk in Shan-si and Shen-si is so distinctly mentioned in these chapters, whereas now there is next to no silk at all grown in these districts. Is this the result of a change of climate, or only a commercial change? Baron Richthofen, to whom I have referred the question, believes it to be due to the former cause: “No tract in China would appear to have suffered so much by a change of climate as Shen-si and Southern Shan-si.” [See pp. 11–12.]

[Note 3.]—The asper or akché (both meaning “white”) of the Mongols at Tana or Azov I have elsewhere calculated, from Pegolotti’s data (Cathay, p. 298), to have contained about 0s. 2·8d. worth of silver, which is less than the grosso; but the name may have had a loose application to small silver coins in other countries of Asia. Possibly the money intended may have been the 50 tsien note. (See note 1, ch. xxiv. supra.)

CHAPTER XLI.

Concerning the City of Kenjanfu.

And when you leave the city of Cachanfu of which I have spoken, and travel eight days westward, you meet with cities and boroughs abounding in trade and industry, and quantities of beautiful trees, and gardens, and fine plains planted with mulberries, which are the trees on the leaves of which the silkworms do feed.[{1}] The people are all Idolaters. There is also plenty of game of all sorts, both of beasts and birds.

And when you have travelled those eight days’ journey, you come to that great city which I mentioned, called Kenjanfu.[{2}] A very great and fine city it is, and the capital of the kingdom of Kenjanfu, which in old times was a noble, rich, and powerful realm, and had many great and wealthy and puissant kings.[{3}] But now the king thereof is a prince called Mangalai, the son of the Great Kaan, who hath given him this realm, and crowned him king thereof.[{4}] It is a city of great trade and industry. They have great abundance of silk, from which they weave cloths of silk and gold of divers kinds, and they also manufacture all sorts of equipments for an army. They have every necessary of man’s life very cheap. The city lies towards the west; the people are Idolaters; and outside the city is the palace of the Prince Mangalai, crowned king, and son of the Great Kaan, as I told you before.

This is a fine palace and a great, as I will tell you. It stands in a great plain abounding in lakes and streams and springs of water. Round about it is a massive and lofty wall, five miles in compass, well built, and all garnished with battlements. And within this wall is the king’s palace, so great and fine that no one could imagine a finer. There are in it many great and splendid halls, and many chambers, all painted and embellished with work in beaten gold. This Mangalai rules his realm right well with justice and equity, and is much beloved by his people. The troops are quartered round about the palace, and enjoy the sport (that the royal demesne affords).

So now let us quit this kingdom, and I will tell you of a very mountainous province called Cuncun, which you reach by a road right wearisome to travel.

[Note 1.]—[“Morus alba is largely grown in North China for feeding silkworms.” (Bretschneider, Hist. of Bot. Disc. I. p. 4.)—H. C.]

[Note 2.]—Having got to sure ground again at Kenjanfu, which is, as we shall explain presently, the city of Si-ngan fu, capital of Shen-si, let us look back at the geography of the route from P’ing-yang fu. Its difficulties are great.

The traveller carries us two days’ journey from P’ing-yang fu to his castle of the Golden King. This is called in the G. Text and most other MSS. Caicui, Caytui, or the like, but in Ramusio alone Thaigin. He then carries us 20 miles further to the Caramoran; he crosses this river, travels two days further, and reaches the great city Cachanfu; eight days more (or as in Ramusio seven) bring him to Si-ngan fu.

There seems scarcely room for doubt that Cachanfu is the Ho-chung fu [the ancient capital of Emperor Shun—H. C.] of those days, now called P’u-chau fu, close to the great elbow of the Hwang Ho (Klaproth). But this city, instead of being two days west of the great river, stands near its eastern bank.

[The Rev. C. Holcombe writes (pp. 64–65): “P’u-chau fu lies on a level with the Yellow River, and on the edge of a large extent of worthless marsh land, full of pools of brackish, and in some places, positively salt water.... The great road does not pass into the town, having succeeded in maintaining its position on the high ground from which the town has backslided.... The great road keeping to the bluff, runs on, turning first south, and then a trifle to the east of south, until the road, the bluff, and Shan-si, all end together, making a sudden plunge down a precipice and being lost in the dirty waters of the Yellow River.”—H. C.]

Not maintaining the infallibility of our traveller’s memory, we may conceive confusion here, between the recollections of his journey westward and those of his return; but this does not remove all the difficulties.

The most notable fortress of the Kin sovereigns was that of T’ungkwan, on the right bank of the river, 25 miles below P’u-chau fu, and closing the passage between the river and the mountains, just where the boundaries of Ho-nan, Shan-si, and Shen-si meet. It was constantly the turning-point of the Mongol campaigns against that Dynasty, and held a prominent place in the dying instructions of Chinghiz for the prosecution of the conquest of Cathay. This fortress must have continued famous to Polo’s time—indeed it continues so still, the strategic position being one which nothing short of a geological catastrophe could impair,—but I see no way of reconciling its position with his narrative.

Plan of Ki-chau, after Duhalde.

The name in Ramusio’s form might be merely that of the Dynasty, viz. Tai-Kin = Great Golden. But we have seen that Thaigin is not the only reading. That of the MSS. seems to point rather to some name like Kaichau. A hypothesis which has seemed to me to call for least correction in the text is that the castle was at the Ki-chau of the maps, nearly due west of P’ing-yang fu, and just about 20 miles from the Hwang Ho; that the river was crossed in that vicinity, and that the traveller then descended the valley to opposite P’u-chau fu, or possibly embarked and descended the river itself to that point. This last hypothesis would mitigate the apparent disproportion in the times assigned to the different parts of the journey, and would, I think, clear the text of error. But it is only a hypothesis. There is near Ki-chau one of the easiest crossing places of the River, insomuch that since the Shen-si troubles a large garrison has been kept up at Ki-chau to watch it.[1] And this is the only direction in which two days’ march, at Polo’s rate, would bring him within 20 miles of the Yellow River. Whether there is any historic castle at Ki-chau I know not; the plan of that place in Duhalde, however, has the aspect of a strong position. Baron v. Richthofen is unable to accept this suggestion, and has favoured me with some valuable remarks on this difficult passage, which I slightly abridge:—

“The difficulties are, (1) that for either reading, Thaigin or Caichu, a corresponding place can be found; (2) in the position of Cachanfu, setting both at naught.

“Thaigin. There are two passages of the Yellow River near its great bend. One is at T’ungkwan, where I crossed it; the other, and more convenient, is at the fortress of Taiching-kwan, locally pronounced Taigin-kwan. This fortress, or rather fortified camp, is a very well-known place, and to be found on native maps; it is very close to the river, on the left bank, about 6 m. S.W. of P’u-chau fu. The road runs hence to Tung-chau fu and thence to Si-ngan fu. T’aiching-kwan could not possibly (at Polo’s rate) be reached in 2 days from P’ing-yang fu.

“Caichu. If this reading be adopted Marsden may be right in supposing Kiai-chau, locally Khaidju, to be meant. This city dominates the important salt marsh, whence Shan-si and Shen-si are supplied with salt. It is 70 or 80 m. from P’ing-yang fu, but could be reached in 2 days. It commands a large and tolerably populous plain, and is quite fit to have been an imperial residence.

“May not the striking fact that there is a place corresponding to either name suggest that one of them was passed by Polo in going, the other in returning? and that, this being the only locality between Ch’êng-tu fu and Chu-chau where there was any deviation between the two journeys, his geographical ideas may have become somewhat confused, as might now happen to any one in like case and not provided with a map? Thus the traveller himself might have put into Ramusio’s text the name of Thaigin instead of Caichu. From Kiai-chau he would probably cross the River at T’ungkwan, whilst in returning by way of Taiching-kwan he would pass through P’uchau-fu (or vice versâ). The question as to Caichu may still be settled, as it must be possible to ascertain where the Kin resided.”[2]

[Mr. Rockhill writes (Land of the Lamas, p. 17): “One hundred and twenty li south-south-west of the city is Kiai Chou, with the largest salt works in China.” Richthofen has estimated that about 150,000 tons of salt are produced annually from the marshes around it.—H. C.]

[Note 3.]—The eight days’ journey through richly cultivated plains run up the basin of the Wei River, the most important agricultural region of North-West China, and the core of early Chinese History. The löss is here more than ever predominant, its yellow tinge affecting the whole landscape, and even the atmosphere. Here, according to Baron v. Richthofen, originated the use of the word hwang “yellow,” as the symbol of the Earth, whence the primeval emperors were styled Hwang-ti, “Lord of the Earth,” but properly “Lord of the Löss.”

[The Rev. C. Holcombe (l.c. p. 66) writes: “From T’ung-kwan to Si-ngan fu, the road runs in a direction nearly due west, through a most lovely section of country, having a range of high hills upon the south, and the Wei River on the north. The road lies through one long orchard, and the walled towns and cities lie thickly along, for the most part at a little distance from the highway.” Mr. Rockhill says (Land of the Lamas, pp. 19–20): “The road between T’ung-kwan and Si-ngan fu, a distance of 110 miles, is a fine highway—for China—with a ditch on either side, rows of willow-trees here and there, and substantial stone bridges and culverts over the little streams which cross it. The basin of the Wei ho, in which this part of the province lies, has been for thousands of years one of the granaries of China. It was the colour of its loess-covered soil, called ‘yellow earth’ by the Chinese, that suggested the use of yellow as the colour sacred to imperial majesty. Wheat and sorghum are the principal crops, but we saw also numerous paddy fields where flocks of flamingoes were wading, and fruit-trees grew everywhere.”—H. C.]

Kenjanfu, or, as Ramusio gives it, Quenzanfu, is Si-ngan fu, or as it was called in the days of its greatest fame, Chang-ngan, probably the most celebrated city in Chinese history, and the capital of several of the most potent dynasties. It was the metropolis of Shi Hwang-ti of the T’sin Dynasty, properly the first emperor and whose conquests almost intersected those of his contemporary Ptolemy Euergetes. It was, perhaps, the Thinae of Claudius Ptolemy, as it was certainly the Khumdán[3] of the early Mahomedans, and the site of flourishing Christian Churches in the 7th century, as well as of the remarkable monument, the discovery of which a thousand years later disclosed their forgotten existence.[4] Kingchao-fu was the name which the city bore when the Mongol invasions brought China into communication with the west, and Klaproth supposes that this was modified by the Mongols into Kenjanfu. Under the latter name it is mentioned by Rashiduddin as the seat of one of the Twelve Sings or great provincial administrations, and we find it still known by this name in Sharífuddin’s history of Timur. The same name is traceable in the Kansan of Odoric, which he calls the second best province in the world, and the best populated. Whatever may have been the origin of the name Kenjanfu, Baron v. Richthofen was, on the spot, made aware of its conservation in the exact form of the Ramusian Polo. The Roman Catholic missionaries there emphatically denied that Marco could ever have been at Si-ngan fu, or that the city had ever been known by such a name as Kenjan-fu. On this the Baron called in one of the Chinese pupils of the Mission, and asked him directly what had been the name of the city under the Yuen Dynasty. He replied at once with remarkable clearness: “Quen-zan-fu.” Everybody present was struck by the exact correspondence of the Chinaman’s pronunciation of the name with that which the German traveller had adopted from Ritter.

Reduced Facsimile of the celebrated Christian Inscription of Singanfu, in Chinese and Syriac Characters.

Photo-lithograph, from a Rubbing.

W. GRIGGS, PHOTO-LITH.

[The vocabulary Hweï Hwei (Mahomedan) of the College of Interpreters at Peking transcribes King chao from the Persian Kin-chang, a name it gives to the Shen-si province. King chao was called Ngan-si fu in 1277. (Devéria, Epigraphie, p. 9.) Ken-jan comes from Kin-chang = King-chao = Si-ngan fu.—H. C.]

Martini speaks, apparently from personal knowledge, of the splendour of the city, as regards both its public edifices and its site, sloping gradually up from the banks of the River Wei, so as to exhibit its walls and palaces at one view like the interior of an amphitheatre. West of the city was a sort of Water Park, enclosed by a wall 30 li in circumference, full of lakes, tanks, and canals from the Wei, and within this park were seven fine palaces and a variety of theatres and other places of public diversion. To the south-east of the city was an artificial lake with palaces, gardens, park, etc., originally formed by the Emperor Hiaowu (B.C. 100), and to the south of the city was another considerable lake called Fan. This may be the Fanchan Lake, beside which Rashid says that Ananda, the son of Mangalai, built his palace.

The adjoining districts were the seat of a large Musulman population, which in 1861–1862 [and again in 1895 (See Wellby, Tibet, ch. xxv.)—H. C.] rose in revolt against the Chinese authority, and for a time was successful in resisting it. The capital itself held out, though invested for two years; the rebels having no artillery. The movement originated at Hwachau, some 60 miles east of Si-ngan fu, now totally destroyed. But the chief seat of the Mahomedans is a place which they call Salar, identified with Hochau in Kansuh, about 70 miles south-west of Lanchau-fu, the capital of that province. [Mr. Rockhill (Land of the Lamas, p. 40) writes: “Colonel Yule, quoting a Russian work, has it that the word Salar is used to designate Ho-chou, but this is not absolutely accurate. Prjevalsky (Mongolia, II. 149) makes the following complicated statement: ‘The Karatangutans outnumber the Mongols in Koko-nor, but their chief habitations are near the sources of the Yellow River, where they are called Salirs; they profess the Mohammedan religion, and have rebelled against China.’ I will only remark here that the Salar have absolutely no connection with the so-called Kara-tangutans, who are Tibetans. In a note by Archimandrite Palladius, in the same work (II. 70), he attempts to show a connection between the Salar and a colony of Mohammedans who settled in Western Kan-Suh in the last century, but the Ming shih (History of the Ming Dynasty) already makes mention of the Salar, remnants of various Turkish tribes (Hsi-ch’iang) who had settled in the districts of Ho-chou, Huang-chou, T’ao-chou, and Min-chou, and who were a source of endless trouble to the Empire. (See Wei Yuen, Sheng-wu-ki, vii. 35; also Huang ch’ing shih kung t’u, v. 7.) The Russian traveller, Potanin, found the Salar living in twenty-four villages, near Hsün-hua t’ing, on the south bank of the Yellow River. (See Proc. R. G. S. ix. 234.) The Annals of the Ming Dynasty (Ming Shíh, ch. 330) say that An-ting wei, 1500 li south-west of Kan-chou, was in old times known as Sa-li Wei-wu-ehr. These Sari Uigurs are mentioned by Du Plan Carpin, as Sari Huiur. Can Sala be the same as Sari?”

“Mohammedans,” says Mr. Rockhill (Ibid. p. 39), “here are divided into two sects, known as ‘white-capped Hui-hui,’ and ‘black-capped Hui-hui.’ One of the questions which separate them is the hour at which fast can be broken during the Ramadan. Another point which divides them is that the white-capped burn incense, as do the ordinary Chinese; and the Salar condemn this as Paganish. The usual way by which one finds out to which sect a Mohammedan belongs is by asking him if he burns incense. The black-capped Hui-hui are more frequently called Salar, and are much the more devout and fanatical. They live in the vicinity of Ho-chou, in and around Hsün-hua t’ing, their chief town being known as Salar Pakun or Paken.”

Cross on the Monument at Si-ngan fu. (From a rubbing.)

Ho-chou, in Western Kan-Suh, about 320 li (107 miles) from Lan-chau, has a population of about 30,000 nearly entirely Mahomedans with 24 mosques; it is a “hot-bed of rebellion.” Salar-pa-kun means “the eight thousand Salar families,” or “the eight thousands of the Salar.” The eight kiun (Chinese t’sun? a village, a commune) constituting the Salar pa-kun are Kä-tzŭ, the oldest and largest, said to have over 1300 families living in it, Chang-chia, Némen, Ch’ing-shui, Munta, Tsu-chi, Antasu and Ch’a-chia. Besides these Salar kiun there are five outer (wai) kiun: Ts’a-pa, Ngan-ssŭ-to, Hei-ch’eng, Kan-tu and Kargan, inhabited by a few Salar and a mixed population of Chinese and T’u-ssŭ: each of these wai-wu kiun has, theoretically, fifteen villages in it. Tradition says that the first Salar who came to China (from Rúm or Turkey) arrived in this valley in the third year of Hung-wu of the Ming (1370). (Rockhill, Land of the Lamas, Journey; Grenard, II. p. 457)—H. C.] (Martini; Cathay, 148, 269; Pétis de la Croix, III. 218; Russian paper on the Dungen, see supra, vol. i. p. 291; Williamson’s North China, u.s.; Richthofen’s Letters, and MS. Notes.)

[Note 4.]—Mangalai, Kúblái’s third son, who governed the provinces of Shen-si and Sze-ch’wan, with the title of Wang or king (supra ch. ix. note 2), died in 1280, a circumstance which limits the date of Polo’s journey to the west. It seems unlikely that Marco should have remained ten years ignorant of his death, yet he seems to speak of him as still governing.

[With reference to the translation of the oldest of the Chinese-Mongol inscriptions known hitherto (1283) in the name of Ananda, King of Ngan-si, Professor Devéria (Notes d’Épigraphie Mongolo-Chinoise, p. 9) writes: “In 1264, the Emperor Kúbláï created in this region [Shen si] the department of Ngan-si chau, occupied by ten hordes of Si-fan (foreigners from the west). All this country became in 1272, the apanage of the Imperial Prince Mangala; this prince, third son of Kúbláï, had been invested with the title of King of Ngan-si, a territory which included King-chao fu (modern Si-ngan fu). His government extended hence over Ho-si (west of the Yellow River), the T’u-po (Tibetans), and Sze-ch’wan. The following year (1273) Mangala received from Kúbláï a second investiture, this of the Kingdom of Tsin, which added to his domain part of Kan-Suh; he established his royal residence at K’ia-ch’eng (modern Ku-yuan) in the Liu-p’an shan, while King-chao remained the centre of the command he exercised over the Mongol garrisons. In 1277 this prince took part in military operations in the north; he died in 1280 (17th year Che Yuan), leaving his principality of Ngan-si to his eldest son Ananda, and this of Tsin to his second son Ngan-tan Bu-hoa. Kúbláï, immediately after the death of his son Mangala, suppressed administrative autonomy in Ngan-si.” (Yuan-shi lei pien).—H. C.]

[1] I am indebted for this information to Baron Richthofen.

[2] See the small map attached to “Marco Polo’s Itinerary Map, No. IV.,” at end of vol. i.

[3] [It is supposed to come from kang (king) dang.—H. C.]

[4] In the first edition I was able to present a reduced facsimile of a rubbing in my possession from this famous inscription, which I owed to the generosity of Dr. Lockhart. To the Baron von Richthofen I am no less indebted for the more complete rubbing which has afforded the plate now published. A tolerably full account of this inscription is given in Cathay, p. xcii. seqq., and p. clxxxi. seqq., but the subject is so interesting that it seems well to introduce here the most important particulars:—

The stone slab, about 7½ feet high by 3 feet wide, and some 10 inches in thickness,[A] which bears this inscription, was accidentally found in 1625 by some workmen who were digging in the Chang-ngan suburb of the city of Singanfu. The cross, which is engraved at p. 30, is incised at the top of the slab, and beneath this are 9 large characters in 3 columns, constituting the heading, which runs: “Monument commemorating the introduction and propagation of the noble Law of Ta T’sin in the Middle Kingdom;” Ta T’sin being the term applied in Chinese literature to the Roman Empire, of which the ancient Chinese had much such a shadowy conception as the Romans had, conversely, of the Chinese as Sinae and Seres. Then follows the body of the inscription, of great length and beautiful execution, consisting of 1780 characters. Its chief contents are as follows:— 1st. An abstract of Christian doctrine, of a vague and figurative kind; 2nd. An account of the arrival of the missionary Olopăn (probably a Chinese form of Rabban = Monk),[B] from Ta T’sin in the year equivalent to A.D. 635, bringing sacred books and images; of the translation of the said books; of the Imperial approval of the doctrine and permission to teach it publicly. There follows a decree of the Emperor (T’ai Tsung, a very famous prince) issued in 638, in favour of the new doctrine, and ordering a church to be built in the Square of Peace and Justice (I-ning Fang), at the capital. The Emperor’s portrait was to be placed in the church. After this comes a description of Ta T’sin (here apparently implying Syria); and then some account of the fortunes of the Church in China. Kao Tsung (650–683, the devout patron also of the Buddhist traveller and Dr. Hiuen Tsang) continued to favour it. In the end of the century, Buddhism gets the upper hand, but under Hiuan-Tsung (713–755) the Church recovers its prestige, and Kiho, a new missionary, arrives. Under Te-Tsung (780–783) the monument was erected, and this part ends with the eulogy of Issé, a statesman and benefactor of the Church. 3rd. There follows a recapitulation of the purport in octosyllabic verse.

The Chinese inscription concludes with the date of erection, viz. the second year Kienchung of the Great T’ang Dynasty, the seventh day of the month Tait’su, the feast of the great Yaosan. This corresponds, according to Gaubil, to 4th February, 781; and Yaosan is supposed to stand for Hosanna (i.e. Palm Sunday; but this apparently does not fit; see infra). There are added the name chief of the law, Ningchu (presumed to be the Chinese name of the Metropolitan), the name of the writer, and the official sanction.

The Great Hosanna was, though ingenious, a misinterpretation of Gaubil’s. Mr. Wylie has sent me a paper of his own (in Chin. Recorder and Miss. Journal, July, 1871, p. 45), which makes things perfectly clear. The expression transcribed by Pauthier, Yao-săn-wen, and rendered “Hosanna,” appears in a Chinese work, without reference to this inscription, as Yao-săn-wăh, and is in reality only a Chinese transcript of the Persian word for Sunday, “Yak-shambah.” Mr. Wylie verified this from the mouth of a Peking Mahomedan. The 4th of February, 781 was Sunday; why Great Sunday? Mr. Wylie suggests, possibly because the first Sunday of the (Chinese) year.

The monument exhibits, in addition to the Chinese text, a series of short inscriptions in the Syriac language, and Estranghelo character, containing the date of erection, viz. 1092 of the Greeks (= A.D. 781), the name of the reigning Patriarch of the Nestorian church Mar Hanan Ishua (dead in 778, but the fact apparently had not reached China), that of Adam, Bishop and Pope of Tzinisthán (i.e. China), and those of the clerical staff of the capital which here bears the name, given it by the early Arab Travellers, of Kúmdán. There follow sixty-seven names of persons in Syriac characters, most of whom are characterised as priests (Kashíshá), and sixty-one names of persons in Chinese, all priests save one.

[It appears that Adam (King-tsing), who erected the monument under Te-Tsung was, under the same Emperor, with a Buddhist the translator of a Buddhist sûtra, the Saṭpâramitâ from a Hu text. (See a curious paper by Mr. J. Takakusu in the T’oung Pao, VII pp. 589–591.)

Mr. Rockhill (Rubruck, p. 157, note) makes the following remarks. “It is strange, however, that the two famous Uigur Nestorians, Mar Jabalaha and Rabban Cauma, when on their journey from Koshang in Southern Shan-hsi to Western Asia in about 1276, while they mention ‘the city of Tangut,’ or Ning-hsia on the Yellow River as an important Nestorian centre, do not once refer to Hsi-anfu or Chang-an. Had Chang-an been at the time the Nestorian Episcopal see, one would think that these pilgrims would have visited it, or at least referred to it. (Chabot, Mar Jabalaha, 21)”—H. C.]

Kircher gives a good many more Syriac names than appear on the rubbing, probably because some of these are on the edge of the slab now built in. We have no room to speak of the controversies raised by this stone. The most able defence of its genuine character, as well as a transcript with translation and commentary, a work of great interest, was published by the late M. Pauthier. The monument exists intact, and has been visited by the Rev. Mr. Williamson, Baron Richthofen, and other recent travellers. [The Rev. Moir Duncan wrote from Shen-si regarding the present state of the stone. (London and China Telegraph, 5th June, 1893): “Of the covering rebuilt so recently, not a trace remains save the pedestals for the pillars and atoms of the tiling. In answer to a question as to when and how the covering was destroyed, the old priest replied, with a twinkle in his eye as if his conscience pinched, ‘There came a rushing wind and blew it down.’ He could not say when, for he paid no attention to such mundane affairs. More than one outsider however, said it had been deliberately destroyed, because the priests are jealous of the interest manifested in it.... The stone has evidently been recently tampered with, several characters are effaced and there are other signs of malicious hands.”—H. C.] Pauthier’s works on the subject are—De l’Authenticité de l’Inscription Nestorienne, etc., B. Duprat, 1857; and l’Inscription Syro-Chinoise de Si-ngan-fou, etc., Firmin Didot, 1858. (See also Kircher, China Illustrata; and article by Mr. Wylie in J. Am. Or. Soc., V. 278.) [Father Havret, S.J., of Zi-ka-wei, near Shang-hai, has undertaken to write a large work on this inscription with the title of La Stèle Chrétienne de Si-ngan-fou; the first part giving the inscription in full size, and the second containing the history of the monument, have been published at Shang-hai in 1895 and 1897; the author died last year (29th September, 1901), and the translation which was to form a third part has not yet appeared. The Rev. Dr. J. Legge has given a translation and the Chinese text of the monument, in 1888.—H. C.]

Stone monuments of character strictly analogous are frequent in the precincts of Buddhist sanctuaries, and probably the idea of this one was taken from the Buddhists. It is reasonably supposed by Pauthier that the monument may have been buried in 845, when the Emperor Wu-Tsung issued an edict, still extant, against the vast multiplication of Buddhist convents, and ordering their destruction. A clause in the edict also orders the foreign bonzes of Ta-T’sin and Mubupa (Christian and Mobed or Magian?) to return to secular life.

[A] [M. Grenard, who reproduces (III. p. 152) a good facsimile of the inscription, gives to the slab the following dimensions: high 2m. 36, wide 0m. 86, thick 0m. 25.—H. C.]

[B] [Dr. F. Hirth (China and the Roman Orient, p. 323) writes: “O-lo-pên = Ruben, Rupen?” He adds (Jour. China Br. R. As. Soc. XXI. 1886, pp. 214–215): “Initial r is also quite commonly represented by initial l. I am in doubt whether the two characters o-lo in the Chinese name for Russia (O-lo-ssŭ) stand for foreign ru or ro alone. This word would bear comparison with a Chinese transcription of the Sanskrit word for silver, rūpya, which in the Pen-ts’ao-kang-mu (ch. 8, p. 9) is given as o-lu-pa. If we can find further analogies, this may help us to read that mysterious word in the Nestorian stone inscription, being the name of the first Christian missionary who carried the cross to China, O-lo-pên, as ‘Ruben’. This was indeed a common name among the Nestorians, for which reason I would give it the preference over Pauthier’s Syriac ‘Alopeno’. But Father Havret (Stèle Chrétienne, Leide, 1897, p. 26) objects to Dr. Hirth that the Chinese character lo, to which he gives the sound ru, is not to be found as a Sanskrit phonetic element in Chinese characters, but that this phonetic element ru is represented by the Chinese characters pronounced lu, and therefore, he, Father Havret, adopts Colonel Yule’s opinion as the only one being fully satisfactory.”—H. C.]

CHAPTER XLII.

Concerning the Province of Cuncun, which is right wearisome to travel through.

On leaving the Palace of Mangalai, you travel westward for three days, finding a succession of cities and boroughs and beautiful plains, inhabited by people who live by trade and industry, and have great plenty of silk. At the end of those three days, you reach the great mountains and valleys which belong to the province of Cuncun.[{1}] There are towns and villages in the land, and the people live by tilling the earth, and by hunting in the great woods; for the region abounds in forests, wherein are many wild beasts, such as lions, bears, lynxes, bucks and roes, and sundry other kinds, so that many are taken by the people of the country, who make a great profit thereof. So this way we travel over mountains and valleys, finding a succession of towns and villages, and many great hostelries for the entertainment of travellers, interspersed among extensive forests.

[Note 1.]—The region intended must necessarily be some part of the southern district of the province of Shen-si, called Han-chung, the axis of which is the River Han, closed in by exceedingly mountainous and woody country to north and south, dividing it on the former quarter from the rest of Shen-si, and on the latter from Sze-ch’wan. Polo’s C frequently expresses an H, especially the Guttural H of Chinese names, yet Cuncun is not satisfactory as the expression of Hanchung.

The country was so ragged that in ancient times travellers from Si-ngan fu had to make a long circuit eastward by the frontier of Ho-nan to reach Han-chung; but, at an early date, a road was made across the mountains for military purposes; so long ago indeed that various eras and constructors are assigned to it. Padre Martini’s authorities ascribed it to a general in the service of Liu Pang, the founder of the first Han Dynasty (B.C. 202), and this date is current in Shan-si, as Baron v. Richthofen tells me. But in Sze-ch’wan the work is asserted to have been executed during the 3rd century, when China was divided into several states, by Liu Pei, of the Han family, who, about A.D. 226, established himself as Emperor [Minor Han] of Western China at Ch’êng-tu fu.[1] This work, with its difficulties and boldness, extending often for great distances on timber corbels inserted in the rock, is vividly described by Martini. Villages and rest-houses were established at convenient distances. It received from the Chinese the name of Chien-tao, or the “Pillar Road.” It commenced on the west bank of the Wei, opposite Pao-ki h’ien, 100 miles west of Si-ngan fu, and ended near the town of Paoching-h’ien, some 15 or 20 miles north-west from Han-chung.

We are told that Tului, the son of Chinghiz, when directing his march against Ho-nan in 1231 by this very line from Paoki, had to make a road with great difficulty; but, as we shall see presently, this can only mean that the ancient road had fallen into decay, and had to be repaired. The same route was followed by Okkodai’s son Kutan, in marching to attack the Sung Empire in 1235, and again by Mangku Kaan on his last campaign in 1258. These circumstances show that the road from Paoki was in that age the usual route into Han-chung and Sze-ch’wan; indeed there is no other road in that direction that is more than a mere jungle-track, and we may be certain that this was Polo’s route.

This remarkable road was traversed by Baron v. Richthofen in 1872. To my questions, he replies: “The entire route is a work of tremendous engineering, and all of this was done by Liu Pei, who first ordered the construction. The hardest work consisted in cutting out long portions of the road from solid rock, chiefly where ledges project on the verge of a river, as is frequently the case on the He-lung Kiang.... It had been done so thoroughly from the first, that scarcely any additions had to be made in after days. Another kind of work which generally strikes tourists like Father Martini, or Chinese travellers, is the poling up of the road on the sides of steep cliffs[2].... Extensive cliffs are frequently rounded in this way, and imagination is much struck with the perils of walking on the side of a precipice, with the foaming river below. When the timbers rot, such passages of course become obstructed, and thus the road is said to have been periodically in complete disuse. The repairs, which were chiefly made in the time of the Ming, concerned especially passages of this sort.” Richthofen also notices the abundance of game; but inhabited places appear to be rarer than in Polo’s time. (See Martini in Blaeu; Chine Ancienne, p. 234; Ritter, IV. 520; D’Ohsson, II. 22, 80, 328; Lecomte, II. 95; Chin. Rep. XIX. 225; Richthofen, Letter VII. p. 42, and MS. Notes).

[1] The last is also stated by Klaproth. Ritter has overlooked the discrepancy of the dates (B.C. and A.D.) and has supposed Liu Pei and Liu Pang to be the same. The resemblance of the names, and the fact that both princes were founders of Han Dynasties, give ample room for confusion.

[2] See cut from Mr. Cooper’s book at [p. 51] below. This so exactly illustrates Baron R.’s description that I may omit the latter.

CHAPTER XLIII.

Concerning the Province of Acbalec Manzi.

After you have travelled those 20 days through the mountains of Cuncun that I have mentioned, then you come to a province called Acbalec Manzi, which is all level country, with plenty of towns and villages, and belongs to the Great Kaan. The people are Idolaters, and live by trade and industry. I may tell you that in this province, there grows such a great quantity of ginger, that it is carried all over the region of Cathay, and it affords a maintenance to all the people of the province, who get great gain thereby. They have also wheat and rice, and other kinds of corn, in great plenty and cheapness; in fact the country abounds in all useful products. The capital city is called Acbalec Manzi [which signifies “the White City of the Manzi Frontier”].[{1}]

This plain extends for two days’ journey, throughout which it is as fine as I have told you, with towns and villages as numerous. After those two days, you again come to great mountains and valleys, and extensive forests, and you continue to travel westward through this kind of country for 20 days, finding however numerous towns and villages. The people are Idolaters, and live by agriculture, by cattle-keeping, and by the chase, for there is much game. And among other kinds, there are the animals that produce the musk, in great numbers.[{2}]

[Note 1.]—Though the termini of the route, described in these two chapters, are undoubtedly Si-ngan fu and Ch’êng-tu fu, there are serious difficulties attending the determination of the line actually followed.

The time according to all the MSS., so far as I know, except those of one type, is as follows:

In the plain of Kenjanfu	3	days.
In the mountains of Cuncun	20	„
In the plain of Acbalec	2	„
In mountains again	20	„
	—
	45	days.

[From Si-ngan fu to Ch’êng-tu (Sze-ch’wan), the Chinese reckon 2300 li (766 miles). (Cf. Rockhill, Land of the Lamas, p. 23.) Mr. G. F. Eaton, writing from Han-chung (Jour. China Br. R. A. S. xxviii. p. 29) reckons: “From Si-ngan Fu S.W. to Ch’êng-tu, viâ K’i-shan, Fung-sien, Mien, Kwang-yuan and Chao-hwa, about 30 days, in chairs.” He says (p. 24): “From Ch’êng-tu viâ Si-ngan to Peking the road does not touch Han-chung, but 20 li west of the city strikes north to Pao-ch’eng.—The road from Han-chung to Ch’êng-tu made by Ts’in Shi Hwang-ti to secure his conquest of Sze-ch’wan, crosses the Ta-pa-shan.”—H. C.]

It seems to me almost impossible to doubt that the Plain of Acbalec represents some part of the river-valley of the Han, interposed between the two ranges of mountains called by Richthofen T’sing-Ling-Shan and Ta-pa-Shan. But the time, as just stated, is extravagant for anything like a direct journey between the two termini.

The distance from Si-ngan fu to Pao-ki is 450 li, which could be done in 3 days, but at Polo’s rate would probably require 5. The distance by the mountain road from Pao-ki to the Plain of Han-chung, could never have occupied 20 days. It is really a 6 or 7 days’ march.

But Pauthier’s MS. C (and its double, the Bern MS.) has viii. marches instead of xx., through the mountains of Cuncun. This reduces the time between Kenjanfu and the Plain to 11 days, which is just about a proper allowance for the whole journey, though not accurately distributed. Two days, though ample, would not be excessive for the journey across the Plain of Han-chung, especially if the traveller visited that city. And “20 days from Han-chung, to Ch’êng-tu fu would correspond with Marco Polo’s rate of travel.” (Richthofen).

So far then, provided we admit the reading of the MS. C, there is no ground for hesitating to adopt the usual route between the two cities, viâ Han-chung.

But the key to the exact route is evidently the position of Acbalec Manzi, and on this there is no satisfactory light.

For the name of the province, Pauthier’s text has Acbalec Manzi, for the name of the city Acmalec simply. The G. T. has in the former case Acbalec Mangi, in the latter “Acmelic Mangi qe vaut dire le une de le confine dou Mangi.” This is followed literally by the Geographic Latin, which has “Acbalec Mangi et est dictum in lingua nostra unus ex confinibus Mangi.” So also the Crusca; whilst Ramusio has “Achbaluch Mangi, che vuol dire Città Bianca de’ confini di Mangi.” It is clear that Ramusio alone has here preserved the genuine reading.

Klaproth identified Acbalec conjecturally with the town of Pe-ma-ching, or “White-Horse-Town,” a place now extinct, but which stood like Mien and Han-chung on the extensive and populous Plain that here borders the Han.

It seems so likely that the latter part of the name Pe-Maching (“White Maching”) might have been confounded by foreigners with Máchín and Manzi (which in Persian parlance were identical), that I should be disposed to overlook the difficulty that we have no evidence produced to show that Pemaching was a place of any consequence.

It is possible, however, that the name Acbalec may have been given by the Tartars without any reference to Chinese etymologies. We have already twice met with the name or its equivalent (Acbaluc in [ch. xxxvii.] of this Book, and Chaghan Balghasun in note 3 to Book I. ch. lx.), whilst Strahlenberg tells us that the Tartars call all great residences of princes by this name (Amst. ed. 1757, I. p. 7). It may be that Han-chung itself was so named by the Tartars; though its only claim that I can find is, that it was the first residence of the Han Dynasty. Han-chung fu stands in a beautiful plain, which forms a very striking object to the traveller who is leaving the T’sing-ling mountains. Just before entering the plains, the Helung Kiang passes through one of its wildest gorges, a mere crevice between vertical walls several hundred feet high. The road winds to the top of one of the cliffs in zigzags cut in the solid rock. From the temple of Kitau Kwan, which stands at the top of the cliff, there is a magnificent view of the Plain, and no traveller would omit this, the most notable feature between the valley of the Wei and Ch’êng-tu-fu. It is, moreover, the only piece of level ground, of any extent, that is passed through between those two regions, whichever road or track be taken. (Richthofen, MS. Notes.)

[In the China Review (xiv. p. 358) Mr. E. H. Parker, has an article on Acbalec Manzi, but does not throw any new light on the subject.—H. C.]

[Note 2.]—Polo’s journey now continues through the lofty mountainous region in the north of Sze-ch’wan.

The dividing range Ta-pa-shan is less in height than the T’sing-ling range, but with gorges still more abrupt and deep; and it would be an entire barrier to communication but for the care with which the road, here also, has been formed. But this road, from Han-chung to Ch’êng-tu fu, is still older than that to the north, having been constructed, it is said, in the 3rd century B.C. [See supra.] Before that time Sze-ch’wan was a closed country, the only access from the north being the circuitous route down the Han and up the Yang-tz’ŭ. (Ibid.)

[Mr. G. G. Brown writes (Jour. China Br. R. As. Soc. xxviii. p. 53): “Crossing the Ta-pa-shan from the valley of the Upper Han in Shen-si we enter the province of Sze-ch’wan, and are now in a country as distinct as possible from that that has been left. The climate which in the north was at times almost Arctic, is now pluvial, and except on the summits of the mountains no snow is to be seen. The people are ethnologically different.... More even than the change of climate the geological aspect is markedly different. The loess, which in Shen-si has settled like a pall over the country, is here absent, and red sandstone rocks, filling the valleys between the high-bounding and intermediate ridges of palæozoic formation, take its place. Sze-ch’wan is evidently a region of rivers flowing in deeply eroded valleys, and as these find but one exit, the deep gorges of Kwei-fu, their disposition takes the form of the innervations of a leaf springing from a solitary stalk. The country between the branching valleys is eminently hilly; the rivers flow with rapid currents in well-defined valleys, and are for the most part navigable for boats, or in their upper reaches for lumber-rafts.... The horse-cart, which in the north and north-west of China is the principal means of conveyance, has never succeeded in gaining an entrance into Sze-ch’wan with its steep ascents and rapid unfordable streams; and is here represented for passenger traffic by the sedan-chair, and for the carriage of goods, with the exception of a limited number of wheel-barrows, by the backs of men or animals, unless where the friendly water-courses afford the cheapest and readiest means of intercourse.”—H. C.]

Martini notes the musk-deer in northern Sze-ch’wan.

CHAPTER XLIV.

Concerning the Province and City of Sindafu.

When you have travelled those 20 days westward through the mountains, as I have told you, then you arrive at a plain belonging to a province called Sindafu, which still is on the confines of Manzi, and the capital city of which is (also) called Sindafu. This city was in former days a rich and noble one, and the Kings who reigned there were very great and wealthy. It is a good twenty miles in compass, but it is divided in the way that I shall tell you.

You see the King of this Province, in the days of old, when he found himself drawing near to death, leaving three sons behind him, commanded that the city should be divided into three parts, and that each of his three sons should have one. So each of these three parts is separately walled about, though all three are surrounded by the common wall of the city. Each of the three sons was King, having his own part of the city, and his own share of the kingdom, and each of them in fact was a great and wealthy King. But the Great Kaan conquered the kingdom of these three Kings, and stripped them of their inheritance.[{1}]

Through the midst of this great city runs a large river, in which they catch a great quantity of fish. It is a good half mile wide, and very deep withal, and so long that it reaches all the way to the Ocean Sea,—a very long way, equal to 80 or 100 days’ journey. And the name of the River is Kian-suy. The multitude of vessels that navigate this river is so vast, that no one who should read or hear the tale would believe it. The quantities of merchandize also which merchants carry up and down this river are past all belief. In fact, it is so big, that it seems to be a Sea rather than a River![{2}]

Let us now speak of a great Bridge which crosses this River within the city. This bridge is of stone; it is seven paces in width and half a mile in length (the river being that much in width as I told you); and all along its length on either side there are columns of marble to bear the roof, for the bridge is roofed over from end to end with timber, and that all richly painted. And on this bridge there are houses in which a great deal of trade and industry is carried on. But these houses are all of wood merely, and they are put up in the morning and taken down in the evening. Also there stands upon the bridge the Great Kaan’s Comercque, that is to say, his custom-house, where his toll and tax are levied.[{3}] And I can tell you that the dues taken on this bridge bring to the Lord a thousand pieces of fine gold every day and more. The people are all Idolaters.[{4}]

When you leave this city you travel for five days across a country of plains and valleys, finding plenty of villages and hamlets, and the people of which live by husbandry. There are numbers of wild beasts, lions, and bears, and such like.

I should have mentioned that the people of Sindu itself live by manufactures, for they make fine sendals and other stuffs.[{5}]

After travelling those five days’ march, you reach a province called Tebet, which has been sadly laid waste; we will now say something of it.

[Note 1.]—We are on firm ground again, for Sindafu is certainly Ch’êng-tu fu, the capital of Sze-ch’wan. Probably the name used by Polo was Sindu-fu, as we find Sindu in the G. T. near the end of the chapter. But the same city is, I observe, called Thindafu by one of the Nepalese embassies, whose itineraries Mr. Hodgson has given in the J. A. S. B. XXV. 488.

A. The Great City.
B. The Little City.
C. The Imperial City.

The modern French missions have a bishop in Ch’êng-tu fu, and the city has been visited of late years by Mr. T. T. Cooper, by Mr. A. Wylie, by Baron v. Richthofen, [Captain Gill, Mr. Baber, Mr. Hosie, and several other travellers]. Mr. Wylie has kindly favoured me with the following note:—“My notice all goes to corroborate Marco Polo. The covered bridge with the stalls is still there, the only difference being the absence of the toll-house. I did not see any traces of a tripartite division of the city, nor did I make any enquiries on the subject during the 3 or 4 days I spent there, as it was not an object with me at the time to verify Polo’s account. The city is indeed divided, but the division dates more than a thousand years back. It is something like this, I should say [see diagram].[1]

“The Imperial City (Hwang Ching) was the residence of the monarch Lew Pé (i.e. Liu Pei of p. 32) during the short period of the ‘Three Kingdoms’ (3rd century), and some relics of the ancient edifice still remain. I was much interested in looking over it. It is now occupied by the Public Examination Hall and its dependencies.”

I suspect Marco’s story of the Three Kings arose from a misunderstanding about this historical period of the San-Kwé, or Three Kingdoms (A.D. 222–264). And this tripartite division of the city may have been merely that which we see to exist at present.

[Mr. Baber, leaving Ch’êng-tu, 26th July, 1877, writes (Travels, p. 28): “We took ship outside the East Gate on a rapid narrow stream, apparently the city moat, which soon joins the main river, a little below the An-shun Bridge, an antiquated wooden structure some 90 yards long. This is in all probability the bridge mentioned by Marco Polo. The too flattering description he gives of it leads one to suppose that the present handsome stone bridges of the province were unbuilt at the time of his journey.” Baber is here mistaken.

Captain Gill writes (l.c. II. p. 9): “As Mr. Wylie in recent days had said that Polo’s covered bridge was still in its place, we went one day on an expedition in search of it. Polo, however, speaks of a bridge full half a mile long, whilst the longest now is but 90 yards. On our way we passed over a fine nine-arched stone bridge, called the Chin-Yen-Ch’iao. Near the covered bridge there is a very pretty view down the river.”—H. C.]

Baron Richthofen observes that Ch’êng-tu is among the largest of Chinese cities, and is of all the finest and most refined. The population is called 800,000. The walls form a square of about 3 miles to the side, and there are suburbs besides. The streets are broad and straight, laid out at right angles, with a pavement of square flags very perfectly laid, slightly convex and drained at each side. The numerous commemorative arches are sculptured with skill; there is much display of artistic taste; and the people are remarkably civil to foreigners. This characterizes the whole province; and an air of wealth and refinement prevails even in the rural districts. The plain round Ch’êng-tu fu is about 90 miles in length (S.E. to N.W.), by 40 miles in width, with a copious irrigation and great fertility, so that in wealth and population it stands almost unrivalled. (Letter VII. pp. 48–66.)

PLAN OF CHENG-TU.

Églises ou Établissements français des “Missions étrangères”

Reproduction d’une carte chinoise

[Mr. Baber (Travels, p. 26) gives the following information regarding the population of Ch’êng-tu: “The census of 1877 returned the number of families at about 70,000, and the total population at 330,000—190,000 being males and 140,000 females; but probably the extensive suburb was not included in the enumeration. Perhaps 350,000 would be a fair total estimate.” It is the seat of the Viceroy of the Sze-ch’wan province. Mr. Hosie says (Three Years in Western China, p. 86): “It is without exception the finest city I have seen in China; Peking and Canton will not bear comparison with it.” Captain Gill writes (River of Golden Sand, II. p. 4): “The city of Ch’êng-Tu is still a rich and noble one, somewhat irregular in shape, and surrounded by a strong wall, in a perfect state of repair. In this there are eight bastions, four being pierced by gates.”

“It is one of the largest of Chinese cities, having a circuit of about 12 miles.” (Baber, p. 26.) “It is now three and a half miles long by about two and a half miles broad, the longest side lying about east-south-east, and west-north-west, so that its compass in the present day is about 12 miles.” (Captain Gill, II. p. 4.)—H. C.]

[Note 2.]—Ramusio is more particular: “Through the city flow many great rivers, which come down from distant mountains, and run winding about through many parts of the city. These rivers vary in width from half a mile to 200 paces, and are very deep. Across them are built many bridges of stone,” etc. “And after passing the city these rivers unite and form one immense river called Kian,” etc. Here we have the Great River or Kiang, Kian (Quian) as in Ramusio, or Kiang-shui, “Waters of the Kiang,” as in the text. So Pauthier explains. [Mr. Baber remarks at Ch’êng-tu (Travels, p. 28): “When all allowance is made for the diminution of the river, one cannot help surmising that Marco Polo must have felt reluctant to call it the Chiang-Sui or ‘Yangtzŭ waterway.’ He was, however, correct enough, as usual, for the Chinese consider it to be the main upper stream of the Yangtzŭ.”—H. C.] Though our Geographies give the specific names of Wen and Min to the great branch which flows by Ch’êng-tu fu, and treat the Tibetan branch which flows through northern Yunnan under the name of Kin sha or “Golden Sand,” as the main river, the Chinese seem always to have regarded the former as the true Kiang; as may be seen in Ritter (IV. 650) and Martini. The latter describes the city as quite insulated by the ramifications of the river, from which channels and canals pass all about it, adorned with many quays and bridges of stone.

The numerous channels in reuniting form two rivers, one the Min, and the other the To-Kiang, which also joins the Yangtzŭ at Lu-chau.

[In his Introductory Essay to Captain Gill’s River of Golden Sand, Colonel Yule (p. 37) writes: “Captain Gill has pointed out that, of the many branches of the river which ramify through the plain of Ch’êng-tu, no one now passes through the city at all corresponding in magnitude to that which Marco Polo describes, about 1283, as running through the midst of Sin-da-fu, ‘a good half-mile wide, and very deep withal.’ The largest branch adjoining the city now runs on the south side, but does not exceed a hundred yards in width; and though it is crossed by a covered bridge with huxters’ booths, more or less in the style described by Polo, it necessarily falls far short of his great bridge of half a mile in length. Captain Gill suggests that a change may have taken place in the last five (this should be six) centuries, owing to the deepening of the river-bed at its exit from the plain, and consequent draining of the latter. But I should think it more probable that the ramification of channels round Ch’êng-tu, which is so conspicuous even on a small general map of China, like that which accompanies this work, is in great part due to art; that the mass of the river has been drawn off to irrigate the plain; and that thus the wide river, which in the 13th century may have passed through the city, no unworthy representative of the mighty Kiang, has long since ceased, on that scale, to flow. And I have pointed out briefly that the fact, which Baron Richthofen attests, of an actual bifurcation of waters on a large scale taking place in the plain of Ch’êng-tu—one arm ‘branching east to form the To’ (as in the terse indication of the Yü-Kung)—viz. the To Kiang or Chung-Kiang flowing south-east to join the great river at Lu-chau, whilst another flows south to Sü-chau or Swi-fu, does render change in the distribution of the waters about the city highly credible.”] [See Irrigation of the Ch’eng-tu Plain, by Joshua Vale, China Inland Mission in Jour. China Br. R. A. S. Soc. XXXIII. 1899–1900, pp. 22–36.—H. C.]

[Above Kwan Hsien, near Ch’êng-tu, there is a fine suspension bridge, mentioned by Marcel Monnier (Itinéraires, p. 43), from whom I borrow the cut reproduced on this page. This bridge is also spoken of by Captain Gill (l.c. I. p. 335): “Six ropes, one above the other, are stretched very tightly, and connected by vertical battens of wood laced in and out. Another similar set of ropes is at the other side of the roadway, which is laid across these, and follows the curve of the ropes. There are three or four spans with stone piers.”—H. C.]

Bridge near Kwan-hsien (Ch’êng-tu).

[Note 3.]—(G. T.) “Hi est le couiereque dou Grant Sire, ce est cilz qe recevent la rente dou Seignor.” Pauthier has couvert. Both are, I doubt not, misreadings or misunderstandings of comercque or comerc. This word, founded on the Latin commercium, was widely spread over the East with the meaning of customs-duty or custom-house. In Low Greek it appeared as κομμέρκιον and κουμέρκιον, now κομέρκι; in Arabic and Turkish as قمرق and كمرك (ḳumruḳ and gyumruk), still in use; in Romance dialects as comerchio, comerho, comergio, etc.

[Note 4.]—The word in Pauthier’s text which I have rendered pieces of gold is pois, probably equivalent to saggi or misḳáls.[2] The G. T. has “is well worth 1000 bezants of gold,” no doubt meaning daily, though not saying so. Ramusio has “100 bezants daily.” The term Bezant may be taken as synonymous with Dínár, and the statement in the text would make the daily receipt of custom upwards of 500l., that in Ramusio upwards of 50l. only.

[Note 5.]—I have recast this passage, which has got muddled, probably in the original dictation, for it runs in the G. text: “Et de ceste cité se part l’en et chevauche cinq jornée por plain et por valée, et treve-l’en castiaus et casaus assez. Les homes vivent dou profit qu’il traient de la terre. Il hi a bestes sauvajes assez, lions et orses et autres bestes. Il vivent d’ars: car il hi se laborent des biaus sendal et autres dras. Il sunt de Sindu meisme.” I take it that in speaking of Ch’êng-tu fu, Marco has forgotten to fill up his usual formula as to the occupation of the inhabitants; he is reminded of this when he speaks of the occupation of the peasantry on the way to Tibet, and reverts to the citizens in the words which I have quoted in Italics. We see here Sindu applied to the city, suggesting Sindu-fu for the reading at the beginning of the chapter.

Silk is a large item in the produce and trade of Sze-ch’wan; and through extensive quarters of Ch’êng-tu fu, in every house, the spinning, dying, weaving, and embroidering of silk give occupation to the people. And though a good deal is exported, much is consumed in the province, for the people are very much given to costly apparel. Thus silk goods are very conspicuous in the shops of the capital. (Richthofen.)

[1] My lamented friend Lieutenant F. Garnier had kindly undertaken to send me a plan of Ch’êng-tu fu from the place itself, but, as is well known, he fell on a daring enterprise elsewhere. [We hope that the plan from a Chinese map we give from M. Marcel Monnier’s Itinéraires will replace the promised one.

It will be seen that Ch’êng-tu is divided into three cities: the Great City containing both the Imperial and Tartar cities.—H. C.]

[2] I find the same expression applied to the misḳál or dínár in a MS. letter written by Giovanni dell’Affaitado, Venetian Agent at Lisbon in 1503, communicated to me by Signor Berchet. The King of Melinda was to pay to Portugal a tribute of 1500 pesi d’oro, “che un peso val un ducato e un quarto.”

CHAPTER XLV.

Concerning the Province of Tebet.

After those five days’ march that I spoke of, you enter a province which has been sorely ravaged; and this was done in the wars of Mongu Kaan. There are indeed towns and villages and hamlets, but all harried and destroyed.[{1}]

In this region you find quantities of canes, full three palms in girth and fifteen paces in length, with some three palms’ interval between the joints. And let me tell you that merchants and other travellers through that country are wont at nightfall to gather these canes and make fires of them; for as they burn they make such loud reports that the lions and bears and other wild beasts are greatly frightened, and make off as fast as possible; in fact nothing will induce them to come nigh a fire of that sort. So you see the travellers make those fires to protect themselves and their cattle from the wild beasts which have so greatly multiplied since the devastation of the country. And ’tis this great multiplication of the wild beasts that prevents the country from being reoccupied. In fact but for the help of these canes, which make such a noise in burning that the beasts are terrified and kept at a distance, no one would be able even to travel through the land.

I will tell you how it is that the canes make such a noise. The people cut the green canes, of which there are vast numbers, and set fire to a heap of them at once. After they have been awhile burning they burst asunder, and this makes such a loud report that you might hear it ten miles off. In fact, any one unused to this noise, who should hear it unexpectedly, might easily go into a swound or die of fright. But those who are used to it care nothing about it. Hence those who are not used to it stuff their ears well with cotton, and wrap up their heads and faces with all the clothes they can muster; and so they get along until they have become used to the sound. ’Tis just the same with horses. Those which are unused to these noises are so alarmed by them that they break away from their halters and heel-ropes, and many a man has lost his beasts in this way. So those who would avoid losing their horses take care to tie all four legs and peg the ropes down strongly, and to wrap the heads and eyes and ears of the animals closely, and so they save them. But horses also, when they have heard the noise several times, cease to mind it. I tell you the truth, however, when I say that the first time you hear it nothing can be more alarming. And yet, in spite of all, the lions and bears and other wild beasts will sometimes come and do much mischief; for their numbers are great in those tracts.[{2}]

You ride for 20 days without finding any inhabited spot, so that travellers are obliged to carry all their provisions with them, and are constantly falling in with those wild beasts which are so numerous and so dangerous. After that you come at length to a tract where there are towns and villages in considerable numbers.[{3}] The people of those towns have a strange custom in regard to marriage which I will now relate.

No man of that country would on any consideration take to wife a girl who was a maid; for they say a wife is nothing worth unless she has been used to consort with men. And their custom is this, that when travellers come that way, the old women of the place get ready, and take their unmarried daughters or other girls related to them, and go to the strangers who are passing, and make over the young women to whomsoever will accept them; and the travellers take them accordingly and do their pleasure; after which the girls are restored to the old women who brought them, for they are not allowed to follow the strangers away from their home. In this manner people travelling that way, when they reach a village or hamlet or other inhabited place, shall find perhaps 20 or 30 girls at their disposal. And if the travellers lodge with those people they shall have as many young women as they could wish coming to court them! You must know too that the traveller is expected to give the girl who has been with him a ring or some other trifle, something in fact that she can show as a lover’s token when she comes to be married. And it is for this in truth and for this alone that they follow that custom; for every girl is expected to obtain at least 20 such tokens in the way I have described before she can be married. And those who have most tokens, and so can show they have been most run after, are in the highest esteem, and most sought in marriage, because they say the charms of such an one are greatest.[{4}] But after marriage these people hold their wives very dear, and would consider it a great villainy for a man to meddle with another’s wife; and thus though the wives have before marriage acted as you have heard, they are kept with great care from light conduct afterwards.

Now I have related to you this marriage custom as a good story to tell, and to show what a fine country that is for young fellows to go to!

The people are Idolaters and an evil generation, holding it no sin to rob and maltreat: in fact, they are the greatest brigands on earth. They live by the chase, as well as on their cattle and the fruits of the earth.

I should tell you also that in this country there are many of the animals that produce musk, which are called in the Tartar language Gudderi. Those rascals have great numbers of large and fine dogs, which are of great service in catching the musk-beasts, and so they procure great abundance of musk. They have none of the Great Kaan’s paper money, but use salt instead of money. They are very poorly clad, for their clothes are only of the skins of beasts, and of canvas, and of buckram.[{5}] They have a language of their own, and they are called Tebet. And this country of Tebet forms a very great province, of which I will give you a brief account.

[Note 1.]—The mountains that bound the splendid plain of Ch’êng-tu fu on the west rise rapidly to a height of 12,000 feet and upwards. Just at the skirt of this mountain region, where the great road to Lhása enters it, lies the large and bustling city of Yachaufu, forming the key of the hill country, and the great entrepôt of trade between Sze-ch’wan on the one side, and Tibet and Western Yunnan on the other. The present political boundary between China Proper and Tibet is to the west of Bathang and the Kin-sha Kiang, but till the beginning of last century it lay much further east, near Ta-t’sien-lu, or, as the Tibetans appear to call it, Tartsédo or Tachindo, which a Chinese Itinerary given by Ritter makes to be 920 li, or 11 marches from Ch’êng-tu fu. In Marco’s time we must suppose that Tibet was considered to extend several marches further east still, or to the vicinity of Yachau.[1] Mr. Cooper’s Journal describes the country entered on the 5th march from Ch’êng-tu as very mountainous, many of the neighbouring peaks being capped with snow. And he describes the people as speaking a language mixed with Tibetan for some distance before reaching Ta-t’sien-lu. Baron Richthofen also who, as we shall see, has thrown an entirely new light upon this part of Marco’s itinerary, was exactly five days in travelling through a rich and populous country, from Ch’êng-tu to Yachau. [Captain Gill left Ch’êng-tu on the 10th July, 1877, and reached Ya-chau on the 14th, a distance of 75 miles.—H. C.] (Ritter, IV. 190 seqq.; Cooper, pp. 164–173; Richthofen in Verhandl. Ges. f. Erdk. zu Berlin, 1874, p. 35.)

Tibet was always reckoned as a part of the Empire of the Mongol Kaans in the period of their greatness, but it is not very clear how it came under subjection to them. No conquest of Tibet by their armies appears to be related by either the Mahomedan or the Chinese historians. Yet it is alluded to by Plano Carpini, who ascribes the achievement to an unnamed son of Chinghiz, and narrated by Sanang Setzen, who says that the King of Tibet submitted without fighting when Chinghiz invaded his country in the year of the Panther (1206). During the reign of Mangku Kaan, indeed, Uriangḳadai, an eminent Mongol general [son of Subudai] who had accompanied Prince Kúblái in 1253 against Yunnan, did in the following year direct his arms against the Tibetans. But this campaign, that no doubt to which the text alludes as “the wars of Mangu Kaan,” appears to have occupied only a part of one season, and was certainly confined to the parts of Tibet on the frontiers of Yunnan and Sze-ch’wan. [“In the Yuen-shi, Tibet is mentioned under different names. Sometimes the Chinese history of the Mongols uses the ancient name T’u-fan. In the Annals, s.a. 1251, we read: ‘Mangu Khan entrusted Ho-li-dan with the command of the troops against T’u-fan.’ Sub anno 1254 it is stated that Kúblái (who at that time was still the heir-apparent), after subduing the tribes of Yun-nan, entered T’u-fan, when So-ho-to, the ruler of the country, surrendered. Again, s.a. 1275: ‘The prince Al-lu-chi (seventh son of Kúblái) led an expedition to T’u-fan.’ In chap. ccii., biography of Ba-sz’-ba, the Lama priest who invented Kúblái’s official alphabet, it is stated that this Lama was a native of Sa-sz’-kia in T’u-fan.” (Bretschneider, Med Res. II. p. 23.)—H. C.] Koeppen seems to consider it certain that there was no actual conquest of Tibet, and that Kúblái extended his authority over it only by diplomacy and the politic handling of the spiritual potentates who had for several generations in Tibet been the real rulers of the country. It is certain that Chinese history attributes the organisation of civil administration in Tibet to Kúblái. Mati Dhwaja, a young and able member of the family which held the hereditary primacy of the Satya [Sakya] convent, and occupied the most influential position in Tibet, was formerly recognised by the Emperor as the head of the Lamaite Church and as the tributary Ruler of Tibet. He is the same person that we have already (vol. i. p. 28) mentioned as the Passepa or Báshpah Lama, the inventor of Kúblái’s official alphabet. (Carpini, 658, 709; D’Avezac, 564; S. Setzen, 89; D’Ohsson, II. 317; Koeppen, II. 96; Amyot, XIV. 128.)

With the caution that Marco’s Travels in Tibet were limited to the same mountainous country on the frontier of Sze-ch’wan, we defer further geographical comment till he brings us to Yunnan.

[Note 2.]—Marco exaggerates a little about the bamboos; but before gunpowder became familiar, no sharp explosive sounds of this kind were known to ordinary experience, and exaggeration was natural. I have been close to a bamboo jungle on fire. There was a great deal of noise comparable to musketry; but the bamboos were not of the large kind here spoken of. The Hon. Robert Lindsay, describing his elephant-catching in Silhet, says: “At night each man lights a fire at his post, and furnishes himself with a dozen joints of the large bamboo, one of which he occasionally throws into the fire, and the air it contains being rarefied by the heat, it explodes with a report as loud as a musket.” (Lives of the Lindsays, III. 191.)

[Dr. Bretschneider (Hist. of Bot. Disc. I. p. 3) says: “In corroboration of Polo’s statement regarding the explosions produced when burning bamboos, I may adduce Sir Joseph Hooker’s Himalayan Journals (edition of 1891, p. 100), where in speaking of the fires in the jungles, he says: ‘Their triumph is in reaching a great bamboo clump, when the noise of the flames drowns that of the torrents, and as the great stem-joints burst, from the expansion of the confined air, the report is as that of a salvo from a park of artillery.’”—H. C.]

Mountaineers on the Borders of Sze ch’wan and Yun-nan.

Richthofen remarks that nowhere in China does the bamboo attain such a size as in this region. Bamboos of three palms in girth (28 to 30 inches) exist, but are not ordinary, I should suppose, even in Sze-ch’wan. In 1855 I took some pains to procure in Pegu a specimen of the largest attainable bamboo. It was 10 inches in diameter.

[Note 3.]—M. Gabriel Durand, a missionary priest, thus describes his journey in 1861 to Kiangka, viâ Ta-t’sien-lu, a line of country partly coincident with that which Polo is traversing: “Every day we made a journey of nine or ten leagues, and halted for the night in a Kung-kuan. These are posts dotted at intervals of about ten leagues along the road to Hlassa, and usually guarded by three soldiers, though the more important posts have twenty. With the exception of some Tibetan houses, few and far between, these are the only habitations to be seen on this silent and deserted road.... Lytang was the first collection of houses that we had seen in ten days’ march.” (Ann. de la Propag. de la Foi, XXXV. 352 seqq.)

[Note 4.]—Such practices are ascribed to many nations. Martini quotes something similar from a Chinese author about tribes in Yunnan; and Garnier says such loose practices are still ascribed to the Sifan near the southern elbow of the Kin-sha Kiang. Even of the Mongols themselves and kindred races, Pallas asserts that the young women regard a number of intrigues rather as a credit and recommendation than otherwise. Japanese ideas seem to be not very different. In old times Ælian gives much the same account of the Lydian women. Herodotus’s Gindanes of Lybia afford a perfect parallel, “whose women wear on their legs anklets of leather. Each lover that a woman has gives her one; and she who can show most is the best esteemed, as she appears to have been loved by the greatest number of men.” (Martini, 142; Garnier, I. 520; Pall. Samml. II. 235; Æl. Var. Hist. III. 1; Rawl. Herod. Bk. IV. ch. clxxvi.)

[“Among some uncivilised peoples, women having many gallants are esteemed better than virgins, and are more anxiously desired in marriage. This is, for instance, stated to be the case with the Indians of Quito, the Laplanders in Regnard’s days, and the Hill Tribes of North Aracan. But in each of these cases we are expressly told that want of chastity is considered a merit in the bride, because it is held to be the best testimony to the value of her attractions.” (Westermarck, Human Marriage, p. 81.)—H. C.]

Mr. Cooper’s Journal, when on the banks of the Kin-sha Kiang, west of Bathang, affords a startling illustration of the persistence of manners in this region: “At 12h. 30m. we arrived at a road-side house, near which was a grove of walnut-trees; here we alighted, when to my surprise I was surrounded by a group of young girls and two elderly women, who invited me to partake of a repast spread under the trees.... I thought I had stumbled on a pic-nic party, of which the Tibetans are so fond. Having finished, I lighted my pipe and threw myself on the grass in a state of castle-building. I had not lain thus many seconds when the maidens brought a young girl about 15 years old, tall and very fair, placed her on the grass beside me, and forming a ring round us, commenced to sing and dance. The little maid beside me, however, was bathed in tears. All this, I must confess, a little puzzled me, when Philip (the Chinese servant) with a long face, came to my aid, saying, ‘Well, Sir, this is a bad business ... they are marrying you.’ Good heavens! how startled I was.” For the honourable conclusion of this Anglo-Tibetan idyll I must refer to Mr. Cooper’s Journal. (See the now published Travels, ch. x.)

[Note 5.]—All this is clearly meant to apply only to the rude people towards the Chinese frontier; nor would the Chinese (says Richthofen) at this day think the description at all exaggerated, as applied to the Lolo who occupy the mountains to the south of Yachaufu. The members of the group at p. 47, from Lieutenant Garnier’s book, are there termed Man-tzŭ; but the context shows them to be of the race of these Lolos. (See below, [pp. 60, 61].) The passage about the musk animal, both in Pauthier and in the G. T., ascribes the word Gudderi to the language “of that people,” i.e. of the Tibetans. The Geog. Latin, however, has “linguâ Tartaricâ,” and this is the fact. Klaproth informs us that Guderi is the Mongol word. And it will be found (Kuderi) in Kovalevski’s Dictionary, No. 2594. Musk is still the most valuable article that goes from Ta-t’sien-lu to China. Much is smuggled, and single travellers will come all the way from Canton or Si-ngan fu to take back a small load of it. (Richthofen.)

[1] Indeed Richthofen says that the boundary lay a few (German) miles west of Yachau. I see that Martini’s map puts it (in the 17th century) 10 German geographical miles, or about 46 statute miles, west of that city.

CHAPTER XLVI.

Further Discourse concerning Tebet.

This province, called Tebet, is of very great extent. The people, as I have told you, have a language of their own, and they are Idolaters, and they border on Manzi and sundry other regions. Moreover, they are very great thieves.

The country is, in fact, so great that it embraces eight kingdoms, and a vast number of cities and villages.[{1}] It contains in several quarters rivers and lakes, in which gold-dust is found in great abundance.[{2}] Cinnamon also grows there in great plenty. Coral is in great demand in this country and fetches a high price, for they delight to hang it round the necks of their women and of their idols.[{3}] They have also in this country plenty of fine woollens and other stuffs, and many kinds of spices are produced there which are never seen in our country.

Among this people, too, you find the best enchanters and astrologers that exist in all that quarter of the world; they perform such extraordinary marvels and sorceries by diabolic art, that it astounds one to see or even hear of them. So I will relate none of them in this book of ours; people would be amazed if they heard them, but it would serve no good purpose.[{4}]

These people of Tebet are an ill-conditioned race. They have mastiff dogs as bigs as donkeys, which are capital at seizing wild beasts [and in particular the wild oxen which are called Beyamini, very great and fierce animals]. They have also sundry other kinds of sporting dogs, and excellent lanner falcons [and sakers], swift in flight and well-trained, which are got in the mountains of the country.[{5}]

Now I have told you in brief all that is to be said about Tebet, and so we will leave it, and tell you about another province that is called Caindu.

Village of Eastern Tibet on Sze-ch’wan Frontier. (From Cooper.)

As regards Tebet, however, you should understand that it is subject to the Great Kaan. So, likewise, all the other kingdoms, regions, and provinces which are described in this book are subject to the Great Kaan, nay, even those other kingdoms, regions, and provinces of which I had occasion to speak at the beginning of the book as belonging to the son of Argon, the Lord of the Levant, are also subject to the Emperor; for the former holds his dominion of the Kaan, and is his liegeman and kinsman of the blood Imperial. So you must know that from this province forward all the provinces mentioned in our book are subject to the Great Kaan; and even if this be not specially mentioned, you must understand that it is so.

Now let us have done with this matter, and I will tell you about the Province of Caindu.

Roads in Eastern Tibet. (Gorge of the Lan t’sang Kiang, from Cooper.)

[Note 1.]—Here Marco at least shows that he knew Tibet to be much more extensive than the small part of it that he had seen. But beyond this his information amounts to little.

[Note 2.]—“Or de paliolle.” “Oro di pagliuola” (pagliuola, “a spangle”) must have been the technical phrase for what we call gold-dust, and the French now call or en paillettes, a phrase used by a French missionary in speaking of this very region. (Ann. de la Foi, XXXVII. 427.) Yet the only example of this use of the word cited in the Voc. Ital. Universale is from this passage of the Crusca MS.; and Pipino seems not to have understood it, translating “aurum quod dicitur Deplaglola”; whilst Zurla says erroneously that pajola is an old Italian word for gold. Pegolotti uses argento in pagliuola (p. 219). A Barcelona tariff of 1271 sets so much on every mark of Pallola. And the old Portuguese navigators seem always to have used the same expression for the gold-dust of Africa, ouro de pajola. (See Major’s Prince Henry, pp. 111, 112, 116; Capmany Memorias, etc., II. App. p. 73; also “Aurum de Pajola,” in Usodimare of Genoa, see Gräberg, Annali, II. 290, quoted by Peschel, p. 178.)

[Note 3.]—The cinnamon must have been the coarser cassia produced in the lower parts of this region. (See note to next chapter.) We have already (Book I. ch. xxxi.) quoted Tavernier’s testimony to the rage for coral among the Tibetans and kindred peoples. Mr. Cooper notices the eager demand for coral at Bathang. (See also Desgodins, La Mission du Thibet, 310.)

[Note 4.]—See supra, Bk. I. ch. lxi. note 11.

[Note 5.]—The big Tibetan mastiffs are now well known. Mr. Cooper, at Ta-t’sien lu, notes that the people of Tibetan race “keep very large dogs, as large as Newfoundlands.” And he mentions a pack of dogs of another breed, tan and black, “fine animals of the size of setters.” The missionary M. Durand also, in a letter from the region in question, says, speaking of a large leopard: “Our brave watch-dogs had several times beaten him off gallantly, and one of them had even in single combat with him received a blow of the paw which had laid his skull open.” (Ann. de la Prop. de la Foi, XXXVII. 314.) On the title-page of vol. i. we have introduced one of these big Tibetan dogs as brought home by the Polos to Venice.

The “wild oxen called Beyamini” are probably some such species as the Gaur. Beyamini I suspect to be no Oriental word, but to stand for Buemini, i.e. Bohemian, a name which may have been given by the Venetians to either the bison or urus. Polo’s contemporary, Brunetto Latini, seems to speak of one of these as still existing in his day in Germany: “Autre buef naissent en Alemaigne qui ont grans cors, et sont bons por sommier et por vin porter.” (Paris ed., p. 228; see also Lubbock, Pre-historic Times, 296–7.)

[Mr. Baber (Travels, pp. 39, 40) writes: “A special interest attaches to the wild oxen, since they are unknown in any other part of China Proper. From a Lolo chief and his followers, most enthusiastic hunters, I afterwards learnt that the cattle are met with in herds of from seven to twenty head in the recesses of the Wilderness, which may be defined as the region between the T’ung River and Yachou, but that in general they are rarely seen.... I was lucky enough to obtain a pair of horns and part of the hide of one of these redoubtable animals, which seem to show that they are a kind of bison.” Sir H. Yule remarks in a footnote (Ibid. p. 40): “It is not possible to say from what is stated here what the species is, but probably it is a gavœus, of which Jerdan describes three species. (See Mammals of India, pp. 301–307.) Mr. Hodgson describes the Gaur (Gavœus gaurus of Jerdan) of the forests below Nepaul as fierce and revengeful.”—H. C.]

CHAPTER XLVII.

Concerning the Province of Caindu.

Caindu is a province lying towards the west,[{1}] and there is only one king in it. The people are Idolaters, subject to the Great Kaan, and they have plenty of towns and villages. [The chief city is also called Caindu, and stands at the upper end of the province.] There is a lake here,[1] in which are found pearls [which are white but not round]. But the Great Kaan will not allow them to be fished, for if people were to take as many as they could find there, the supply would be so vast that pearls would lose their value, and come to be worth nothing. Only when it is his pleasure they take from the lake so many as he may desire; but any one attempting to take them on his own account would be incontinently put to death.

There is also a mountain in this country wherein they find a kind of stone called turquoise, in great abundance; and it is a very beautiful stone. These also the Emperor does not allow to be extracted without his special order.[{2}]

I must tell you of a custom that they have in this country regarding their women. No man considers himself wronged if a foreigner, or any other man, dishonour his wife, or daughter, or sister, or any woman of his family, but on the contrary he deems such intercourse a piece of good fortune. And they say that it brings the favour of their gods and idols, and great increase of temporal prosperity. For this reason they bestow their wives on foreigners and other people as I will tell you.

When they fall in with any stranger in want of a lodging they are all eager to take him in. And as soon as he has taken up his quarters the master of the house goes forth, telling him to consider everything at his disposal, and after saying so he proceeds to his vineyards or his fields, and comes back no more till the stranger has departed. The latter abides in the caitiff’s house, be it three days or be it four, enjoying himself with the fellow’s wife or daughter or sister, or whatsoever woman of the family it best likes him; and as long as he abides there he leaves his hat or some other token hanging at the door, to let the master of the house know that he is still there. As long as the wretched fellow sees that token, he must not go in. And such is the custom over all that province.[{3}]

The money matters of the people are conducted in this way. They have gold in rods which they weigh, and they reckon its value by its weight in saggi, but they have no coined money. Their small change again is made in this way. They have salt which they boil and set in a mould [flat below and round above],[{4}] and every piece from the mould weighs about half a pound. Now, 80 moulds of this salt are worth one saggio of fine gold, which is a weight so called. So this salt serves them for small change.[{5}]

The Valley of the Kin-Sha Kiang, near the lower end of Caindu, i.e. Kienchang. (From Garnier.)

“Et quant l’en est alés ceste dix jornée adonc treuve-l’en un grant flun qe est apéle Brius, auquel se fenist la provence de Cheindu.”

The musk animals are very abundant in that country, and thus of musk also they have great store. They have likewise plenty of fish which they catch in the lake in which the pearls are produced. Wild animals, such as lions, bears, wolves, stags, bucks and roes, exist in great numbers; and there are also vast quantities of fowl of every kind. Wine of the vine they have none, but they make a wine of wheat and rice and sundry good spices, and very good drink it is.[{6}] There grows also in this country a quantity of clove. The tree that bears it is a small one, with leaves like laurel but longer and narrower, and with a small white flower like the clove.[{7}] They have also ginger and cinnamon in great plenty, besides other spices which never reach our countries, so we need say nothing about them.

Now we may leave this province, as we have told you all about it. But let me tell you first of this same country of Caindu that you ride through it ten days, constantly meeting with towns and villages, with people of the same description that I have mentioned. After riding those ten days you come to a river called Brius, which terminates the province of Caindu. In this river is found much gold-dust, and there is also much cinnamon on its banks. It flows to the Ocean Sea.

There is no more to be said about this river, so I will now tell you about another province called Carajan, as you shall hear in what follows.

[Note 1.]—Ramusio’s version here enlarges: “Don’t suppose from my saying towards the west that these countries really lie in what we call the west, but only that we have been travelling from regions in the east-north-east towards the west, and hence we speak of the countries we come to as lying towards the west.”

[Note 2.]—Chinese authorities quoted by Ritter mention mother-o’-pearl as a product of Lithang, and speak of turquoises as found in Djaya to the west of Bathang. (Ritter, IV. 235–236.) Neither of these places is, however, within the tract which we believe to be Caindu. Amyot states that pearls are found in a certain river of Yun-nan. (See Trans. R. A. Soc. II. 91.)

[Note 3.]—This alleged practice, like that mentioned in the last chapter but one, is ascribed to a variety of people in different parts of the world. Both, indeed, have a curious double parallel in the story of two remote districts of the Himalaya which was told to Bernier by an old Kashmiri. (See Amst. ed. II. 304–305.) Polo has told nearly the same story already of the people of Kamul. (Bk. I. ch. xli.) It is related by Strabo of the Massagetæ; by Eusebius of the Geli and the Bactrians; by Elphinstone of the Hazaras; by Mendoza of the Ladrone Islanders; by other authors of the Nairs of Malabar, and of some of the aborigines of the Canary Islands. (Caubul, I. 209; Mendoza, II. 254; Müller’s Strabo, p. 439; Euseb. Praep. Evan. vi. 10; Major’s Pr. Henry, p. 213.)

[Note 4.]—Ramusio has here: “as big as a twopenny loaf,” and adds, “on the money so made the Prince’s mark is printed; and no one is allowed to make it except the royal officers.... And merchants take this currency and go to those tribes that dwell among the mountains of those parts in the wildest and most unfrequented quarters; and there they get a saggio of gold for 60, or 50, or 40 pieces of this salt money, in proportion as the natives are more barbarous and more remote from towns and civilised folk. For in such positions they cannot dispose at pleasure of their gold and other things, such as musk and the like, for want of purchasers; and so they give them cheap.... And the merchants travel also about the mountains and districts of Tebet, disposing of this salt money in like manner to their own great gain. For those people, besides buying necessaries from the merchants, want this salt to use in their food; whilst in the towns only broken fragments are used in food, the whole cakes being kept to use as money.” This exchange of salt cakes for gold forms a curious parallel to the like exchange in the heart of Africa, narrated by Cosmas in the 6th century, and by Aloisio Cadamosto in the 15th. (See Cathay, pp. clxx–clxxi.) Ritter also calls attention to an analogous account in Alvarez’s description of Ethiopia. “The salt,” Alvarez says, “is current as money, not only in the kingdom of Prester John, but also in those of the Moors and the pagans, and the people here say that it passes right on to Manicongo upon the Western Sea. This salt is dug from the mountain, it is said, in squared blocks.... At the place where they are dug, 100 or 120 such pieces pass for a drachm of gold ... equal to ¾ of a ducat of gold. When they arrive at a certain fair ... one day from the salt mine, these go 5 or 6 pieces fewer to the drachm. And so, from fair to fair, fewer and fewer, so that when they arrive at the capital there will be only 6 or 7 pieces to the drachm.” (Ramusio, I. 207.) Lieutenant Bower, in his account of Major Sladen’s mission, says that at Momein the salt, which was a government monopoly, was “made up in rolls of one and two viss” (a Rangoon viss is 3 lbs. 5 oz. 5½ drs.), “and stamped” (p. 120).

[At Hsia-Kuan, near Ta-li, Captain Gill remarked to a friend (II. p. 312) “that the salt, instead of being in the usual great flat cakes about two or two and a half feet in diameter, was made in cylinders eight inches in diameter and nine inches high. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘they make them here in a sort of loaves,’ unconsciously using almost the words of old Polo, who said the salt in Yun-Nan was in pieces ‘as big as a twopenny loaf.’” (See also p. 334.)—H. C.]

M. Desgodins, a missionary in this part of Tibet, gives some curious details of the way in which the civilised traders still prey upon the simple hill-folks of that quarter; exactly as the Hindu Banyas prey upon the simple forest-tribes of India. He states one case in which the account for a pig had with interest run up to 2127 bushels of corn! (Ann. de la Prop. de la Foi, XXXVI. 320.)

Gold is said still to be very plentiful in the mountains called Gulan Sigong, to the N.W. of Yun-nan, adjoining the great eastern branch of the Irawadi, and the Chinese traders go there to barter for it. (See J. A. S. B. VI. 272.)

[Note 5.]—Salt is still an object highly coveted by the wild Lolos already alluded to, and to steal it is a chief aim of their constant raids on Chinese villages. (Richthofen in Verhandlungen, etc., u.s. p. 36.) On the continued existence of the use of salt currency in regions of the same frontier, I have been favoured with the following note by M. Francis Garnier, the distinguished leader of the expedition of the great Kamboja River in its latter part: “Salt currency has a very wide diffusion from Muang Yong [in the Burman-Shan country, about lat. 21° 43′] to Sheu-pin [in Yun-nan, about lat. 23° 43′]. In the Shan markets, especially within the limits named, all purchases are made with salt. At Sse-mao and Pou-erl [Esmok and Puer of some of our maps], silver, weighed and cut in small pieces, is in our day tending to drive out the custom, but in former days it must have been universal in the tract of which I am speaking. The salt itself, prime necessity as it is, has there to be extracted by condensation from saline springs of great depth, a very difficult affair. The operation consumes enormous quantities of fuel, and to this is partly due the denudation of the country”. Marco’s somewhat rude description of the process, “Il prennent la sel e la font cuire, et puis la gitent en forme,” points to the manufacture spoken of in this note. The cut which we give from M. Garnier’s work illustrates the process, but the cakes are vastly greater than Marco’s. Instead of a half pound they weigh a picul, i.e. 133⅓ lbs. In Sze-ch’wan the brine wells are bored to a depth of 700 to 1000 feet, and the brine is drawn up in bamboo tubes by a gin. In Yun-nan the wells are much less deep, and a succession of hand pumps is used to raise the brine.

Salt pans in Yun-nan. (From Garnier.)

“Il prennent la sel e la font cuire, et puis la gitent en forme.”

[Mr. Hosie has a chapter (Three Years in W. China, VII.) to which he has given the title of Through Caindu to Carajan; regarding salt he writes (p. 121): “The brine wells from which the salt is derived lie at Pai yen ching, 14 miles to the south-west of the city [of Yen-yuan] ... [they] are only two in number, and comparatively shallow, being only 50 feet in depth. Bamboo tubes, ropes and buffaloes are here dispensed with, and small wooden tubs, with bamboos fixed to their sides as handles for raising, are considered sufficient. At one of the wells a staging was erected half-way down, and from it the tubs of brine were passed up to the workmen above. Passing from the wells to the evaporating sheds, we found a series of mud furnaces with round holes at the top, into which cone-shaped pans, manufactured from iron obtained in the neighbourhood, and varying in height from one to two and a half feet, were loosely fitted. When a pan has been sufficiently heated, a ladleful of the brine is poured into it, and, bubbling up to the surface, it sinks, leaving a saline deposit on the inside of the pan. This process is repeated until a layer, some four inches thick, and corresponding to the shape of the pan, is formed, when the salt is removed as a hollow cone ready for market. Care must be taken to keep the bottom of the pan moist; otherwise, the salt cone would crack, and be rendered unfit for the rough carriage which it experiences on the backs of pack animals. A soft coal, which is found just under the surface of the yellow-soiled hills seven miles to the west of Pai-yen-ching, is the fuel used in the furnaces. The total daily output of salt at these wells does not exceed two tons a day, and the cost at the wells, including the Government tax, amounts to about three half-pence a pound. The area of supply, owing to the country being sparsely populated, is greater than the output would lead one to expect.”—H. C.]

[Note 6.]—The spiced wine of Kien-ch’ang (see note to next chapter) has even now a high repute. (Richthofen.)

[Note 7.]—M. Pauthier will have it that Marco was here the discoverer of Assam tea. Assam is, indeed, far out of our range, but his notice of this plant, with the laurel-like leaf and white flower, was brought strongly to my recollection in reading Mr. Cooper’s repeated notices, almost in this region, of the large-leaved tea-tree, with its white flowers; and, again, of “the hills covered with tea-oil trees, all white with flowers.” Still, one does not clearly see why Polo should give tea-trees the name of cloves.

Failing explanation of this, I should suppose that the cloves of which the text speaks were cassia-buds, an article once more prominent in commerce (as indeed were all similar aromatics) than now, but still tolerably well known. I was at once supplied with them at a drogheria, in the city where I write (Palermo), on asking for Fiori di Canella, the name under which they are mentioned repeatedly by Pegolotti and Uzzano, in the 14th and 15th centuries. Friar Jordanus, in speaking of the cinnamon (or cassia) of Malabar, says, “it is the bark of a large tree which has fruit and flowers like cloves” (p. 28). The cassia-buds have indeed a general resemblance to cloves, but they are shorter, lighter in colour, and not angular. The cinnamon, mentioned in the next lines as abundantly produced in the same region, was no doubt one of the inferior sorts, called cassia-bark.

Williams says: “Cassia grows in all the southern provinces of China, especially Kwang-si and Yun-nan, also in Annam, Japan, and the Isles of the Archipelago. The wood, bark, buds, seeds, twigs, pods, leaves, oil, are all objects of commerce.... The buds (kwei-tz’) are the fleshy ovaries of the seeds; they are pressed at one end, so that they bear some resemblance to cloves in shape.” Upwards of 500 piculs (about 30 tons), valued at 30 dollars each, are annually exported to Europe and India. (Chin. Commercial Guide, 113–114).

The only doubt as regards this explanation will probably be whether the cassia would be found at such a height as we may suppose to be that of the country in question above the sea-level. I know that cassia bark is gathered in the Kasia Hills of Eastern Bengal up to a height of about 4000 feet above the sea, and at least the valleys of “Caindu” are probably not too elevated for this product. Indeed, that of the Kin-sha or Brius, near where I suppose Polo to cross it, is only 2600 feet. Positive evidence I cannot adduce. No cassia or cinnamon was met with by M. Garnier’s party where they intersected this region.

But in this 2nd edition I am able to state on the authority of Baron Richthofen that cassia is produced in the whole length of the valley of Kien-ch’ang (which is, as we shall see in the notes on next chapter, Caindu), though in no other part of Sze-ch’wan nor in Northern Yun-nan.

[Captain Gill (River of Golden Sand, II. p. 263) writes: “There were chestnut trees ...; and the Kwei-Hua, a tree ‘with leaves like the laurel, and with a small white flower, like the clove,’ having a delicious, though rather a luscious smell. This was the Cassia, and I can find no words more suitable to describe it than those of Polo which I have just used.”—H. C.]

Ethnology.—The Chinese at Ch’êng-tu fu, according to Richthofen, classify the aborigines of the Sze-ch’wan frontier as Man-tzŭ, Lolo, Si-fan, and Tibetan. Of these the Si-fan are furthest north, and extend far into Tibet. The Man-tzŭ (properly so called) are regarded as the remnant of the ancient occupants of Sze-ch’wan, and now dwell in the mountains about the parallel 30°, and along the Lhása road, Ta-t’sien lu being about the centre of their tract. The Lolo are the wildest and most independent, occupying the mountains on the left of the Kin-sha Kiang where it runs northwards (see above [p. 48], and below [p. 69]) and also to some extent on its right. The Tibetan tribes lie to the west of the Man-tzŭ, and to the west of Kien-ch’ang. (See next chapter.)

Towards the Lan-ts’ang Kiang is the quasi-Tibetan tribe called by the Chinese Mossos, by the Tibetans Guions, and between the Lan-ts’ang and the Lú-Kiang or Salwen are the Lissús, wild hill-robbers and great musk hunters, like those described by Polo at [p. 45]. Garnier, who gives these latter particulars, mentions that near the confluence of the Yalung and Kin-sha Kiang there are tribes called Pa-i, as there are in the south of Yun-nan, and, like the latter, of distinctly Shan or Laotian character. He also speaks of Si-fan tribes in the vicinity of Li-kiang fu, and coming south of the Kin-sha Kiang even to the east of Ta-li. Of these are told such loose tales as Polo tells of Tebet and Caindu.

[In the Topography of the Yun-nan Province (edition of 1836) there is a catalogue of 141 classes of aborigines, each with a separate name and illustration, without any attempt to arrive at a broader classification. Mr. Bourne has been led to the conviction that exclusive of the Tibetans (including Si-fan and Ku-tsung), there are but three great non-Chinese races in Southern China: the Lolo, the Shan, and the Miao-tzŭ. (Report, China, No. 1, 1888, p. 87.) This classification is adopted by Dr. Deblenne. (Mission Lyonnaise.)

Man-tzŭ, Man, is a general name for “barbarian” (see my note in Odoric de Pordenone, p. 248 seqq.); it is applied as well to the Lolo as to the Si-fan.

Mr. Parker remarks (China Review, XX. p. 345) that the epithet of Man-tzŭ, or “barbarians,” dates from the time when the Shans, Annamese, Miao-tzŭ, etc., occupied nearly all South China, for it is essentially to the Indo-Chinese that the term Man-tzŭ belongs.

Mr. Hosie writes (Three years in W. China, 122): “At the time when Marco Polo passed through Caindu, this country was in the possession of the Si-fans.... At the present day, they occupy the country to the west, and are known under the generic name of Man-tzŭ.”

“It has already been remarked that Si-fan, convertible with Man-tzŭ, is a loose Chinese expression of no ethnological value, meaning nothing more than Western barbarians; but in a more restricted sense it is used to designate a people (or peoples) which inhabits the valley of the Yalung and the upper T’ung, with contiguous valleys and ranges, from about the twenty-seventh parallel to the borders of Koko-nor. This people is sub-divided into eighteen tribes.” (Baber, p. 81.)

Si-fan or Pa-tsiu is the name by which the Chinese call the Tibetan tribes which occupy part of Western China. (Devéria, p. 167.)

Black Lolo.

Dr. Bretschneider writes (Med. Res. II. p. 24): “The north-eastern part of Tibet was sometimes designated by the Chinese name Si-fan, and Hyacinth [Bitchurin] is of opinion that in ancient times this name was even applied to the whole of Tibet. Si-fan means, ‘Western Barbarians.’ The biographer of Hiuen-Tsang reports that when this traveller, in 629, visited Liang-chau (in the province of Kan-Suh), this city was the entrepôt for merchants from Si-fan and the countries east of the Ts’ung-ling mountains. In the history of the Hia and Tangut Empire (in the Sung-shi) we read, s. a. 1003, that the founder of this Empire invaded Si-fan and then proceeded to Si-liang (Liang-chau). The Yuen-shi reports, s. a. 1268: ‘The (Mongol) Emperor ordered Meng-gu-dai to invade Si-fan with 6000 men.’ The name Si-fan appears also in ch. ccii., biography of Dan-ba.” It is stated in the Ming-shi, “that the name Si-fan is applied to the territory situated beyond the frontiers of the Chinese provinces of Shen-si (then including the eastern part of present Kan-Suh) and Sze-ch’wan, and inhabited by various tribes of Tangut race, anciently known in Chinese history under the name of Si Kiang.... The Kuang yu ki notices that Si-fan comprises the territory of the south-west of Shen-si, west of Sze-ch’wan and north-west of Yun-nan.... The tribute presented by the Si-fan tribes to the Emperor used to be carried to the court at Peking by way of Ya-chau in Sze-ch’wan.” (Bretschneider, 203.) The Tangutans of Prjevalsky, north-east of Tibet, in the country of Ku-ku nor, correspond to the Si-fan.

“The Ta-tu River may be looked upon as the southern limit of the region inhabited by Sifan tribes, and the northern boundary of the Lolo country which stretches southwards to the Yang-tzŭ and east from the valley of Kien-ch’ang towards the right bank of the Min.” (Hosie, p. 102.)

To Mr. E. C. Baber we owe the most valuable information regarding the Lolo people:

“‘Lolo’ is itself a word of insult, of unknown Chinese origin, which should not be used in their presence, although they excuse it and will even sometimes employ it in the case of ignorant strangers. In the report of Governor-General Lo Ping-chang, above quoted, they are called ‘I,’ the term applied by Chinese to Europeans. They themselves have no objection to being styled ‘I-chia’ (I families), but that word is not their native name. Near Ma-pien they call themselves ‘Lo-su’; in the neighbourhood of Lui-po T’ing their name is ‘No-su’ or ‘Ngo-su’ (possibly a mere variant of ‘Lo-su’); near Hui-li-chou the term is ‘Lé-su’—the syllable Lé being pronounced as in French. The subject tribes on the T’ung River, near Mount Wa, also name themselves ‘Ngo-su.’ I have found the latter people speak very disrespectfully of the Lé-su, which argues an internal distinction; but there can be no doubt that they are the same race, and speak the same language, though with minor differences of dialect.” (Baber, Travels, 66–67.)

“With very rare exceptions the male Lolo, rich or poor, free or subject, may be instantly known by his horn. All his hair is gathered into a knot over his forehead and there twisted up in a cotton cloth so as to resemble the horn of a unicorn. The horn with its wrapper is sometimes a good nine inches long. They consider this coiffure sacred, so at least I was told, and even those who wear a short pig-tail for convenience in entering Chinese territory still conserve the indigenous horn, concealed for the occasion under the folds of the Sze-ch’wan turban.” (Baber, p. 61.) See these horns on figures, Bk. II. ch. lviii.

White Lolo.

“The principal clothing of a Lolo is his mantle, a capacious sleeveless garment of grey or black felt gathered round his neck by a string, and reaching nearly to his heels. In the case of the better classes the mantle is of fine felt—in great request among the Chinese—and has a fringe of cotton-web round its lower border. For journeys on horseback they have a similar cloak differing only in being slit half-way up the back; a wide lappet covering the opening lies easily along the loins and croup of the horse. The colour of the felt is originally grey, but becomes brown-black or black, in process of time. It is said that the insects which haunt humanity never infest these gabardines. The Lolo generally gathers this garment closely round his shoulders and crosses his arms inside. His legs, clothed in trousers of Chinese cotton, are swathed in felt bandages bound on with strings, and he has not yet been super-civilised into the use of foot-gear. In summer a cotton cloak is often substituted for the felt mantle. The hat, serving equally for an umbrella, is woven of bamboo, in a low conical shape, and is covered with felt. Crouching in his felt mantle under this roof of felt the hardy Lolo is impervious to wind or rain.” (Baber, Travels, 61–62.)

“The word, ‘Black-bone,’ is generally used by the Chinese as a name for the independent Lolos, but in the mouth of a Lolo it seems to mean a ‘freeman’ or ‘noble,’ in which sense it is not a whit more absurd than the ‘blue-blood,’ of Europeans. The ‘White-bones,’ an inferior class, but still Lolo by birth, are, so far as I could understand, the vassals and retainers of the patricians—the people, in fact. A third class consists of Wa-tzŭ, or slaves, who are all captive Chinese. It does not appear whether the servile class is sub-divided, but, at any rate, the slaves born in Lolodom are treated with more consideration than those who have been captured in slave-hunts.” (Baber, Travels, 67.)

According to the French missionary, Paul Vial (Les Lolos, Shang-hai, 1898) the Lolos say that they come from the country situated between Tibet and Burma. The proper manner to address a Lolo in Chinese is Lao-pen-kia. The book of Father Vial contains a very valuable chapter on the writing of the Lolos. Mr. F. S. A. Bourne writes (Report, China, No. I. 1888, p. 88):—“The old Chinese name for this race was ‘Ts’uan Man’— ‘Ts’uan barbarians,’ a name taken from one of their chiefs. The Yun-nan Topography says:—‘The name of “Ts’uan Man” is a very ancient one, and originally the tribes of Ts’uan were very numerous. There was that called “Lu-lu Man,” for instance, now improperly called “Lo-Lo.”’ These people call themselves ‘Nersu,’ and the vocabularies show that they stretch in scattered communities as far as Ssŭ-mao and along the whole southern border of Yun-nan. It appears from the Topography that they are found also on the Burmese border.”

The Moso call themselves Nashi and are called Djiung by the Tibetans; their ancient capital is Li-kiang fu which was taken by their chief Mong-ts’u under the Sung Dynasty; the Mongols made of their country the kingdom of Chaghan-djang. Li-kiang is the territory of Yuê-si Chao, called also Mo-sie (Moso), one of the six Chao of Nan-Chao. The Moso of Li-kiang call themselves Ho. They have an epic styled Djiung-Ling (Moso Division) recounting the invasion of part of Tibet by the Moso. The Moso were submitted during the 8th century, by the King of Nan-Chao. They have a special hieroglyphic scrip, a specimen of which has been given by Devéria. (Frontière, p. 166.) A manuscript was secured by Captain Gill, on the frontier east of Li-t’ang, and presented by him to the British Museum (Add. MSS. Or. 2162); T. de Lacouperie gave a facsimile of it. (Plates I., II. of Beginnings of Writing.) Prince Henri d’Orléans and M. Bonin both brought home a Moso manuscript with a Chinese explanation.

Dr. Anderson (Exped. to Yunnan, Calcutta, p. 136) says the Li-sus, or Lissaus are “a small hill-people, with fair, round, flat faces, high cheek bones, and some little obliquity of the eye.” These Li-su or Li-siè, are scattered throughout the Yunnanese prefectures of Yao-ngan, Li-kiang, Ta-li and Yung-ch’ang; they were already in Yun-Nan in the 4th century when the Chinese general Ch’u Chouang-kiao entered the country. (Devéria, Front., p. 164.)

The Pa-y or P’o-y formed under the Han Dynasty the principality of P’o-tsiu and under the T’ang Dynasty the tribes of Pu-hiung and of Si-ngo, which were among the thirty-seven tribes dependent on the ancient state of Nan-Chao and occupied the territory of the sub-prefectures of Kiang-Chuen (Ch’êng-kiang fu) and of Si-ngo (Lin-ngan fu). They submitted to China at the beginning of the Yuen Dynasty; their country bordered upon Burma (Mien-tien) and Ch’ê-li or Kiang-Hung (Xieng-Hung), in Yun-Nan, on the right bank of the Mekong River. According to Chinese tradition, the Pa-y descended from Muong Tsiu-ch’u, ninth son of Ti Muong-tsiu, son of Piao-tsiu-ti (Asôka). Devéria gives (p. 105) a specimen of the Pa-y writing (16th century). (Devéria, Front., 99, 117; Bourne, Report, p. 88.) Chapter iv. of the Chinese work, Sze-i-kwan-k’ao, is devoted to the Pa-y, including the sub-divisions of Muong-Yang, Muong-Ting, Nan-tien, Tsien-ngaï, Lung-chuen, Wei-yuan, Wan-tien, Chen-k’ang, Ta-how, Mang-shi, Kin-tung, Ho-tsin, Cho-lo tien. (Devéria, Mél. de Harlez, p. 97.) I give a specimen of Pa-yi writing from a Chinese work purchased by Father Amiot at Peking, now in the Paris National Library (Fonds chinois, No. 986). (See on this scrip, F. W. K. Müller, T’oung-Pao, III. p. 1, and V. p. 329; E. H. Parker, The Muong Language, China Review, I. 1891, p. 267; P. Lefèvre-Pontalis, Etudes sur quelques alphabets et vocab. Thais, T’oung Pao, III. pp. 39–64.)—H. C.]

These ethnological matters have to be handled cautiously, for there is great ambiguity in the nomenclature. Thus Man-tzŭ is often used generically for aborigines, and the Lolos of Richthofen are called Man-tzŭ by Garnier and Blakiston; whilst Lolo again has in Yun-nan apparently a very comprehensive generic meaning, and is so used by Garnier. (Richt. Letter VII. 67–68 and MS. notes; Garnier, I. 519 seqq. [T. W. Kingsmill, Han Wu-ti, China Review, XXV. 103–109.])

[1] Ramusio alone has “a great salt lake.”

CHAPTER XLVIII.

Concerning the Province of Carajan.

When you have passed that River you enter on the province of Carajan, which is so large that it includes seven kingdoms. It lies towards the west; the people are Idolaters, and they are subject to the Great Kaan. A son of his, however, is there as King of the country, by name Essentimur; a very great and rich and puissant Prince; and he well and justly rules his dominion, for he is a wise man, and a valiant.

After leaving the river that I spoke of, you go five days’ journey towards the west, meeting with numerous towns and villages. The country is one in which excellent horses are bred, and the people live by cattle and agriculture. They have a language of their own which is passing hard to understand. At the end of those five days’ journey you come to the capital, which is called Yachi, a very great and noble city, in which are numerous merchants and craftsmen.[{1}]

Pa-y script.

The people are of sundry kinds, for there are not only Saracens and Idolaters, but also a few Nestorian Christians.[{2}] They have wheat and rice in plenty. Howbeit they never eat wheaten bread, because in that country it is unwholesome.[{3}] Rice they eat, and make of it sundry messes, besides a kind of drink which is very clear and good, and makes a man drunk just as wine does.

Their money is such as I will tell you. They use for the purpose certain white porcelain shells that are found in the sea, such as are sometimes put on dogs’ collars; and 80 of these porcelain shells pass for a single weight of silver, equivalent to two Venice groats, i.e. 24 piccoli. Also eight such weights of silver count equal to one such weight of gold.[{4}]

They have brine-wells in this country from which they make salt, and all the people of those parts make a living by this salt. The King, too, I can assure you, gets a great revenue from this salt.[{5}]

There is a lake in this country of a good hundred miles in compass, in which are found great quantities of the best fish in the world; fish of great size, and of all sorts.

They reckon it no matter for a man to have intimacy with another’s wife, provided the woman be willing.

Let me tell you also that the people of that country eat their meat raw, whether it be of mutton, beef, buffalo, poultry, or any other kind. Thus the poor people will go to the shambles, and take the raw liver as it comes from the carcase and cut it small, and put it in a sauce of garlic and spices, and so eat it; and other meat in like manner, raw, just as we eat meat that is dressed.[{6}]

Now I will tell you about a further part of the Province of Carajan, of which I have been speaking.

[Note 1.]—We have now arrived at the great province of Carajan, the Karájáng of the Mongols, which we know to be Yun-nan, and at its capital Yachi, which—I was about to add—we know to be Yun-nan-fu. But I find all the commentators make it something else. Rashiduddin, however, in his detail of the twelve Sings or provincial governments of China under the Mongols, thus speaks: “10th, Karájáng. This used to be an independent kingdom, and the Sing is established at the great city of Yáchi. All the inhabitants are Mahomedans. The chiefs are Noyan Takin, and Yaḳub Beg, son of ’Ali Beg, the Belúch.” And turning to Pauthier’s corrected account of the same distribution of the empire from authentic Chinese sources (p. 334), we find: “8. The administrative province of Yun-nan.... Its capital, chief town also of the canton of the same name, was called Chung-khing, now Yun-nan-fu.” Hence Yachi was Yun-nan-fu. This is still a large city, having a rectangular rampart with 6 gates, and a circuit of about 6½ miles. The suburbs were destroyed by the Mahomedan rebels. The most important trade there now is in the metallic produce of the Province. [According to Oxenham, Historical Atlas, there were ten provinces or sheng (Liao-yang, Chung-shu, Shen-si, Ho-nan, Sze-ch’wan, Yun-nan, Hu-kwang, Kiang-che, Kiang-si and Kan-suh) and twelve military governorships.—H. C.]

Yachi was perhaps an ancient corruption of the name Yichau, which the territory bore (according to Martini and Biot) under the Han; but more probably Yichau was a Chinese transformation of the real name Yachi. The Shans still call the city Muang Chi, which is perhaps another modification of the same name.

We have thus got Ch’êng-tu fu as one fixed point, and Yun-nan-fu as another, and we have to track the traveller’s itinerary between the two, through what Ritter called with reason a terra incognita. What little was known till recently of this region came from the Catholic missionaries. Of late the veil has begun to be lifted; the daring excursion of Francis Garnier and his party in 1868 intersected the tract towards the south; Mr. T. T. Cooper crossed it further north, by Ta-t’sien lu, Lithang and Bathang; Baron v. Richthofen in 1872 had penetrated several marches towards the heart of the mystery, when an unfortunate mishap compelled his return, but he brought back with him much precious information.

Five days forward from Ch’êng-tu fu brought us on Tibetan ground. Five days backward from Yun-nan fu should bring us to the river Brius, with its gold-dust and the frontier of Caindu. Wanting a local scale for a distance of five days, I find that our next point in advance, Marco’s city of Carajan undisputably Tali-fu, is said by him to be ten days from Yachi. The direct distance between the cities of Yun-nan and Ta-li I find by measurement on Keith Johnston’s map to be 133 Italian miles. [The distance by road is 215 English miles. (See Baber, p. 191.)—H. C.] Taking half this as radius, the compasses swept from Yun-nan-fu as centre, intersect near its most southerly elbow the great upper branch of the Kiang, the Kin-sha Kiang of the Chinese, or “River of the Golden Sands,” the Murus Ussu and Brichu of the Mongols and Tibetans, and manifestly the auriferous Brius of our traveller.[1] Hence also the country north of this elbow is Caindu.

Garden-House on the Lake at Yun-nan-fu, Yachi of Polo. (From Garnier.)

“Je voz di q’il ont un lac qe gire environ bien cent miles.”

I leave the preceding paragraph as it stood in the first edition, because it shows how near the true position of Caindu these unaided deductions from our author’s data had carried me. That paragraph was followed by an erroneous hypothesis as to the intermediate part of that journey, but, thanks to the new light shed by Baron Richthofen, we are enabled now to lay down the whole itinerary from Ch’êng-tu fu to Yun-nan fu with confidence in its accuracy.

The Kin-sha Kiang or Upper course of the Great Yang-tzŭ, descending from Tibet to Yun-nan, forms the great bight or elbow to which allusion has just been made, and which has been a feature known to geographers ever since the publication of D’Anville’s atlas. The tract enclosed in this elbow is cut in two by another great Tibetan River, the Yarlung, or Yalung-Kiang, which joins the Kin-sha not far from the middle of the great bight; and this Yalung, just before the confluence, receives on the left a stream of inferior calibre, the Ngan-ning Ho, which also flows in a valley parallel to the meridian, like all that singular fascis of great rivers between Assam and Sze-ch’wan.

This River Ngan-ning waters a valley called Kien-ch’ang, containing near its northern end a city known by the same name, but in our modern maps marked as Ning-yuan fu; this last being the name of a department of which it is the capital, and which embraces much more than the valley of Kien-ch’ang. The town appears, however, as Kien-ch’ang in the Atlas Sinensis of Martini, and as Kienchang-ouei in D’Anville. This remarkable valley, imbedded as it were in a wilderness of rugged highlands and wild races, accessible only by two or three long and difficult routes, rejoices in a warm climate, a most productive soil, scenery that seems to excite enthusiasm even in Chinamen, and a population noted for amiable temper. Towns and villages are numerous. The people are said to be descended from Chinese immigrants, but their features have little of the Chinese type, and they have probably a large infusion of aboriginal blood. [Kien-ch’ang, “otherwise the Prefecture of Ning-yuan, is perhaps the least known of the Eighteen Provinces,” writes Mr. Baber. (Travels, p. 58.) “Two or three sentences in the book of Ser Marco, to the effect that after crossing high mountains, he reached a fertile country containing many towns and villages, and inhabited by a very immoral population, constitute to this day the only description we possess of Cain-du, as he calls the district.” Baber adds (p. 82): “Although the main valley of Kien-ch’ang is now principally inhabited by Chinese, yet the Sifan or Menia people are frequently met with, and most of the villages possess two names, one Chinese, and the other indigenous. Probably in Marco Polo’s time a Menia population predominated, and the valley was regarded as part of Menia. If Marco had heard that name, he would certainly have recorded it; but it is not one which is likely to reach the ears of a stranger. The Chinese people and officials never employ it, but use in its stead an alternative name, Chan-tu or Chan-tui, of precisely the same application, which I make bold to offer as the original of Marco’s Caindu, or preferably Ciandu.”—H. C.]

This valley is bounded on the east by the mountain country of the Lolos, which extends north nearly to Yachau (supra, pp. [45], [48], [60]), and which, owing to the fierce intractable character of the race, forms throughout its whole length an impenetrable barrier between East and West. [The Rev. Gray Owen, of Ch’êng-tu, wrote (Jour. China B. R. A. S. xxviii. 1893–1894, p. 59): “The only great trade route infested by brigands is that from Ya-chau to Ning-yuan fu, where Lo-lo brigands are numerous, especially in the autumn. Last year I heard of a convoy of 18 mules with Shen-si goods on the above-mentioned road captured by these brigands, muleteers and all taken inside the Lo-lo country. It is very seldom that captives get out of Lo-lo-dom, because the ransom asked is too high, and the Chinese officials are not gallant enough to buy out their unfortunate countrymen. The Lo-los hold thousands of Chinese in slavery; and more are added yearly to the number.”—H. C.] Two routes run from Ch’êng-tu fu to Yun-nan; these fork at Ya-chau and thenceforward are entirely separated by this barrier. To the east of it is the route which descends the Min River to Siu-chau, and then passes by Chao-tong and Tong-chuan to Yun-nan fu: to the west of the barrier is a route leading through Kien-ch’ang to Ta-li fu, but throwing off a branch from Ning-yuan southward in the direction of Yun-nan fu.

This road from Ch’êng-tu fu to Ta-li by Ya-chau and Ning-yuan appears to be that by which the greater part of the goods for Bhamó and Ava used to travel before the recent Mahomedan rebellion; it is almost certainly the road by which Kúblái, in 1253, during the reign of his brother Mangku Kaan, advanced to the conquest of Ta-li, then the head of an independent kingdom in Western Yun-nan. As far as Ts’ing-k’i hien, 3 marches beyond Ya-chau, this route coincides with the great Tibet road by Ta-t’sien lu and Bathang to L’hása, and then it diverges to the left.

We may now say without hesitation that by this road Marco travelled. His Tibet commences with the mountain region near Ya-chau; his 20 days’ journey through a devastated and dispeopled tract is the journey to Ning-yuan fu. Even now, from Ts’ing-k’i onwards for several days, not a single inhabited place is seen. The official route from Ya-chau to Ning-yuan lays down 13 stages, but it generally takes from 15 to 18 days. Polo, whose journeys seem often to have been shorter than the modern average,[2] took 20. On descending from the highlands he comes once more into a populated region, and enters the charming Valley of Kien-ch’ang. This valley, with its capital near the upper extremity, its numerous towns and villages, its cassia, its spiced wine, and its termination southward on the River of the Golden Sands, is Caindu. The traveller’s road from Ningyuan to Yunnanfu probably lay through Hwei-li, and the Kin-sha Kiang would be crossed as already indicated, near its most southerly bend, and almost due north of Yun-nan fu. (See Richthofen as quoted at pp. 45–46.)

As regards the name of Caindu or Gheindu (as in G. T.), I think we may safely recognise in the last syllable the do which is so frequent a termination of Tibetan names (Amdo, Tsiamdo, etc.); whilst the Cain, as Baron Richthofen has pointed out, probably survives in the first part of the name Kienchang.

[Baber writes (pp. 80–81): “Colonel Yule sees in the word Caindu a variation of ‘Chien-ch’ang,’ and supposes the syllable ‘du’ to be the same as the termination ‘du,’ ‘do,’ or ‘tu,’ so frequent in Tibetan names. In such names, however, ‘do’ never means a district, but always a confluence, or a town near a confluence, as might almost be guessed from a map of Tibet.... Unsatisfied with Colonel Yule’s identification, I cast about for another, and thought for a while that a clue had been found in the term ‘Chien-t’ou’ (sharp-head), applied to certain Lolo tribes. But the idea had to be abandoned, since Marco Polo’s anecdote about the ‘caitiff,’ and the loose manners of his family, could never have referred to the Lolos, who are admitted even by their Chinese enemies to possess a very strict code indeed of domestic regulations. The Lolos being eliminated, the Si-fans remained; and before we had been many days in their neighbourhood, stories were told us of their conduct which a polite pen refuses to record. It is enough to say that Marco’s account falls rather short of the truth, and most obviously applies to the Si-fan.”

Devéria (Front. p. 146 note) says that Kien-ch’ang is the ancient territory of Kiung-tu which, under the Han Dynasty, fell into the hands of the Tibetans, and was made by the Mongols the march of Kien-ch’ang (Che-Kong-t’u); it is the Caindu of Marco Polo; under the Han Dynasty it was the Kiun or division of Yueh-sui or Yueh-hsi. Devéria quotes from the Yuen-shi-lei pien the following passage relating to the year 1284: “The twelve tribes of the Barbarians to the south-west of Kien-tou and Kin-Chi submitted; Kien-tou was administered by Mien (Burma); Kien-tou submits because the Kingdom of Mien has been vanquished.” Kien-tou is the Chien-t’ou of Baber, the Caindu of Marco Polo. (Mélanges de Harlez, p. 97.) According to Mr. E. H. Parker (China Review, xix. p. 69), Yueh-hsi or Yueh-sui “is the modern Kien-ch’ang Valley, the Caindu of Marco Polo, between the Yalung and Yang-tzŭ Rivers; the only non-Chinese races found there now are the Si-fan and Lolos.”—H. C.]

Road descending from the Table-Land of Yun-nan into the Valley of the Kin-sha Kiang (the Brius of Polo).
(After Garnier.)

Turning to minor particulars, the Lake of Caindu in which the pearls were found is doubtless one lying near Ning-yuan, whose beauty Richthofen heard greatly extolled, though nothing of the pearls. [Mr. Hosie writes (Three Years, 112–113): “If the former tradition be true (the old city of Ning-yuan having given place to a large lake in the early years of the Ming Dynasty), the lake had no existence when Marco Polo passed through Caindu, and yet we find him mentioning a lake in the country in which pearls were found. Curiously enough, although I had not then read the Venetian’s narrative, one of the many things told me regarding the lake was that pearls are found in it, and specimens were brought to me for inspection.” The lake lies to the south-east of the present city.—H. C.] A small lake is marked by D’Anville, close to Kien-ch’ang, under the name of Gechoui-tang. The large quantities of gold derived from the Kin-sha Kiang, and the abundance of musk in that vicinity, are testified to by Martini. The Lake mentioned by Polo as existing in the territory of Yachi is no doubt the Tien-chi, the Great Lake on the shore of which the city of Yun-nan stands, and from which boats make their way by canals along the walls and streets. Its circumference, according to Martini, is 500 li. The cut (p. 68), from Garnier, shows this lake as seen from a villa on its banks. [Devéria (p. 129) quotes this passage from the Yuen-shi-lei pien: “Yachi, of which the U-man or Black Barbarians made their capital, is surrounded by Lake Tien-chi on three sides.” Tien-chi is one of the names of Lake Kwen-ming, on the shore of which is built Yun-nan fu.—H. C.]

Returning now to the Karájang of the Mongols, or Carajan, as Polo writes it, we shall find that the latter distinguishes this great province, which formerly, he says, included seven kingdoms, into two Mongol Governments, the seat of one being at Yachi, which we have seen to be Yun-nan fu, and that of the other at a city to which he gives the name of the Province, and which we shall find to be the existing Ta-li fu. Great confusion has been created in most of the editions by a distinction in the form of the name as applied to these two governments. Thus Ramusio prints the province under Yachi as Carajan, and that under Ta-li as Carazan, whilst Marsden, following out his system for the conversion of Ramusio’s orthography, makes the former Karaian and the latter Karazan. Pauthier prints Caraian all through, a fact so far valuable as showing that his texts make no distinction between the names of the two governments, but the form impedes the recognition of the old Mongol nomenclature. I have no doubt that the name all through should be read Carajan, and on this I have acted. In the Geog. Text we find the name given at the end of ch. xlvii. Caragian, in ch. xlviii. as Carajan, in ch. xlix. as Caraian, thus just reversing the distinction made by Marsden. The Crusca has Charagia(n) all through.

The name then was Ḳará-jáng, in which the first element was the Mongol or Turki Ḳárá, “Black.” For we find in another passage of Rashid the following information:[3]—“To the south-west of Cathay is the country called by the Chinese Dailiu or ‘Great Realm,’ and by the Mongols Ḳarájáng, in the language of India and Kashmir Ḳandar, and by us Ḳandahár. This country, which is of vast extent, is bounded on one side by Tibet and Tangut, and on others by Mongolia, Cathay, and the country of the Gold-Teeth. The King of Ḳarajang uses the title of Mahárá, i.e. Great King. The capital is called Yachi, and there the Council of Administration is established. Among the inhabitants of this country some are black, and others are white; these latter are called by the Mongols Chaghán-Jáng (‘White Jang’).” Jang has not been explained; but probably it may have been a Tibetan term adopted by the Mongols, and the colours may have applied to their clothing. The dominant race at the Mongol invasion seems to have been Shans;[4] and black jackets are the characteristic dress of the Shans whom one sees in Burma in modern times. The Kara-jang and Chaghan-jang appear to correspond also to the U-man and Pe-man, or Black Barbarians and White Barbarians, who are mentioned by Chinese authorities as conquered by the Mongols. It would seem from one of Pauthier’s Chinese quotations (p. 388), that the Chaghan-jang were found in the vicinity of Li-kiang fu. (D’Ohsson, II. 317; J. R. Geog. Soc. III. 294.) [Dr. Bretschneider (Med. Res. I. p. 184) says that in the description of Yun-nan, in the Yuen-shi, “Cara-jang and Chagan-jang are rendered by Wu-man and Po-man (Black and White Barbarians). But in the biographies of Djao-a-k’o-p’an, A-r-szelan (Yuen-shi, ch. cxxiii.), and others, these tribes are mentioned under the names of Ha-la-djang and Ch’a-han-djang, as the Mongols used to call them; and in the biography of Wu-liang-ho t’ai, [Uriang kadai], the conqueror of Yun-nan, it is stated that the capital of the Black Barbarians was called Yach’i. It is described there as a city surrounded by lakes from three sides.”—H. C.]

A Saracen of Carajan, being a portrait of a Mahomedan Mullah in Western Yun-nan.
(From Garnier’s Work.)

“Les sunt des plosors maineres, car il hi a jens qe aorent Maomet.”

Regarding Rashiduddin’s application of the name Ḳandahár or Gandhára to Yun-nan, and curious points connected therewith, I must refer to a paper of mine in the J. R. A. Society (N.S. IV. 356). But I may mention that in the ecclesiastical translation of the classical localities of Indian Buddhism to Indo-China, which is current in Burma, Yun-nan represents Gandhára,[5] and is still so styled in state documents (Gandálarít).

What has been said of the supposed name Caraian disposes, I trust, of the fancies which have connected the origin of the Karens of Burma with it. More groundless still is M. Pauthier’s deduction of the Talains of Pegu (as the Burmese call them) from the people of Ta-li, who fled from Kúblái’s invasion.

[Note 2.]—The existence of Nestorians in this remote province is very notable [see Bonin, J. As. XV. 1900, pp. 589–590.—H. C.]; and also the early prevalence of Mahomedanism, which Rashiduddin intimates in stronger terms. “All the inhabitants of Yachi,” he says, “are Mahomedans.” This was no doubt an exaggeration, but the Mahomedans seem always to have continued to be an important body in Yun-nan up to our own day. In 1855 began their revolt against the imperial authority, which for a time resulted in the establishment of their independence in Western Yun-nan under a chief whom they called Sultan Suleiman. A proclamation in remarkably good Arabic, announcing the inauguration of his reign, appears to have been circulated to Mahomedans in foreign states, and a copy of it some years ago found its way through the Nepalese agent at L’hasa, into the hands of Colonel Ramsay, the British Resident at Katmandu.[6]

[Note 3.]—Wheat grows as low as Ava, but there also it is not used by natives for bread, only for confectionery and the like. The same is the case in Eastern China. (See ch. xxvi. note 4, and Middle Kingdom, II. 43.)

[Note 4.]—The word piccoli is supplied, doubtfully, in lieu of an unknown symbol. If correct, then we should read “24 piccoli each,” for this was about the equivalent of a grosso. This is the first time Polo mentions cowries, which he calls porcellani. This might have been rendered by the corresponding vernacular name “Pig-shells,” applied to certain shells of that genus (Cypraea) in some parts of England. It is worthy of note that as the name porcellana has been transferred from these shells to China-ware, so the word pig has been in Scotland applied to crockery; whether the process has been analogous, I cannot say.

Klaproth states that Yun-nan is the only country of China in which cowries had continued in use, though in ancient times they were more generally diffused. According to him 80 cowries were equivalent to 6 cash, or a half-penny. About 1780 in Eastern Bengal 80 cowries were worth ⅜th of a penny, and some 40 years ago, when Prinsep compiled his tables in Calcutta (where cowries were still in use a few years ago, if they are not now), 80 cowries were worth ³⁄₁₀ of a penny.

At the time of the Mahomedan conquest of Bengal, early in the 13th century, they found the currency exclusively composed of cowries, aided perhaps by bullion in large transactions, but with no coined money. In remote districts this continued to modern times. When the Hon. Robert Lindsay went as Resident and Collector to Silhet about 1778, cowries constituted nearly the whole currency of the Province. The yearly revenue amounted to 250,000 rupees, and this was entirely paid in cowries at the rate of 5120 to the rupee. It required large warehouses to contain them, and when the year’s collection was complete a large fleet of boats to transport them to Dacca. Before Lindsay’s time it had been the custom to count the whole before embarking them! Down to 1801 the Silhet revenue was entirely collected in cowries, but by 1813, the whole was realised in specie. (Thomas, in J. R. A. S. N.S. II. 147; Lives of the Lindsays, III. 169, 170.)

Klaproth’s statement has ceased to be correct. Lieutenant Garnier found cowries nowhere in use north of Luang Prabang; and among the Kakhyens in Western Yun-nan these shells are used only for ornament. [However, Mr. E. H. Parker says (China Review, XXVI. p. 106) that the porcelain money still circulates in the Shan States, and that he saw it there himself.—H. C.]

The Canal at Yun-nan fu.

[Note 5.]—See [ch. xlvii. note 4]. Martini speaks of a great brine-well to the N.E. of Yaogan (W.N.W. of the city of Yun-nan), which supplied the whole country round.

[Note 6.]—Two particulars appearing in these latter paragraphs are alluded to by Rashiduddin in giving a brief account of the overland route from India to China, which is unfortunately very obscure: “Thence you arrive at the borders of Tibet, where they eat raw meat and worship images, and have no shame respecting their wives.” (Elliot, I. p. 73.)

[1] [Baber writes (p. 107): “The river is never called locally by any other name than Kin-ho, or ‘Gold River.’[A] The term Kin-sha-Kiang should in strictness be confined to the Tibetan course of the stream; as applied to other parts it is a mere book name. There is no great objection to its adoption, except that it is unintelligible to the inhabitants of the banks, and is liable to mislead travellers in search of indigenous information, but at any rate it should not be supposed to asperse Marco Polo’s accuracy. Gold River is the local name from the junction of the Yalung to about P’ing-shan; below P’ing-shan it is known by various designations, but the Ssu-ch’uanese naturally call it ‘the River,’ or, by contrast with its affluents, the ‘Big River’ (Ta-ho).” I imagine that Baber here makes a slight mistake, and that they use the name kiang, and not ho, for the river.—H. C.]

[Mr. Rockhill remarks (Land of the Lamas, p. 196 note) that “Marco Polo speaks of the Yang-tzŭ as the Brius, and Orazio della Penna calls it Biciu, both words representing the Tibetan Dré ch’u. This last name has been frequently translated ‘Cow yak River,’ but this is certainly not its meaning, as cow yak is dri-mo, never pronounced dré, and unintelligible without the suffix, mo. Dré may mean either mule, dirty, or rice, but as I have never seen the word written, I cannot decide on any of these terms, all of which have exactly the same pronunciation. The Mongols call it Murus osu, and in books this is sometimes changed to Murui osu, ‘Tortuous river.’ The Chinese call it Tung t’ien ho, ‘River of all Heaven.’ The name Kin-sha kiang, ‘River of Golden Sand,’ is used for it from Bat’ang to Sui-fu, or thereabouts.” The general name for the river is Ta-Kiang (Great River), or simply Kiang, in contradistinction to Ho, for Hwang-Ho (Yellow River) in Northern China.—H. C.]

[2] Baron Richthofen, who has travelled hundreds of miles in his footsteps, considers his allowance of time to be generally from ¼ to ⅓ greater than that now usual.

[3] See Quatremère’s Rashiduddin, pp. lxxxvi.–xcvi. My quotation is made up from two citations by Quatremère, one from his text of Rashiduddin, and the other from the History of Benaketi, which Quatremère shows to have been drawn from Rashiduddin, whilst it contains some particulars not existing in his own text of that author.

[4] The title Chao in Nan-Chao (infra, [p. 79]) is said by a Chinese author (Pauthier, p. 391) to signify King in the language of those barbarians. This is evidently the Chao which forms an essential part of the title of all Siamese and Shan princes.

[Regarding the word Nan-Chao, Mr. Parker (China Review, XX. p. 339) writes “In the barbarian tongue ‘prince’ is Chao,” says the Chinese author; and there were six Chao, of which the Nan or Southern was the leading power. Hence the name Nan-Chao ... it is hardly necessary for me to say that chao or kyiao is still the Shan-Siamese word for ‘prince.’” Pallegoix (Dict. p. 85) has Chào, Princeps, rex.—H. C.]

[5] Gandhára, Arabicé Ḳandahár, is properly the country about Peshawar, Gandaritis of Strabo.

[6] This is printed almost in full in the French Voyage d’Exploration, I. 564.

[A] Marco Polo nowhere calls the river “Gold River,” the name he gives it is Brius.—H. Y.

CHAPTER XLIX.

Concerning a further part of the Province of Carajan.

After leaving that city of Yachi of which I have been speaking, and travelling ten days towards the west, you come to another capital city which is still in the province of Carajan, and is itself called Carajan. The people are Idolaters and subject to the Great Kaan; and the King is Cogachin, who is a son of the Great Kaan.[{1}]

In this country gold-dust is found in great quantities; that is to say in the rivers and lakes, whilst in the mountains gold is also found in pieces of larger size. Gold is indeed so abundant that they give one saggio of gold for only six of the same weight in silver. And for small change they use porcelain shells as I mentioned before. These are not found in the country, however, but are brought from India.[{2}]

In this province are found snakes and great serpents of such vast size as to strike fear into those who see them, and so hideous that the very account of them must excite the wonder of those to hear it. I will tell you how long and big they are.

You may be assured that some of them are ten paces in length; some are more and some less. And in bulk they are equal to a great cask, for the bigger ones are about ten palms in girth. They have two forelegs near the head, but for foot nothing but a claw like the claw of a hawk or that of a lion. The head is very big, and the eyes are bigger than a great loaf of bread. The mouth is large enough to swallow a man whole, and is garnished with great [pointed] teeth. And in short they are so fierce-looking and so hideously ugly, that every man and beast must stand in fear and trembling of them. There are also smaller ones, such as of eight paces long, and of five, and of one pace only.

The way in which they are caught is this. You must know that by day they live underground because of the great heat, and in the night they go out to feed, and devour every animal they can catch. They go also to drink at the rivers and lakes and springs. And their weight is so great that when they travel in search of food or drink, as they do by night, the tail makes a great furrow in the soil as if a full ton of liquor had been dragged along. Now the huntsmen who go after them take them by certain gyn which they set in the track over which the serpent has past, knowing that the beast will come back the same way. They plant a stake deep in the ground and fix on the head of this a sharp blade of steel made like a razor or a lance-point, and then they cover the whole with sand so that the serpent cannot see it. Indeed the huntsman plants several such stakes and blades on the track. On coming to the spot the beast strikes against the iron blade with such force that it enters his breast and rives him up to the navel, so that he dies on the spot [and the crows on seeing the brute dead begin to caw, and then the huntsmen know that the serpent is dead and come in search of him].

This then is the way these beasts are taken. Those who take them proceed to extract the gall from the inside, and this sells at a great price; for you must know it furnishes the material for a most precious medicine. Thus if a person is bitten by a mad dog, and they give him but a small pennyweight of this medicine to drink, he is cured in a moment. Again if a woman is hard in labour they give her just such another dose and she is delivered at once. Yet again if one has any disease like the itch, or it may be worse, and applies a small quantity of this gall he shall speedily be cured. So you see why it sells at such a high price.

“Riding long like Frenchmen.”
“Et encore sachié qe ceste gens chevauchent lonc come franchois.”

They also sell the flesh of this serpent, for it is excellent eating, and the people are very fond of it. And when these serpents are very hungry, sometimes they will seek out the lairs of lions or bears or other large wild beasts, and devour their cubs, without the sire and dam being able to prevent it. Indeed if they catch the big ones themselves they devour them too; they can make no resistance.[{3}]

In this province also are bred large and excellent horses which are taken to India for sale. And you must know that the people dock two or three joints of the tail from their horses, to prevent them from flipping their riders, a thing which they consider very unseemly. They ride long like Frenchmen, and wear armour of boiled leather, and carry spears and shields and arblasts, and all their quarrels are poisoned.[{4}] [And I was told as a fact that many persons, especially those meditating mischief, constantly carry this poison about with them, so that if by any chance they should be taken, and be threatened with torture, to avoid this they swallow the poison and so die speedily. But princes who are aware of this keep ready dog’s dung, which they cause the criminal instantly to swallow, to make him vomit the poison. And thus they manage to cure those scoundrels.]

The Lake of Tali (Carajan of Polo) from the Northern End.

Suspension Bridge, neighbourhood of Tali.

I will tell you of a wicked thing they used to do before the Great Kaan conquered them. If it chanced that a man of fine person or noble birth, or some other quality that recommended him, came to lodge with those people, then they would murder him by poison, or otherwise. And this they did, not for the sake of plunder, but because they believed that in this way the goodly favour and wisdom and repute of the murdered man would cleave to the house where he was slain. And in this manner many were murdered before the country was conquered by the Great Kaan. But since his conquest, some 35 years ago, these crimes and this evil practice have prevailed no more; and this through dread of the Great Kaan who will not permit such things.[{5}]

[Note 1.]—There can be no doubt that this second chief city of Carajan is Tali-fu, which was the capital of the Shan Kingdom called by the Chinese Nan-Chao. This kingdom had subsisted in Yun-nan since 738, and probably had embraced the upper part of the Irawadi Valley. For the Chinese tell us it was also called Maung, and it probably was identical with the Shan Kingdom of Muang Maorong or of Pong, of which Captain Pemberton procured a Chronicle. [In A.D. 650, the Ai-Lao, the most ancient name by which the Shans were known to the Chinese, became the Nan-Chao. The Mêng family ruled the country from the 7th century; towards the middle of the 8th century, P’i-lo-ko, who is the real founder of the Thai kingdom of Nan-Chao, received from the Chinese the title of King of Yun-Nan and made T’ai-ho, 15 lis south of Ta-li, his residence; he died in 748. In A.D. 938, Twan Sze-ying, of an old Chinese family, took Ta-li and established there an independent kingdom. In 1115 embassies with China were exchanged, and the Emperor conferred (1119) upon Twan Ch’êng-yn the title of King of Ta-li (Ta-li Kwo Wang). Twan Siang-hing was the last king of Ta-li (1239–1251). In 1252 the Kingdom of Nan-Chao was destroyed by the Mongols; the Emperor She Tsu (Kúblái) gave the title of Maháraja (Mo-ho Lo-tso) to Twan Hing-che (son of Twan Siang-hing), who had fled to Yun-Nan fu and was captured there. Afterwards (1261) the Twan are known as the eleven Tsung-Kwan (governors); the last of them, Twan Ming, was made a prisoner by an army sent by the Ming Emperors, and sent to Nan-King (1381). (E. H. Parker, Early Laos and China, China Review, XIX. and the Old Thai or Shan Empire of Western Yun-Nan, Ibid., XX.; E. Rocher, Hist. des Princes du Yunnan, T’oung Pao, 1899; E. Chavannes, Une Inscription du roy. de Nan Tchao, J.A., November–December, 1900; M. Tchang, Tableau des Souverains de Nan-Tchao, Bul. Ecole Franç. d’Ext. Orient, I. No. 4.)—H. C.] The city of Ta-li was taken by Kúblái in 1253–1254. The circumstance that it was known to the invaders (as appeals from Polo’s statement) by the name of the province is an indication of the fact that it was the capital of Carajan before the conquest. [“That Yachi and Carajan represent Yünnan-fu and Tali, is proved by topographical and other evidence of an overwhelming nature. I venture to add one more proof, which seems to have been overlooked.

“If there is a natural feature which must strike any visitor to those two cities, it is that they both lie on the shore of notable lakes, of so large an extent as to be locally called seas; and for the comparison, it should be remembered that the inhabitants of the Yünnan province have easy access to the ocean by the Red River, or Sung Ka. Now, although Marco does not circumstantially specify the fact of these cities lying on large bodies of water, yet in both cases, two or three sentences further on, will be found mention of lakes; in the case of Yachi, ‘a lake of a good hundred miles in compass’—by no means an unreasonable estimate.

“Tali-fu is renowned as the strongest hold of Western Yünnan, and it certainly must have been impregnable to bow and spear. From the western margin of its majestic lake, which lies approximately north and south, rises a sloping plain of about three miles average breadth, closed in by the huge wall of the Tien-tsang Mountains. In the midst of this plain stands the city, the lake at its feet, the snowy summits at its back. On either flank, at about twelve and six miles distance respectively, are situated Shang-Kuan and Hsia-Kuan (upper and lower passes), two strongly fortified towns guarding the confined strip between mountain and lake; for the plain narrows at the two extremities, and is intersected by a river at both points.” (Baber, Travels, 155.)—H. C.]

The distance from Yachi to this city of Karajang is ten days, and this corresponds well with the distance from Yun-nan fu to Tali-fu. For we find that, of the three Burmese Embassies whose itineraries are given by Burney, one makes 7 marches between those cities, specifying 2 of them as double marches, therefore equal to 9, whilst the other two make 11 marches; Richthofen’s information gives 12. Ta-li-fu is a small old city overlooking its large lake (about 24 miles long by 6 wide), and an extensive plain devoid of trees. Lofty mountains rise on the south side of the city. The Lake appears to communicate with the Mekong, and the story goes, no doubt fabulous, that boats have come up to Ta-li from the Ocean. [Captain Gill (II. pp. 299–300) writes: “Ta-li fu is an ancient city ... it is the Carajan of Marco Polo.... Marco’s description of the lake of Yun-Nan may be perfectly well applied to the Lake of Ta-li.... The fish were particularly commended to our notice, though we were told that there were no oysters in this lake, as there are said to be in that of Yun-Nan; if the latter statement be true, it would illustrate Polo’s account of another lake somewhere in these regions in which are found pearls (which are white but not round).”—H. C.]

Ta-li fu was recently the capital of Sultan Suleiman [Tu Wen-siu]. It was reached by Lieutenant Garnier in a daring détour by the north of Yun-nan, but his party were obliged to leave in haste on the second day after their arrival. The city was captured by the Imperial officers in 1873, when a horrid massacre of the Mussulmans took place [19th January]. The Sultan took poison, but his head was cut off and sent to Peking. Momein fell soon after [10th June], and the Panthé kingdom is ended.

We see that Polo says the King ruling for Kúblái at this city was a son of the Kaan, called Cogachin, whilst he told us in the last chapter that the King reigning at Yachi was also a son of the Kaan, called Essentimur. It is probably a mere lapsus or error of dictation calling the latter a son of the Kaan, for in [ch. li.] infra, this prince is correctly described as the Kaan’s grandson. Rashiduddin tells us that Kúblái had given his son Hukáji (or perhaps Hogáchi, i.e. Cogachin) the government of Karajang,[1] and that after the death of this Prince the government was continued to his son Isentimur. Klaproth gives the date of the latter’s nomination from the Chinese Annals as 1280. It is not easy to reconcile Marco’s statements perfectly with a knowledge of these facts; but we may suppose that, in speaking of Cogachin as ruling at Karajang (or Tali-fu) and Esentimur at Yachi, he describes things as they stood when his visit occurred, whilst in the second reference to “Sentemur’s” being King in the province and his father dead, he speaks from later knowledge. This interpretation would confirm what has been already deduced from other circumstances, that his visit to Yun-nan was prior to 1280. (Pemberton’s Report on the Eastern Frontier, 108 seqq.; Quat. Rashid. pp. lxxxix-xc.; Journ. Asiat. sér. II. vol. i.)

[Note 2.]—[Captain Gill writes (II. p. 302): “There are said to be very rich gold and silver mines within a few days’ journey of the city” (of Ta-li). Dr. Anderson says (Mandalay to Momien, p. 203): “Gold is brought to Momein from Yonephin and Sherg-wan villages, fifteen days’ march to the north-east; but no information could be obtained as to the quantity found. It is also brought in leaf, which is sent to Burma, where it is in extensive demand.”—H. C.]

[Note 3.]—It cannot be doubted that Marco’s serpents here are crocodiles, in spite of his strange mistakes about their having only two feet and one claw on each, and his imperfect knowledge of their aquatic habits. He may have seen only a mutilated specimen. But there is no mistaking the hideous ferocity of the countenance, and the “eyes bigger than a fourpenny loaf,” as Ramusio has it. Though the actual eye of the crocodile does not bear this comparison, the prominent orbits do, especially in the case of the Ghaṛiyál of the Ganges, and form one of the most repulsive features of the reptile’s physiognomy. In fact, its presence on the surface of an Indian river is often recognisable only by three dark knobs rising above the surface, viz. the snout and the two orbits. And there is some foundation for what our author says of the animal’s habits, for the crocodile does sometimes frequent holes at a distance from water, of which a striking instance is within my own recollection (in which the deep furrowed track also was a notable circumstance).

The Cochin Chinese are very fond of crocodile’s flesh, and there is or was a regular export of this dainty for their use from Kamboja. I have known it eaten by certain classes in India. (J. R. G. S. XXX. 193.)

The term serpent is applied by many old writers to crocodiles and the like, e.g. by Odoric, and perhaps allusively by Shakspeare (“Where’s my Serpent of Old Nile?”). Mr. Fergusson tells me he was once much struck with the snake-like motion of a group of crocodiles hastily descending to the water from a high sand-bank, without apparent use of the limbs, when surprised by the approach of a boat.[2]

Matthioli says the gall of the crocodile surpasses all medicines for the removal of pustules and the like from the eyes. Vincent of Beauvais mentions the same, besides many other medical uses of the reptile’s carcass, including a very unsavoury cosmetic. (Matt. p. 245; Spec. Natur. Lib. XVII. c. 106, 108.)

[“According to Chinese notions, Han Yü, the St. Patrick of China, having persuaded the alligators in China that he was all-powerful, induced the stupid saurians to migrate to Ngo Hu or ‘Alligators’ Lake’ in the Kwang-tung province.” (North-China Herald, 5th July, 1895, p. 5.)

Alligators have been found in 1878 at Wu-hu and at Chen-kiang (Ngan-hwei and Kiang-Su). (See A. A. Fauvel, Alligators in China, in Jour. N. China B. R. A. S. XIII. 1879, 1–36.)—H. C.]

[Note 4.]—I think the great horses must be an error, though running through all the texts, and that grant quantité de chevaus was probably intended. Valuable ponies are produced in those regions, but I have never heard of large horses, and Martini’s testimony is to like effect (p. 141). Nor can I hear of any race in those regions in modern times that uses what we should call long stirrups. It is true that the Tartars rode very short—“brevissimas habent strepas,” as Carpini says (643); and the Kirghiz Kazaks now do the same. Both Burmese and Shans ride what we should call short; and Major Sladen observes of the people on the western border of Yun-nan: “Kachyens and Shans ride on ordinary Chinese saddles. The stirrups are of the usual average length, but the saddles are so constructed as to rise at least a foot above the pony’s back.” He adds with reference to another point in the text: “I noticed a few Shan ponies with docked tails. But the more general practice is to loop up the tail in a knot, the object being to protect the rider, or rather his clothes, from the dirt with which they would otherwise be spattered from the flipping of the animal’s tail.” (MS. Notes.)

[After Yung-ch’ang, Captain Gill writes (II. p. 356): “The manes were hogged and the tails cropped of a great many of the ponies these men were riding; but there were none of the docked tails mentioned by Marco Polo.”—H. C.]

Armour of boiled leather—“armes cuiracés de cuir bouilli”; so Pauthier’s text; the material so often mentioned in mediæval costume; e.g. in the leggings of Sir Thopas:—

“His jambeux were of cuirbouly,

His swerdës sheth of ivory,

His helme of latoun bright.”

But the reading of the G. Text which is “cuir de bufal,” is probably the right one. Some of the Miau-tzŭ of Kweichau are described as wearing armour of buffalo-leather overlaid with iron plates. (Ritter, IV. 768–776.) Arblasts or crossbows are still characteristic weapons of many of the wilder tribes of this region; e.g. of some of the Singphos, of the Mishmis of Upper Assam, of the Lu-tzŭ of the valley of the Lukiang, of tribes of the hills of Laos, of the Stiens of Cambodia, and of several of the Miau-tzŭ tribes of the interior of China. We give a cut copied from a Chinese work on the Miau-tzŭ of Kweichau in Dr. Lockhart’s possession, which shows three little men of the Sang-Miau tribe of Kweichau combining to mend a crossbow, and a chief with armes cuiracés and jambeux also. [The cut (p. 83) is well explained by this passage of Baber’s Travels among the Lolos (p. 71): “They make their own swords, three and a half to five spans long, with square heads, and have bows which it takes three men to draw, but no muskets.”—H. C.]

[Note 5.]—I have nowhere met with a precise parallel to this remarkable superstition, but the following piece of Folk-Lore has a considerable analogy to it. This extraordinary custom is ascribed by Ibn Fozlan to the Bulgarians of the Volga: “If they find a man endowed with special intelligence then they say: ‘This man should serve our Lord God;’ and so they take him, run a noose round his neck and hang him on a tree, where they leave him till the corpse falls to pieces.” This is precisely what Sir Charles Wood did with the Indian Corps of Engineers;—doubtless on the same principle.

Archbishop Trench, in a fine figure, alludes to a belief prevalent among the Polynesian Islanders, “that the strength and valour of the warriors whom they have slain in battle passes into themselves, as their rightful inheritance.” (Fraehn, Wolga-Bulgaren, p. 50; Studies in the Gospels, p. 22; see also Lubbock, 457.)

The Sangmiau Tribe of Kweichau, with the Crossbow. (From a Chinese Drawing.)

“Ont armes corasés de cuir de bufal, et ont lances et scuz et ont balestres.”

There is some analogy also to the story Polo tells, in the curious Sindhi tradition, related by Burton, of Bahá-ul-haḳḳ, the famous saint of Multán. When he visited his disciples at Tatta they plotted his death, in order to secure the blessings of his perpetual presence. The people of Multán are said to have murdered two celebrated saints with the same view, and the Hazáras to “make a point of killing and burying in their own country any stranger indiscreet enough to commit a miracle or show any particular sign of sanctity.” The like practice is ascribed to the rude Moslem of Gilghit; and such allegations must have been current in Europe, for they are the motive of Southey’s St. Romuald:

“‘But,’ quoth the Traveller, ‘wherefore did he leave

A flock that knew his saintly worth so well?’

•••••

“‘Why, Sir,’ the Host replied,

‘We thought perhaps that he might one day leave us;

And then, should strangers have

The good man’s grave,

A loss like that would naturally grieve us;

For he’ll be made a saint of, to be sure.

Therefore we thought it prudent to secure

His relics while we might;

And so we meant to strangle him one night.’”

(See Sindh, pp. 86, 388; Ind. Antiq. I. 13; Southey’s Ballads, etc., ed. Routledge, p. 330.)

[Captain Gill (I. p. 323) says that he had made up his mind to visit a place called Li-fan Fu, near Ch’êng-tu. “I was told,” he writes, “that this place was inhabited by the Man-Tzŭ, or Barbarians, as the Chinese call them; and Monseigneur Pinchon told me that, amongst other pleasing theories, they were possessed of the belief that if they poisoned a rich man, his wealth would accrue to the poisoner; that, therefore, the hospitable custom prevailed amongst them of administering poison to rich or noble guests; that this poison took no effect for some time, but that in the course of two or three months it produced a disease akin to dysentery, ending in certain death.”—H. C.]

[1] [Mr. E. H. Parker writes (China Review, XXIV. p. 106): “Polo’s Kogatin is Hukoch’ih, who was made King of Yun-nan in 1267, with military command over Ta-li, Shen-shen, Chagan Chang, Golden-Teeth, etc.”—H. C.]

[2] Though the bellowing of certain American crocodiles is often spoken of, I have nowhere seen allusion to the roaring of the ghaṛiyál, nor does it seem to be commonly known. I have once only heard it, whilst on the bank of the Ganges near Rampúr Boliah, waiting for a ferry-boat. It was like a loud prolonged snore; and though it seemed to come distinctly from a crocodile on the surface of the river, I made sure by asking a boatman who stood by: “It is the ghaṛiyál speaking,” he answered.

CHAPTER L.

Concerning the Province of Zardandan.

When you have left Carajan and have travelled five days westward, you find a province called Zardandan. The people are Idolaters and subject to the Great Kaan. The capital city is called Vochan.[{1}]

The people of this country all have their teeth gilt; or rather every man covers his teeth with a sort of golden case made to fit them, both the upper teeth and the under. The men do this, but not the women.[{2}] [The men also are wont to gird their arms and legs with bands or fillets pricked in black, and it is done thus; they take five needles joined together, and with these they prick the flesh till the blood comes, and then they rub in a certain black colouring stuff, and this is perfectly indelible. It is considered a piece of elegance and the sign of gentility to have this black band.] The men are all gentlemen in their fashion, and do nothing but go to the wars, or go hunting and hawking. The ladies do all the business, aided by the slaves who have been taken in war.[{3}]

And when one of their wives has been delivered of a child, the infant is washed and swathed, and then the woman gets up and goes about her household affairs, whilst the husband takes to bed with the child by his side, and so keeps his bed for 40 days; and all the kith and kin come to visit him and keep up a great festivity. They do this because, say they, the woman has had a hard bout of it, and ’tis but fair the man should have his share of suffering.[{4}]

They eat all kinds of meat, both raw and cooked, and they eat rice with their cooked meat as their fashion is. Their drink is wine made of rice and spices, and excellent it is. Their money is gold, and for small change they use pig-shells. And I can tell you they give one weight of gold for only five of silver; for there is no silver-mine within five months’ journey. And this induces merchants to go thither carrying a large supply of silver to change among that people. And as they have only five weights of silver to give for one of fine gold, they make immense profits by their exchange business in that country.[{5}]

These people have neither idols nor churches, but worship the progenitor of their family, “for ’tis he,” say they, “from whom we have all sprung.”[{6}] They have no letters or writing; and ’tis no wonder, for the country is wild and hard of access, full of great woods and mountains which ’tis impossible to pass, the air in summer is so impure and bad; and any foreigners attempting it would die for certain.[{7}] When these people have any business transactions with one another, they take a piece of stick, round or square, and split it, each taking half. And on either half they cut two or three notches. And when the account is settled the debtor receives back the other half of the stick from the creditor.[{8}]

And let me tell you that in all those three provinces that I have been speaking of, to wit Carajan, Vochan, and Yachi, there is never a leech. But when any one is ill they send for their magicians, that is to say the Devil-conjurors and those who are the keepers of the idols. When these are come the sick man tells what ails him, and then the conjurors incontinently begin playing on their instruments and singing and dancing; and the conjurors dance to such a pitch that at last one of them shall fall to the ground lifeless, like a dead man. And then the devil entereth into his body. And when his comrades see him in this plight they begin to put questions to him about the sick man’s ailment. And he will reply: “Such or such a spirit hath been meddling with the man,[{9}] for that he hath angered the spirit and done it some despite.” Then they say: “We pray thee to pardon him, and to take of his blood or of his goods what thou wilt in consideration of thus restoring him to health.” And when they have so prayed, the malignant spirit that is in the body of the prostrate man will (mayhap) answer: “The sick man hath also done great despite unto such another spirit, and that one is so ill-disposed that it will not pardon him on any account;”—this at least is the answer they get, an the patient be like to die. But if he is to get better the answer will be that they are to bring two sheep, or may be three; and to brew ten or twelve jars of drink, very costly and abundantly spiced.[{10}] Moreover it shall be announced that the sheep must be all black-faced, or of some other particular colour as it may hap; and then all those things are to be offered in sacrifice to such and such a spirit whose name is given.[{11}] And they are to bring so many conjurors, and so many ladies, and the business is to be done with a great singing of lauds, and with many lights, and store of good perfumes. That is the sort of answer they get if the patient is to get well. And then the kinsfolk of the sick man go and procure all that has been commanded, and do as has been bidden, and the conjuror who had uttered all that gets on his legs again.

So they fetch the sheep of the colour prescribed, and slaughter them, and sprinkle the blood over such places as have been enjoined, in honour and propitiation of the spirit. And the conjurors come, and the ladies, in the number that was ordered, and when all are assembled and everything is ready, they begin to dance and play and sing in honour of the spirit. And they take flesh-broth and drink and lign-aloes, and a great number of lights, and go about hither and thither, scattering the broth and the drink and the meat also. And when they have done this for a while, again shall one of the conjurors fall flat and wallow there foaming at the mouth, and then the others will ask if he have yet pardoned the sick man? And sometimes he shall answer yea! and sometimes he shall answer no! And if the answer be no, they shall be told that something or other has to be done all over again, and then he will be pardoned; so this they do. And when all that the spirit has commanded has been done with great ceremony, then it shall be announced that the man is pardoned and shall be speedily cured. So when they at length receive such a reply, they announce that it is all made up with the spirit, and that he is propitiated, and they fall to eating and drinking with great joy and mirth, and he who had been lying lifeless on the ground gets up and takes his share. So when they have all eaten and drunken, every man departs home. And presently the sick man gets sound and well.[{12}]

Now that I have told you of the customs and naughty ways of that people, we will have done talking of them and their province, and I will tell you about others, all in regular order and succession.

[Note 1.]—[Baber writes (Travels, p. 171) when arriving to the Lan-tsang kiang (Mekong River): “We were now on the border-line between Carajan and Zardandan: ‘When you have travelled five days you find a province called Zardandan,’ says Messer Marco, precisely the actual number of stages from Tali-fu to the present boundary of Yung-ch’ang. That this river must have been the demarcation between the two provinces is obvious; one glance into that deep rift, the only exit from which is by painful worked artificial zigzags which, under the most favourable conditions, cannot be called safe, will satisfy the most sceptical geographer. The exact statement of distance is a proof that Marco entered the territory of Yung-ch’ang.” Captain Gill says (II. p. 343–344) that the five marches of Marco Polo “would be very long ones. Our journey was eight days, but it might easily have been done in seven, as the first march to Hsia-Kuan was not worthy of the name. The Grosvenor expedition made eleven marches with one day’s halt—twelve days altogether, and Mr. Margary was nine or ten days on the journey. It is true that, by camping out every night, the marches might be longer; and, as Polo refers to the crackling of the bamboos in the fires, it is highly probable that he found no ‘fine hostelries’ on this route. This is the way the traders still travel in Tibet; they march until they are tired, or until they find a nice grassy spot; they then off saddles, turn their animals loose, light a fire under some adjacent tree, and halt for the night; thus the longest possible distance can be performed every day, and the five days from Ta-li to Yung-Ch’ang would not be by any means an impossibility.”—H. C.]

[Note 2.]—Ramusio says that both men and women use this gold case. There can be no better instance of the accuracy with which Polo is generally found to have represented Oriental names, when we recover his real representation of them, than this name Zardandan. In the old Latin editions the name appeared as Ardandan, Arcladam, etc.; in Ramusio as Cardandan, correctly enough, only the first letter should have been printed Ç. Marsden, carrying out his systematic conversion of the Ramusian spelling, made this into Kardandan, and thus the name became irrecognizable. Klaproth, I believe, first showed that the word was simply the Persian Zăr-dandán, “Gold-Teeth,” and produced quotations from Rashiduddin mentioning the people in question by that identical name. Indeed that historian mentions them several times. Thus: “North-west of China is the frontier of Tibet, and of the Zardandan, who lie between Tibet and Karájáng. These people cover their teeth with a gold case, which they take off when they eat.” They are also frequently mentioned in the Chinese annals about this period under the same name, viz. Kin-Chi, “Gold-Teeth,” and some years after Polo’s departure from the East they originated a revolt against the Mongol yoke, in which a great number of the imperial troops were massacred. (De Mailla, IX. 478–479.)

[Baber writes (p. 159): “In Western Yünnan the betel-nut is chewed with prepared lime, colouring the teeth red, and causing a profuse expectoration. We first met with the practice near Tali-fu.

“Is it not possible that the red colour imparted to the teeth by the practice of chewing betel with lime may go some way to account for the ancient name of this region, ‘Zar-dandan,’ ‘Chin-Ch’ih,’ or ‘Golden-Teeth’? Betel-chewing is, of course, common all over China; but the use of lime is almost unknown and the teeth are not necessarily discoloured.

“In the neighbourhood of Tali, one comes suddenly upon a lime-chewing people, and is at once struck with the strange red hue of their teeth and gums. That some of the natives used formerly to cover their teeth with plates of gold (from which practice, mentioned by Marco Polo, and confirmed elsewhere, the name is generally derived) can scarcely be considered a myth; but the peculiarity remarked by ourselves would have been equally noticeable by the early Chinese invaders, and seems not altogether unworthy of consideration. It is interesting to find the name ‘Chin-Ch’ih’ still in use.

“When Tu Wên-hsiu sent his ‘Panthay’ mission to England with tributary boxes of rock from the Tali Mountains, he described himself in his letter ‘as a humble native of the golden-teeth country.’”—H. C.]

Vochan seems undoubtedly to be, as Martini pointed out, the city called by the Chinese Yung-ch’ang-fu. Some of the old printed editions read Unciam, i.e. Uncham or Unchan, and it is probable that either this or Võcian, i.e. Vonchan, was the true reading, coming very close to the proper name, which is Wunchen. (See J. A. S. B. VI. 547.) [In an itinerary from Ava to Peking, we read on the 10th September, 1833: “Slept at the city Wun-tsheng (Chinese Yongtchang fú and Burmese Wun-zen).” (Chin. Rep. IX. p. 474.)—Mr. F. W. K. Müller in a study on the Pa-yi language from a Chinese manuscript entitled Hwa-i-yi-yü found by Dr. F. Hirth in China, and belonging now to the Berlin Royal Library, says the proper orthography of the word is Wan-chang in Pa-yi. (T’oung Pao, III. p. 20.) This helps to find the origin of the name Vochan.—H. C.] This city has been a Chinese one for several centuries, and previous to the late Mahomedan revolt its population was almost exclusively Chinese, with only a small mixture of Shans. It is now noted for the remarkable beauty and fairness of the women. But it is mentioned by Chinese authors as having been in the Middle Ages the capital of the Gold-Teeth. These people, according to Martini, dwelt chiefly to the north of the city. They used to go to worship a huge stone, 100 feet high, at Nan-ngan, and cover it annually with gold-leaf. Some additional particulars about the Kin-Chi, in the time of the Mongols, will be found in Pauthier’s notes (p. 398).

[In 1274, the Burmese attacked Yung ch’ang, whose inhabitants were known under the name of Kin-Chi (Golden-Teeth). (E. Rocher, Princes du Yun-nan, p. 71.) From the Annals of Momein, translated by Mr. E. H. Parker (China Review, XX. p. 345), we learn that: “In the year 1271, the General of Ta-li was sent on a mission to procure the submission of the Burmese, and managed to bring a Burmese envoy named Kiai-poh back with him. Four years later Fu A-pih, Chief of the Golden-Teeth, was utilised as a guide, which so angered the Burmese that they detained Fu A-pih and attacked Golden-Teeth: but he managed to bribe himself free. A-ho, Governor of the Golden-Teeth, was now sent as a spy, which caused the Burmese to advance to the attack once more, but they were driven back by Twan Sin-cha-jih. These events led to the Burmese war,” which lasted till 1301.

According to the Hwang-tsing Chi-kung t’u (quoted by Devéria, Front. p. 130), the Pei-jen were Kin-chi, of Pa-y race, and were surnamed Min-kia-tzŭ; the Min-kia, according to F. Garnier, say that they come from Nan-king, but this is certainly an error for the Pei-jen. From another Chinese work, Devéria (p. 169) gives this information: The Piao are the Kin-Chi; they submitted to the Mongols in the 13th century; they are descended from the people of Chu-po or Piao Kwo (Kingdom of Piao), ancient Pegu; P’u-p’iao, in a little valley between the Mekong and the Salwen Rivers, was the place through which the P’u and the Piao entered China.

The Chinese geographical work Fang-yu-ki-yao mentions the name of Kin-Chi Ch’eng, or city of Kin-Chi, as the ancient denomination of Yung-ch’ang. A Chinese Pa-y vocabulary, belonging to Professor Devéria, translates Kin-Chi by Wan-Chang (Yung-ch’ang). (Devéria, Front. p. 128.)—H. C.]

It has not been determined who are the representatives of these Gold-Teeth, who were evidently distinct from the Shans, not Buddhist, and without literature. I should think it probable that they were Kakhyens or Singphos, who, excluding Shans, appear to form the greatest body in that quarter, and are closely akin to each other, indeed essentially identical in race.[1] The Singphos have now extended widely to the west of the Upper Irawadi and northward into Assam, but their traditions bring them from the borders of Yunnan. The original and still most populous seat of the Kakhyen or Singpho race is pointed out by Colonel Hannay in the Gulansigung Mountains and the valley of the eastern source of the Irawadi. This agrees with Martini’s indication of the seat of the Kin-Chi as north of Yung-ch’ang. One of Hannay’s notices of Singpho customs should also be compared with the interpolation from Ramusio about tattooing: “The men tattoo their limbs slightly, and all married females are tattooed on both legs from the ankle to the knee, in broad horizontal circular bands. Both sexes also wear rings below the knee of fine shreds of rattan varnished black” (p. 18). These rings appear on the Kakhyen woman in our cut.

Kakhyens. (From a Photograph.)

The only other wild tribe spoken of by Major Sladen as attending the markets on the frontier is that of the Lissus, already mentioned by Lieutenant Garnier (supra, ch. xlvii. note 6), and who are said to be the most savage and indomitable of the tribes in that quarter. Garnier also mentions the Mossos, who are alleged once to have formed an independent kingdom about Li-kiang fu. Possibly, however, the Gold-Teeth may have become entirely absorbed in the Chinese and Shan population.

The characteristic of casing the teeth in gold should identify the tribe did it still exist. But I can learn nothing of the continued existence of such a custom among any tribe of the Indo-Chinese continent. The insertion of gold studs or spots, which Bürck confounds with it, is common enough among Indo-Chinese races, but that is quite a different thing. The actual practice of the Zardandan is, however, followed by some of the people of Sumatra, as both Marsden and Raffles testify: “The great men sometimes set their teeth in gold, by casing with a plate of that metal the under row ... it is sometimes indented to the shape of the teeth, but more usually quite plain. They do not remove it either to eat or sleep.” The like custom is mentioned by old travellers at Macassar, and with the substitution of silver for gold by a modern traveller as existing in Timor; but in both, probably, it was a practice of Malay tribes, as in Sumatra. (Marsden’s Sumatra, 3rd ed., p. 52; Raffles’s Java, I. 105; Bickmore’s Ind. Archipelago.)

[In his second volume of The River of Golden Sand, Captain Gill has two chapters (viii. and ix.) with the title: In the footsteps of Marco Polo and of Augustus Margary devoted to The Land of the Gold-Teeth and The Marches of the Kingdom of Mien.—H. C.]

[Note 3.]—This is precisely the account which Lieutenant Garnier gives of the people of Laos: “The Laos people are very indolent, and when they are not rich enough to possess slaves they make over to their women the greatest part of the business of the day; and ’tis these latter who not only do all the work of the house, but who husk the rice, work in the fields, and paddle the canoes. Hunting and fishing are almost the only occupations which pertain exclusively to the stronger sex.” (Notice sur le Voyage d’Exploration, etc., p. 34.)

[Note 4.]—This highly eccentric practice has been ably illustrated and explained by Mr. Tylor, under the name of the Couvade, or “Hatching,” by which it is known in some of the Béarn districts of the Pyrenees, where it formerly existed, as it does still or did recently, in some Basque districts of Spain. [In a paper on La Couvade chez les Basques, published in the République Française, of 19th January, 1877, and reprinted in Études de Linguistique et d’Ethnographie par A. Hovelacque et Julien Vinson, Paris, 1878, Prof. Vinson quotes the following curious passage from the poem in ten cantos, Luciniade, by Sacombe, of Carcassonne (Paris and Nîmes, 1790):

“En Amérique, en Corse, et chez l’Ibérien,

En France même encor chez le Vénarnien,

Au pays Navarrois, lorsqu’une femme accouche,

L’épouse sort du lit et le mari se couche;

Et, quoiqu’il soit très sain et d’esprit et de corps,

Contre un mal qu’il n’a point l’art unit ses efforts.

On le met au régime, et notre faux malade,

Soigné par l’accouchée, en son lit fait couvade:

On ferme avec grand soin portes, volets, rideaux;

Immobile, on l’oblige à rester sur le dos,

Pour étouffer son lait, qui gêné dans sa course,

Pourrait en l’étouffant remonter vers sa source.

Un mari, dans sa couche, au médecin soumis,

Reçoit, en cet état, parents, voisins, amis,

Qui viennent l’exhorter à prendre patience

Et font des vœux au ciel pour sa convalescence.”

Professor Vinson, who is an authority on the subject, comes to the conclusion that it is not possible to ascribe to the Basques the custom of the couvade.

Mr. Tylor writes to me that he “did not quite begin the use of this good French word in the sense of the ‘man-child-bed’ as they call it in Germany. It occurs in Rochefort, Iles Antilles, and though Dr. Murray, of the English Dictionary, maintains that it is spurious, if so, it is better than any genuine word I know of.”—H. C.] “In certain valleys of Biscay,” says Francisque-Michel, “in which the popular usages carry us back to the infancy of society, the woman immediately after her delivery gets up and attends to the cares of the household, whilst the husband takes to bed with the tender fledgeling in his arms, and so receives the compliments of his neighbours.”

The nearest people to the Zardandan of whom I find this custom elsewhere recorded, is one called Langszi,[2] a small tribe of aborigines in the department of Wei-ning, in Kweichau, but close to the border of Yun-nan: “Their manners and customs are very extraordinary. For example, when the wife has given birth to a child, the husband remains in the house and holds it in his arms for a whole month, not once going out of doors. The wife in the mean time does all the work in doors and out, and provides and serves up both food and drink for the husband, she only giving suck to the child.” I am informed also that, among the Miris on the Upper Assam border, the husband on such occasions confines himself strictly to the house for forty days after the event.

The custom of the Couvade has especially and widely prevailed in South America, not only among the Carib races of Guiana, of the Spanish Main, and (where still surviving) of the West Indies, but among many tribes of Brazil and its borders from the Amazons to the Plate, and among the Abipones of Paraguay; it also exists or has existed among the aborigines of California, in West Africa, in Bouro, one of the Moluccas, and among a wandering tribe of the Telugu-speaking districts of Southern India. According to Diodorus it prevailed in ancient Corsica, according to Strabo among the Iberians of Northern Spain (where we have seen it has lingered to recent times), according to Apollonius Rhodius among the Tibareni of Pontus. Modified traces of a like practice, not carried to the same extent of oddity, are also found in a variety of countries besides those that have been named, as in Borneo, in Kamtchatka, and in Greenland. In nearly all cases some particular diet, or abstinence from certain kinds of food and drink, and from exertion, is prescribed to the father; in some, more positive and trying penances are inflicted.

Butler had no doubt our Traveller’s story in his head when he made the widow in Hudibras allude in a ribald speech to the supposed fact that

————“Chineses go to bed

And lie in, in their ladies’ stead.”

The custom is humorously introduced, as Pauthier has noticed, in the Mediæval Fabliau of Aucassin and Nicolete. Aucassin arriving at the castle of Torelore asks for the king and is told he is in child-bed. Where then is his wife? She is gone to the wars and has taken all the people with her. Aucassin, greatly astonished, enters the palace, and wanders through it till he comes to the chamber where the king lay:—

“En le canbre entre Aucassins

Li cortois et li gentis;

Il est venus dusqu’au lit

Alec ú li Rois se gist.

Pardevant lui s’arestit

Si parla, Oès que dist;

Diva fau, que fais-tu ci?

Dist le Rois, Je gis d’un fil,

Quant mes mois sera complis,

Et ge serai bien garis,

Dont irai le messe oïr

Si comme mes ancessor fist,” etc.

Aucassin pulls all the clothes off him, and cudgels him soundly, making him promise that never a man shall lie in again in his country.

This strange custom, if it were unique, would look like a coarse practical joke, but appearing as it does among so many different races and in every quarter of the world, it must have its root somewhere deep in the psychology of the uncivilised man. I must refer to Mr. Tylor’s interesting remarks on the rationale of the custom, for they do not bear abridgment. Professor Max Müller humorously suggests that “the treatment which a husband receives among ourselves at the time of his wife’s confinement, not only from mothers-in-law, sisters-in-law, and other female relations, but from nurses, and from every consequential maid-servant in the house,” is but a “survival,” as Mr. Tylor would call it, of the couvade; or at least represents the same feeling which among those many uncivilised nations thus drove the husband to his bed, and sometimes (as among the Caribs) put him when there to systematic torture.

(Tylor, Researches, 288–296; Michel, Le Pays Basque, p. 201; Sketches of the Meau-tsze, transl. by Bridgman in J. of North China Br. of R. As. Soc., p. 277; Hudibras, Pt. III., canto I. 707; Fabliaus et Contes par Barbazan, éd. Méon, I. 408–409; Indian Antiq. III. 151; Müller’s Chips, II. 227 seqq.; many other references in Tylor, and in a capital monograph by Dr. H. H. Ploss of Leipzig, received during revision of this sheet: ‘Das Männerkindbett.’ What a notable example of the German power of compounding is that title!)

[This custom seems to be considered generally as a survival of the matriarchate in a society with a patriarchal régime. We may add to the list of authorities on this subject: E. Westermarck, Hist. of Human Marriage, 106, seqq.; G. A. Wilken, De Couvade bij de Volken v.d. Indischen Archipel, Bijdr. Ind. Inst., 5th ser., iv. p. 250. Dr. Ernest Martin, late physician of the French Legation at Peking, in an article on La Couvade en Chine (Revue Scientifique, 24th March, 1894), gave a drawing representing the couvade from a sketch by a native artist.

In the China Review (XI. pp. 401–402), “Lao Kwang-tung” notes these interesting facts: “The Chinese believe that certain actions performed by the husband during the pregnancy of his wife will affect the child. If a dish of food on the table is raised by putting another dish, or anything else below it, it is not considered proper for a husband, who is expecting the birth of a child, to partake of it, for fear the two dishes should cause the child to have two tongues. It is extraordinary that the caution thus exercised by the Chinese has not prevented many of them from being double-tongued. This result, it is supposed, however, will only happen if the food so raised is eaten in the house in which the future mother happens to be. It is thought that the pasting up of the red papers containing antithetical and felicitous sentences on them, as at New Year’s time, by a man under similar circumstances, and this whether the future mother sees the action performed or not, will cause the child to have red marks on the face or any part of the body. The causes producing naevi materni have probably been the origin of such marks, rather than the idea entertained by the Chinese that the father, having performed an action by some occult mode, influences the child yet unborn. A case is said to have occurred in which ill effects were obviated, or rather obliterated, by the red papers being torn down, after the birth of the infant, and soaked in water, when as the red disappeared from the paper, so the child’s face assumed a natural hue. Lord Avebury also speaks of la couvade as existing among the Chinese of West Yun-Nan. (Origin of Civilisation and Primitive Condition of Man, p. 18).”

Dr. J. A. H. Murray, editor of the New English Dictionary, wrote, in The Academy, of 29th October, 1892, a letter with the heading of Couvade, The Genesis of an Anthropological Term, which elicited an answer from Dr. E. B. Tylor (Academy, 5th November): “Wanting a general term for such customs,” writes Dr. Tylor, “and finding statements in books that this male lying-in lasted on till modern times, in the south of France, and was there called couvade, that is brooding or hatching (couver), I adopted this word for the set of customs, and it has since become established in English.” The discussion was carried on in The Academy, 12th and 19th November, 10th and 17th December; Mr. A. L. Mayhew wrote (12th November): “There is no doubt whatever that Dr. Tylor and Professor Max Müller (in a review of Dr. Tylor’s book) share the glory of having given a new technical sense to an old provincial French word, and of seeing it accepted in France, and safely enshrined in the great Dictionary of Littré.”

Now as to the origin of the word; we have seen above that Rochefort was the first to use the expression faire la couvade. This author, or at least the author (see Barbier, Ouvrages anonymes) of the Histoire naturelle ... des Iles Antilles, which was published for the first time at Rotterdam, in 1658, 4to., writes: “C’est qu’au méme tems que la femme est delivrée le mary se met au lit, pour s’y plaindre et y faire l’acouchée: coutume, qui bien que Sauvage et ridicule, se trouve neantmoins à ce que l’on dit, parmy les paysans d’vne certaine Province de France. Et ils appellent cela faire la couvade. Mais ce qui est de fâcheus pour le pauvre Caraïbe, qui s’est mis au lit au lieu de l’acouchée, c’est qu’on luy fait faire diéte dix ou douze jours de suite, ne luy donnant rien par jour qu’vn petit morceau de Cassave, et vn peu d’eau dans la quelle on a aussi fait boüillir un peu de ce pain de racine.... Mais ils ne font ce grand jeusne qu’à la naissance de leur premier enfant....” (II. pp. 607–608).

Lafitau (Mœurs des Sauvages Ameriquains, I. pp. 49–50) says on the authority of Rochefort: “Je la trouve chez les Ibériens ou les premiers Peuples d’Espagne ... elle est aujourd’hui dans quelques unes de nos Provinces d’Espagne.”

The word couvade, forgotten in the sense of lying-in-bed, recalled by Sacombe, has been renovated in a happy manner by Dr. Tylor.

As to the custom itself, there can be no doubt of its existence, in spite of some denials. Dr. Tylor, in the third edition of his valuable Early History of Mankind, published in 1878 (Murray), since the last edition of The Book of Ser Marco Polo, has added (pp. 291 seqq.) many more proofs to support what he had already said on the subject.

There may be some strong doubts as to the couvade in the south of France, and the authors who speak of it in Béarn and the Basque Countries seem to have copied one another, but there is not the slightest doubt of its having been and of its being actually practised in South America. There is a very curious account of it in the Voyage dans le Nord du Brésil made by Father Yves d’Evreux in 1613 and 1614 (see pp. 88–89 of the reprint, Paris, 1864, and the note of the learned Ferdinand Denis, pp. 411–412). Compare with Durch Central-Brasilien ... im Jahre 1884 von K.v. den Steinen. But the following extract from Among the Indians of Guiana.... By Everard im Thurn (1883), will settle, I think, the question:

“Turning from the story of the day to the story of the life, we may begin at the beginning, that is, at the birth of the children. And here, at once, we meet with, perhaps, the most curious point in the habits of the Indians; the couvade or male child-bed. This custom, which is common to the uncivilized people of many parts of the world, is probably among the strangest ever invented by the human brain. Even before the child is born, the father abstains for a time from certain kinds of animal food. The woman works as usual up to a few hours before the birth of the child. At last she retires alone, or accompanied only by some other women, to the forest, where she ties up her hammock; and then the child is born. Then in a few hours—often less than a day—the woman, who, like all women living in a very unartificial condition, suffers but little, gets up and resumes her ordinary work. According to Schomburgk, the mother, at any rate among the Macusis, remains in her hammock for some time, and the father hangs his hammock, and lies in it, by her side; but in all cases where the matter came under my notice, the mother left her hammock almost at once. In any case, no sooner is the child born than the father takes to his hammock and, abstaining from every sort of work, from meat and all other food, except weak gruel of cassava meal, from smoking, from washing himself, and, above all, from touching weapons of any sort, is nursed and cared for by all the women of the place. One other regulation, mentioned by Schomburgk, is certainly quaint; the interesting father may not scratch himself with his finger-nails, but he may use for this purpose a splinter, specially provided, from the mid-rib of a cokerite palm. This continues for many days, and sometimes even weeks. Couvade is such a wide-spread institution, that I had often read and wondered at it; but it was not until I saw it practised around me, and found that I was often suddenly deprived of the services of my best hunters or boat-hands, by the necessity which they felt, and which nothing could persuade them to disregard, of observing couvade, that I realized its full strangeness. No satisfactory explanation of its origin seems attainable. It appears based on a belief in the existence of a mysterious connection between the child and its father—far closer than that which exists between the child and its mother,—and of such a nature that if the father infringes any of the rules of the couvade, for a time after the birth of the child, the latter suffers. For instance, if he eats the flesh of a water-haas (Capybara), a large rodent with very protruding teeth, the teeth of the child will grow as those of the animal; or if he eats the flesh of the spotted-skinned labba, the child’s skin will become spotted. Apparently there is also some idea that for the father to eat strong food, to wash, to smoke, or to handle weapons, would have the same result as if the new-born babe ate such food, washed, smoked, or played with edged tools” (pp. 217–219.)

I have to thank Dr. Edward B. Tylor for the valuable notes he kindly sent me.—H. C.]

[Note 5.]—“The abundance of gold in Yun-nan is proverbial in China, so that if a man lives very extravagantly they ask if his father is governor of Yun-nan.” (Martini, p. 140.)

Polo has told us that in Eastern Yun-nan the exchange was 8 of silver for one of gold ([ch. xlviii.]); in the Western division of the province 6 of silver for one of gold ([ch. xlix.]); and now, still nearer the borders of Ava, only 5 of silver for one of gold. Such discrepancies within 15 days’ journey would be inconceivable, but that in both the latter instances at least he appears to speak of the rates at which the gold was purchased from secluded, ignorant, and uncivilised tribes. It is difficult to reconcile with other facts the reason which he assigns for the high value put on silver at Vochan, viz., that there was no silver-mine within five months’ journey. In later days, at least, Martini speaks of many silver-mines in Yun-nan, and the “Great Silver Mine” (Bau-dwen gyi of the Burmese) or group of mines, which affords a chief supply to Burma in modern times, is not far from the territory of our Traveller’s Zardandan. Garnier’s map shows several argentiferous sites in the Valley of the Lan-t’sang.

In another work[3] I have remarked at some length on the relative values of gold and silver about this time. In Western Europe these seem to have been as 12 to 1, and I have shown grounds for believing that in India, and generally over civilised Asia, the ratio was 10 to 1. In Pauthier’s extracts from the Yuen-shi or Annals of the Mongol Dynasty, there is an incidental but precise confirmation of this, of which I was not then aware. This states (p. 321) that on the issue of the paper currency of 1287 the official instructions to the local treasuries were to issue notes of the nominal value of two strings, i.e. 2000 wen or cash, for every ounce of flowered silver, and 20,000 cash for every ounce of gold. Ten to 1 must have continued to be the relation in China down to about the end of the 17th century if we may believe Lecomte; but when Milburne states the same value in the beginning of the 19th he must have fallen into some great error. In 1781 Sonnerat tells us that formerly gold had been exported from China with a profit of 25 per cent., but at that time a profit of 18 to 20 per cent. was made by importing it. At present[4] the relative values are about the same as in Europe, viz. 1 to 15½ or 1 to 16; but in Canton, in 1844, they were 1 to 17; and Timkowski states that at Peking in 1821 the finest gold was valued at 18 to 1. And as regards the precise territory of which this chapter speaks I find in Lieutenant Bower’s Commercial Report on Sladen’s Mission that the price of pure gold at Momein in 1868 was 13 times its weight in silver (p. 122); whilst M. Garnier mentions that the exchange at Ta-li in 1869 was 12 to 1 (I. 522).

Does not Shakspeare indicate at least a memory of 10 to 1 as the traditional relation of gold to silver when he makes the Prince of Morocco, balancing over Portia’s caskets, argue:—

“Or shall I think in silver she’s immured,

Being ten times undervalued to tried gold?

O sinful thought!”

In Japan, at the time trade was opened, we know from Sir R. Alcock’s work the extraordinary fact that the proportionate value set upon gold and silver currency by authority was as 3 to 1.

(Cathay, etc., p. ccl. and p. 442; Lecomte, II. 91; Milburne’s Oriental Commerce, II. 510; Sonnerat, II. 17; Hedde, Etude, Pratique, etc., p. 14; Williams, Chinese Commercial Guide, p. 129; Timkowski, II. 202; Alcock, I. 281; II. 411, etc.)

[Note 6.]—Mr. Lay cites from a Chinese authority a notice of a tribe of “Western Miautsze,” who “in the middle of autumn sacrifice to the Great Ancestor or Founder of their Race.” (The Chinese as they are, p. 321.)

[Note 7.]—Dr. Anderson confirms the depressing and unhealthy character of the summer climate at Momein, though standing between 5000 and 6000 feet above the sea (p. 41).

[Note 8.]—“Whereas before,” says Jack Cade to Lord Say, “our forefathers had no books but score and tally, thou hast caused printing to be used.” The use of such tallies for the record of contracts among the aboriginal tribes of Kweichau is mentioned by Chinese authorities, and the French missionaries of Bonga speak of the same as in use among the simple tribes in that vicinity. But, as Marsden notes, the use of such rude records was to be found in his day in higher places and much nearer home. They continued to be employed as records of receipts in the British Exchequer till 1834, “and it is worthy of recollection that the fire by which the Houses of Parliament were destroyed was supposed to have originated in the over-heating of the flues in which the discarded tallies were being burnt.” I remember often, when a child, to have seen the tallies of the colliers in Scotland, and possibly among that class they may survive. They appear to be still used by bakers in various parts of England and France, in the Canterbury hop-gardens, and locally in some other trades. (Martini, 135; Bridgman, 259, 262; Eng. Cyclop. sub v. Tally; Notes and Queries, 1st ser. X. 485.)

[According to Father Crabouillet (Missions Cath. 1873, p. 105), the Lolos use tallies for their contracts; Dr. Harmand mentions (Tour du Monde, 1877, No. VII.) the same fact among the Khas of Central Laos; and M. Pierre Lefèvre-Pontalis (Populations du nord de l’Indo-Chine, 1892, p. 22, from the J. As.) says he saw these tallies among the Khas of Luang-Prabang.—H. C.]

“In Illustration of this custom I have to relate what follows. In the year 1863 the Tsaubwa (or Prince) of a Shan Province adjoining Yun-nan was in rebellion against the Burmese Government. He wished to enter into communication with the British Government. He sent a messenger to a British Officer with a letter tendering his allegiance, and accompanying this letter was a piece of bamboo about five inches long. This had been split down the middle, so that the two pieces fitted closely together, forming a tube in the original shape of the bamboo. A notch at one end included the edges of both pieces, showing that they were a pair. The messenger said that if the reply were favourable one of the pieces was to be returned and the other kept. I need hardly say the messenger received no written reply, and both pieces of bamboo were retained.” (MS. Note by Sir Arthur Phayre.)

[Note 9.]—Compare Mr. Hodgson’s account of the sub-Himalayan Bodos and Dhimals: “All diseases are ascribed to supernatural agency. The sick man is supposed to be possessed by one of the deities, who racks him with pain as a punishment for impiety or neglect of the god in question. Hence not the mediciner, but the exorcist, is summoned to the sick man’s aid.” (J. A. S. B. XVIII. 728.)

[Note 10.]—Mr. Hodgson again: “Libations of fermented liquor always accompany sacrifice—because, to confess the whole truth, sacrifice and feast are commutable words, and feasts need to be crowned with copious potations.” (Ibid.)

[Note 11.]—And again: “The god in question is asked what sacrifice he requires? a buffalo, a hog, a fowl, or a duck, to spare the sufferer; ... anxious as I am fully to illustrate the topic, I will not try the patience of my readers by describing all that vast variety of black victims and white, of red victims and blue, which each particular deity is alleged to prefer.” (Ibid. and p. 732.)

[Note 12.]—The same system of devil-dancing is prevalent among the tribes on the Lu-kiang, as described by the R. C. Missionaries. The conjurors are there called Mumos. (Ann. de la Prop. de la Foi, XXXVI. 323, and XXXVII. 312–313.)

“Marco’s account of the exorcism of evil spirits in cases of obstinate illness exactly resembles what is done in similar cases by the Burmese, except that I never saw animals sacrificed on such occasions.” (Sir A. Phayre.)

Mouhot says of the wild people of Cambodia called Stiens: “When any one is ill they say that the Evil Spirit torments him; and to deliver him they set up about the patient a dreadful din which does not cease night or day, until some one among the bystanders falls down as if in a syncope, crying out, ‘I have him,—he is in me,—he is strangling me!’ Then they question the person who has thus become possessed. They ask him what remedies will save the patient; what remedies does the Evil Spirit require that he may give up his prey? Sometimes it is an ox or a pig; but too often it is a human victim.” (J. R. G. S. XXXII. 147.)

See also the account of the Samoyede Tadibeï or Devil-dancer in Klaproth’s Magasin Asiatique (II. 83).

In fact these strange rites of Shamanism, devil-dancing, or what not, are found with wonderful identity of character among the non-Caucasian races over parts of the earth most remote from one another, not only among the vast variety of Indo-Chinese Tribes, but among the Tamulian tribes of India, the Veddahs of Ceylon, the races of Siberia, and the red nations of North and South America. Hinduism has assimilated these “prior superstitions of the sons of Tur” as Mr. Hodgson calls them, in the form of Tantrika mysteries, whilst, in the wild performance of the Dancing Dervishes at Constantinople, we see perhaps again the infection of Turanian blood breaking out from the very heart of Mussulman orthodoxy.

Dr. Caldwell has given a striking account of the practice of devil-dancing among the Shanars of Tinnevelly, which forms a perfect parallel in modern language to our Traveller’s description of a scene of which he also had manifestly been an eye-witness: “When the preparations are completed and the devil-dance is about to commence, the music is at first comparatively slow; the dancer seems impassive and sullen, and he either stands still or moves about in gloomy silence. Gradually, as the music becomes quicker and louder, his excitement begins to rise. Sometimes, to help him to work himself up into a frenzy, he uses medicated draughts, cuts and lacerates himself till the blood flows, lashes himself with a huge whip, presses a burning torch to his breast, drinks the blood which flows from his own wounds, or drains the blood of the sacrifice, putting the throat of the decapitated goat to his mouth. Then, as if he had acquired new life, he begins to brandish his staff of bells, and to dance with a quick but wild unsteady step. Suddenly the afflatus descends; there is no mistaking that glare, or those frantic leaps. He snorts, he stares, he gyrates. The demon has now taken bodily possession of him, and though he retains the power of utterance and motion, both are under the demon’s control, and his separate consciousness is in abeyance. The bystanders signalise the event by raising a long shout, attended with a peculiar vibratory noise, caused by the motion of the hand and tongue, or the tongue alone. The devil-dancer is now worshipped as a present deity, and every bystander consults him respecting his diseases, his wants, the welfare of his absent relatives, the offerings to be made for the accomplishment of his wishes, and in short everything for which superhuman knowledge is supposed to be available.” (Hodgson, J. R. As. Soc. XVIII. 397; The Tinnevelly Shanars, by the Rev. R. Caldwell, B.A., Madras, 1849, pp. 19–20.)

[1] “Singpho,” says Colonel Hannay, “signifies in the Kakhyen language ‘a man,’ and all of this race who have settled in Hookong or Assam are thus designated; the reason of their change of name I could not ascertain, but so much importance seems to be attached to it, that the Singphos, in talking of their eastern and southern neighbours, call them Kakhyens or Kakoos, and consider it an insult to be called so themselves.” (Sketch of the Singphos, or the Kakhyens of Burma, Calcutta, 1847, pp. 3–4.) If, however, the Kakhyens, or Kachyens (as Major Sladen calls them), are represented by the Go-tchang of Pauthier’s Chinese extracts, these seem to be distinguished from the Kin-Chi, though associated with them. (See pp. 397, 411.)

[2] [Mr. E. H. Parker (China Review, XIV. p. 359) says that Colonel Yule’s Langszi are evidently the Szilang, one of the six Chao, but turned upside down.—H. C.]