The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2
by
Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
Part 20 out of 23
PREFACE
A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF SIR HENRY YULE'S WRITINGS
MARCO POLO AND HIS BOOK
INTRODUCTORY NOTICES
PROLOGUE
Sarai--Shang tu--Khitan inscription
BOOK I. ACCOUNT OF REGIONS VISITED OR HEARD OF ON THE JOURNEY FROM THE
LESSER ARMENIA TO THE COURT OF THE GREAT KAAN AT CHANDU
Baudas--Nasich--Death of Mostas'im--Tauris--Cala Ataperistan--Persia--
Fat-tailed sheep--The Caraunas Robbers--Pashai--Hormos--Tun-o-Kain--
Tutia--Arbre sec--Old Man of the Mountain--Road to Sapurgan--Dogana--
Badakhshan--Wakhan--Plateau of Pamir--Paonano Pao--Yue Chi--Bolor--
Khotan--Pein--City of Lop--Great Desert--Camul--Chingintalas--Sukchur
--Campichu--Etzina--Tatar--Karacathayans--Keraits--Death of Chingiz
Khan--Tailgan--Marriage--_Tengri_--Coats of Mail--Reindeer--
Sinju--Gurun--King George--Tenduc--Christians.
BOOK II. PART I. THE KAAN, HIS COURT AND CAPITAL
Nayan--_P'ai Tzu_--Mongol Imperial Family--Hunting Leopard--
Cachar Modun--Bark of Trees--Value of Gold--_Ch'ing siang_--Cycle
of Twelve--Persian.
BOOK II. PART II. JOURNEY TO THE WEST AND SOUTH-WEST OF CATHAY
Wine and Vines--Christian Monument at Si-ngan fu--Khumdan--Mubupa--
_Chien tao_--Sindafu--Tibet--Wild Oxen--Kiung tu--Karajang--
Zardandan--Couvade--King of Mien--Burma--Nga-tshaung-gyan--Caugigu.
BOOK II. PART III. JOURNEY SOUTHWARD THROUGH EASTERN PROVINCES OF CATHAY
AND MANZI
Ch'ang Lu Salt--_Sangon_-Li T'an--Sinjumatu--Great Canal--Caiju
--Lin Ngan--Yanju--Yang Chau--Siege of Saianfu--_P'ao_--Alans--
Vuju--Kinsay--Silky Fowls--Sugar--Zaitun.
BOOK III. JAPAN, THE ARCHIPELAGO, SOUTHERN INDIA, AND THE COASTS AND
ISLANDS OF THE INDIAN SEA
Nafun--Japanese War--Chamba--Pulo Condore--Locac--Lawaki--Pentam--
Tana-Malayu--Malacca--Sumatra--Ferlec--Sago Tree--Angamanain--
Dog-headed Barbarians--Ceylon--Sagamoni Borcan--Barlaam and Josaphat--
Tanjore--Chinese Pagoda at Negapatam--Suttees in India--Maabar--St.
Thomas--Calamina--Cail--Sappan--Fandaraina--Gozurat--Two Islands
called Male and Female--Scotra--The Rukh--Giraffes--Zanghibar--Aden--
Esher--Dufar--Frankincense.
BOOK IV. WARS AMONG THE TARTAR PRINCES AND SOME ACCOUNT OF THE NORTHERN
COUNTRIES
Russia
APPENDICES
LIST OF MSS. OF MARCO POLO'S BOOK SO FAR AS THEY ARE KNOWN
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF MARCO POLO'S BOOK
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF PRINTED EDITIONS
TITLES OF SUNDRY BOOKS AND PAPERS WHICH TREAT OF MARCO POLO AND HIS BOOK
SUPPLEMENTARY NOTE
ANDAMAN AND NICOBAR ISLANDS
INDEX
MARCO POLO AND HIS BOOK.
INTRODUCTORY NOTICES.
Introduction, p. 6.
Speaking of Pashai, Sir Aurel Stein (_Geog. Journ._), referring to
the notes and memoranda brought home by the great Venetian traveller, has
the following remarks: "We have seen how accurately it reproduces
information about territories difficult of access at all times, and far
away from his own route. It appears to me quite impossible to believe that
such exact data, learned at the very beginning of the great traveller's
long wanderings, could have been reproduced by him from memory alone close
on thirty years later when dictating his wonderful story to Rusticiano
during his captivity at Genoa. Here, anyhow, we have definite proof of the
use of those 'notes and memoranda which he had brought with him,' and
which, as Ramusio's 'Preface' of 1553 tells us (see Yule, _Marco
Polo_, I., Introduction, p. 6), Messer Marco, while prisoner of war,
was believed to have had sent to him by his father from Venice. How
grateful must geographer and historical student alike feel for these
precious materials having reached the illustrious prisoner safely!"
Introduction, p. 10 n.
KHAKHAN.
"Mr. Rockhill's remarks about the title _Khakhan_ require
supplementing. Of course, the Turks did not use the term before 560 (552
was the exact year), because neither they nor their name 'Turk' had any
self-assertive existence before then, and until that year they were the
'iron-working slaves' of the Jou-jan. The Khakhan of those last-named
Tartars naturally would not allow the petty tribe of Turk to usurp his
exclusive and supreme title. But even a century and a half before this,
the ruler of the T'u-kuh-hun nomads had already borne the title of
Khakhan, which (the late Dr. Bretschneider agreed with me in thinking) was
originally of Tungusic and not of Turkish origin. The T'u-kuh-hun were of
the same race as the half-Mongol, half-Tungusic Tobas, who ruled for two
centuries over North China.... The title of Khakhan, in various bastard
forms, was during the tenth century used by the Kings of Khoten and Kuche,
as well as by the petty Ouigour Kings of Kan Chou, Si Chou, etc." (E.H.
PARKER, _Asiatic Quart. Rev._, Jan., 1904, pp. 139-140.)
Introduction, p. 19. [The] second start [of the Venetians] from Acre took
place about November, 1271.
M. Langlois remarks that the last stay of the Polos at Acre was
necessarily before the 18th November, 1271, date of the departure of
Gregory X. for the West. Cf. _Itineraires a Jerusalem et Descriptions de
la Terre-Sainte rediges en francais aux XI'e, XII'e et XIII'e
siecles_, publ. par H. MICHELANT et G. RAYNAUD (Geneve, 1882), pp.
xxviii-xxix:
"La date de 1269, donnee seulement par un des manuscrits de la redaction
de Thibaut de Cepoy, pour le premier sejour a Acre des Polo et leur
rencontre avec Tedaldo Visconti, qui allait etre elu pape et prendre le
nom de Gregoire X., date preferee par tous les editeurs a celles
evidemment erronees de Rusticien de Pise (1260) et des huit autres
manuscrits de Thibaut de Cepoy (1250 et 1260), n'est pas hors de toute
discussion. M.G. Tononi, archipretre de Plaisance, qui prepare une
histoire et une edition des ceuvres de Gregoire X., me fait remarquer que
les chroniqueurs ne placent le depart de Tedaldo pour la Terre-Sainte
qu'apres celui de S. Louis pour Tunis (2 juillet 1270), et que, d'apres un
acte du _Tresor des Chartes_, Tedaldo etait encore a Paris le 28
decembre 1269. Il faudrait done probablement dater de 1271 le premier et
le deuxieme sejour des Polo a Acre, et les placer tous deux entre le 9
mai, epoque de l'arrivee en Terre-Sainte d'Edouard d'Angleterre,--avec
lequel, suivant _l'Eracles_, aborda Tedaldo--et le 18 novembre, date
du depart du nouveau pape pour l'Occident." (Cf. _Hist. litt. de la
France_, XXXV, _Marco Polo_.)
Introduction, p. 19 n.
I have here discussed Major Sykes' theory of Polo's itinerary in Persia;
the question was raised again by Major Sykes in the _Geographical
Journal_, October, 1905, pp. 462-465. I answered again, and I do not
think it necessary to carry on farther this controversy. I recall that
Major Sykes writes: "To conclude, I maintain that Marco Polo entered
Persia near Tabriz, whence he travelled to Sultania, Kashan, Yezd, Kerman,
and Hormuz. From that port, owing to the unseaworthiness of the vessels,
the presence of pirates, the fact that the season was past, or for some
other reason, he returned by a westerly route to Kerman, and thence
crossed the Lut to Khorasan."
I replied in the _Geographical Journal_, Dec., 1905, pp. 686-687:
"Baghdad, after its fall in 1258, did not cease immediately to be 'rather
off the main caravan route.' I shall not refer Major Sykes to what I say
in my editions of 'Odorico' and 'Polo' on the subject, but to the standard
work of Heyd, _Commerce du Levant_, Vol. 2, pp. 77, 78. The itinerary,
Tabriz, Sultania, Kashan, Yezd, was the usual route later on, at the
beginning of the fourteenth century, and it was followed, among others, by
Fra Odorico, of Pordenone. Marco Polo, on his way to the Far East--you
must not forget that he was at Acre in 1271--could not have crossed
Sultania, which _did not exist_, as its building was commenced by Arghun
Khan, who ascended the throne in 1284, and was continued by Oeljaitu
(1304-1316), who gave the name of Sultania to the city." Cf. Lieut.-Col.
P.M. SYKES, _A History of Persia_, 1915, 2 vols., 8vo; II., p. 181 n.
Introduction, p. 21. M. Pauthier has found a record in the Chinese Annals
of the Mongol dynasty, which states that in the year 1277, a certain POLO
was nominated a second-class commissioner or agent attached to the Privy
Council, a passage which we are happy to believe to refer to our young
traveller.
Prof. E.H. Parker remarks (_Asiatic Quart. Review_, 3rd Series, Vol.
XVII., Jan., 1904, pp. 128-131): "M. Pauthier has apparently overlooked
other records, which make it clear that the identical individual in
question had already received honours from Kublai many years before
Marco's arrival in 1275. Perhaps the best way to make this point clear
would be to give all the original passages which bear upon the question.
The number I give refer to the chapter and page (first half or second half
of the double page) of the _Yuan Shi_:--
A. Chap. 7, p. 1-2/2: 1270, second moon. Kublai inspects a court pageant
prepared by Puh-lo and others.
B. Chap. 7, p. 6-1/2: 1270, twelfth moon. The _yue-shi chung-ch'eng_
(censor) Puh-lo made also President of the _Ta-sz-nung_ department. One of
the ministers protested that there was no precedent for a censor holding
this second post. Kublai insisted.
C. Chap. 8, p. 16-1/2: 1275, second moon. Puh-lo and another sent to look
into the Customs taxation question in Tangut.
D. Chap. 8, p. 22-1/2: 1275, fourth moon. The _Ta-sz-nung_ and _yue-shi
chung-ch'eng_ Puh-lo promoted to be _yue-shi ta-fu_.
E. Chap. 9, p. 11-2/2: 1276, seventh moon. The Imperial Prince Puh-lo
given a seal.
F. Chap. 9, p. 16-2/2: 1277, second moon. The _Ta-sz-nung_ and _yue-shi
ta-fu_, Puh-lo, being also _suean-wei-shi_ and Court Chamberlain, promoted
to be _shu-mih fu-shi_, and also _suean-hwei-shi_ and Court Chamberlain.
"The words _shu-mih fu-shi_ the Chinese characters for which are given on
p. 569 of M. Cordier's second volume, precisely mean 'Second-class
Commissioner attached to the Privy Council,' and hence it is clear that
Pauthier was totally mistaken in supposing the censor of 1270 to have been
Marco. Of course the Imperial Prince Puh-lo is not the same person as the
censor, nor is it clear who the (1) pageant and (2) Tangut Puh-los were,
except that neither could possibly have been Marco, who only arrived in
May--the third moon--at the very earliest.
"In the first moon of 1281 some gold, silver, and bank-notes were handed
to Puh-lo for the relief of the poor. In the second moon of 1282, just
before the assassination of Achmed, the words 'Puh-lo the Minister'
(_ch'eng-siang_) are used in connection with a case of fraud. In the
seventh moon of 1282 (after the fall of Achmed) the 'Mongol man Puh-lo'
was placed in charge of some gold-washings in certain towers of the then
Hu Peh (now in Hu Nan). In the ninth moon of the same year a commission
was sent to take official possession of all the gold-yielding places in
Yuen Nan, and Puh-lo was appointed _darugachi_ (= governor) of the mines.
In this case it is not explicitly stated (though it would appear most
likely) that the two gold superintendents were the same man; if they were,
then neither could have been Marco, who certainly was no 'Mongol man.'
Otherwise there would be a great temptation to identify this event with
the mission to '_una citta, detta Carazan_' of the Ramusio Text.
"There is, however, one man who may possibly be Marco, and that is the
Poh-lo who was probably with Kublai at Chagan Nor when the news of
Achmed's murder by Wang Chu arrived there in the third moon of 1282. The
Emperor at once left for Shang-tu (i.e. _K'ai-p'ing Fu_, north of
Dolonor), and 'ordered the _shu-mih fu-shi_ Poh-lo [with two other
statesmen] to proceed with all speed to Ta-tu (i.e. to Cambalu). On
receiving Poh-lo's report, the Emperor became convinced of the deceptions
practised upon him by Achmed, and said: "It was a good thing that Wang Chu
_did_ kill him."' In 1284 Achmed's successor is stated (chap, 209, p.
9-1/2) to have recommended Poh-lo, amongst others, for minor Treasury
posts. The same man (chap. 209, p. 12-1/2) subsequently got Poh-lo
appointed to a salt superintendency in the provinces; and as Yang-chou is
the centre of the salt trade, it is just possible that Marco's
'governorship' of that place may resolve itself into this.
"There are many other Puh-lo and Poh-lo mentioned, both before Marco's
arrival in, and subsequently to Marco's departure in 1292 from, China. In
several cases (as, for instance, in that of P. Timur) both forms occur in
different chapters for the same man; and a certain Tartar called 'Puh-lan
Hi' is also called 'Puh-lo Hi.' One of Genghis Khan's younger brothers was
called Puh-lo Kadei. There was, moreover, a Cathayan named Puh-lo, and a
Naiman Prince Poh-lo. Whether 'Puh-lo the Premier' or 'one of the
Ministers,' mentioned in 1282, is the same person as 'Poh-lo the _ts'an
cheng_,' or 'Prime Minister's assistant' of 1284, I cannot say. Perhaps,
when the whole _Yuean Shi_ has been thoroughly searched throughout in all
its editions, we may obtain more certain information. Meanwhile, one thing
is plain: Pauthier is wrong, Yule is wrong in that particular connection;
and M. Cordier gives us no positive view of his own. The other
possibilities are given above, but I scarcely regard any of them as
probabilities. On p. 99 of his Introduction, Colonel Yule manifestly
identifies the Poh-lo of 1282 with Marco; but the identity of his title
with that of Puh-lo in 1277 suggests that the two men are one, in which
case neither can be Marco Polo. On p. 422 of Vol. I. Yule repeats this
identification in his notes. I may mention that much of the information
given in the present article was published in Vol. XXIV. of the _China
Review_ two or three years ago. I notice that M. Cordier quotes that
volume in connection with other matters, but this particular point does
not appear to have caught his eye.
"As matters now stand, there is a fairly strong presumption that Marco
Polo is _once_ named in the Annals; but there is no irrefragable evidence;
and in any case it is only this once, and not as Pauthier has it."
Cf. also note by Prof. E.H. Parker, _China Review_, XXV. pp. 193-4, and,
according to Prof. Pelliot (_Bul. Ecole franc. Ext. Orient_, July-Sept.,
1904, p. 769), the biography of Han Lin-eul in the _Ming shi_, k. 122, p.
3.
Prof. Pelliot writes to me: "Il faut renoncer une bonne fois a retrouver
Marco Polo dans le Po-lo mele a l'affaire d'Ahmed. Grace aux titulations
successives, nous pouvons reconstituer la carriere administrative de ce
Po-lo, au moins depuis 1271, c'est-a-dire depuis une date anterieure a
l'arrivee de Marco Polo a la cour mongole. D'autre part, Rashid-ud-Din
mentionne le role joue dans l'affaire d'Ahmed par le Pulad-aqa,
c'est-a-dire Pulad Chinsang, son informateur dans les choses mongoles, mais
la forme mongole de ce nom de _Pulad_ est _Bolod_, en transcription
chinoise _Po-lo_. J'ai signale (_T'oung Pao_, 1914, p. 640) que des textes
chinois mentionnent effectivement que Po-lo (Bolod), envoye en mission
aupres d'Arghun en 1285, resta ensuite en Perse. C'est donc en definitive
le Pulad (= Bolod) de Rashid-ud-Din qui serait le Po-lo qu'a la suite de
Pauthier on a trop longtemps identifie a Marco Polo."
Introduction, p. 23.
"The _Yuean Shi_ contains curious confirmation of the facts which led up to
Marco Polo's conducting a wife to Arghun of Persia, who lost his spouse in
1286. In the eleventh moon of that year (say January, 1287) the following
laconic announcement appears: 'T'a-ch'a-r Hu-nan ordered to go on a
mission to A-r-hun.' It is possible that Tachar and Hunan may be two
individuals, and, though they probably started overland, it is probable
that they were in some way connected with Polo's first and unsuccessful
attempt to take the girl to Persia." (E.H. PARKER, _Asiatic Quart. Rev._,
Jan., 1904, p. 136.)
Introduction, p. 76 _n._
With regard to the statue of the Pseudo-Marco Polo of Canton, Dr. B.
Laufer, of Chicago, sends me the following valuable note:--
THE ALLEGED MARCO POLO LO-HAN OF CANTON.
The temple _Hua lin se_ (in Cantonese _Fa lum se_, i.e. Temple of the
Flowery Grove) is situated in the western suburbs of the city of Canton.
Its principal attraction is the vast hall, the Lo-han t'ang, in which are
arranged in numerous avenues some five hundred richly gilded images, about
three feet in height, representing the 500 Lo-han (Arhat). The workmanship
displayed in the manufacture of these figures, made of fine clay thickly
covered with burnished gilding, is said to be most artistic, and the
variety of types is especially noticeable. In this group we meet a statue
credited with a European influence. Two opinions are current regarding
this statue: one refers to it as representing the image of a Portuguese
sailor, the other sees in it a portrait of Marco Polo.
The former view is expressed, as far as I see, for the first time, by
MAYERS and DENNYS (_The Treaty Ports of China and Japan_, London and Hong
Kong, 1867, p. 162). "One effigy," these authors remark, "whose features
are strongly European in type, will be pointed out as the image of a
Portuguese seaman who was wrecked, centuries ago, on the coast, and whose
virtues during a long residence gained him canonization after death. This
is probably a pure myth, growing from an accidental resemblance of the
features." This interpretation of a homage rendered to a Portuguese is
repeated by C.A. MONTALTO DE JESUS, _Historic Macao_ (Hong Kong, 1902, p.
28). A still more positive judgment on this matter is passed by MADROLLE
(_Chine du Sud et de l'Est_, Paris, 1904, p. 17). "The attitudes of the
Venerable Ones," he says, "are remarkable for their life-like expression,
or sometimes, singularly grotesque. One of these personalities placed on
the right side of a great altar wears the costume of the 16th century, and
we might be inclined to regard it as a Chinese representation of Marco
Polo. It is probable, however, that the artist, who had to execute the
statue of a Hindu, that is, of a man of the West, adopted as the model of
his costume that of the Portuguese who visited Canton since the
commencement of the 16th century." It seems to be rather doubtful whether
the 500 Lo-han of Canton are really traceable to that time. There is
hardly any huge clay statue in China a hundred or two hundred years old,
and all the older ones are in a state of decay, owing to the brittleness
of the material and the carelessness of the monks. Besides, as stated by
Mayers and Dennys (l.c., p. 163), the Lo-han Hall of Canton, with its
glittering contents, is a purely modern structure, having been added to
the Fa-lum Temple in 1846, by means of a subscription mainly supported by
the Hong Merchants. Although this statue is not old, yet it may have been
made after an ancient model. Archdeacon Gray, in his remarkable and
interesting book, _Walks in the City of Canton_ (Hong Kong, 1875, p. 207),
justly criticized the Marco Polo theory, and simultaneously gave a correct
identification of the Lo-han in question. His statement is as follows: "Of
the idols of the five hundred disciples of Buddha, which, in this hall,
are contained, there is one, which, in dress and configuration of
countenance, is said to resemble a foreigner. With regard to this image,
one writer, if we mistake not, has stated that it is a statue of the
celebrated traveller Marco Polo, who, in the thirteenth century, visited,
and, for some time, resided in the flowery land of China. This statement,
on the part of the writer to whom we refer, is altogether untenable.
Moreover, it is an error so glaring as to cast, in the estimation of all
careful readers of his work, no ordinary degree of discredit upon many of
his most positive assertions. The person, whose idol is so rashly
described as being that of Marco Polo, was named Shien-Tchu. He was a
native of one of the northern provinces of India, and, for his zeal as an
apostle in the service of Buddha, was highly renowned."
Everard Cotes closes the final chapter of his book, _The Arising East_
(New York, 1907), as follows: "In the heart of Canton, within easy reach
of mob violence at any time, may be seen to-day the life-size statue of an
elderly European, in gilt clothes and black hat, which the Chinese have
cared for and preserved from generation to generation because the
original, Marco Polo, was a friend to their race. The thirteenth-century
European had no monopoly of ability to make himself loved and reverenced.
A position similar to that which he won as an individual is open to-day to
the Anglo-Saxon as a race. But the Mongolian was not afraid of Marco Polo,
and he is afraid of us. It can be attained, therefore, only by fair
dealing and sympathy, supported by an overwhelming preponderance of
fighting strength."
[Dr. Laufer reproduces here the note in _Marco Polo_, I., p. 76. I may
remark that I never said nor believed that the statue was Polo's. The
mosaic at Genoa is a fancy portrait.]
The question may be raised, however, Are there any traces of foreign
influence displayed in this statue? The only way of solving this problem
seemed to me the following: First to determine the number and the name of
the alleged Marco Polo Lo-han at Canton, and then by means of this number
to trace him in the series of pictures of the traditional 500 Lo-han (the
so-called _Lo han t'u_).
The alleged Marco Polo Lo-han bears the number 100, and his name is
Shan-chu tsun-che (_tsun-che_ being a translation of Sanskrit _arya_,
"holy, reverend"). The name Shan-chu evidently represents the rendering of
a Sanskrit name, and does not suggest a European name. The illustration
here reproduced is Lo-han No. 100 from a series of stone-engravings in the
temple T'ien-ning on the West Lake near Hang Chau. It will be noticed that
it agrees very well with the statue figured by M. Cordier. In every respect
it bears the features of an Indian Lo-han, with one exception, and this is
the curious hat. This, in fact, is the only Lo-han among the five hundred
that is equipped with a headgear; and the hat, as is well known, is not
found in India. This hat must represent a more or less arbitrary addition
of the Chinese artist who created the group, and it is this hat which led
to the speculations regarding the Portuguese sailor or Marco Polo. Certain
it is also that such a type of hat does not occur in China; but it seems
idle to speculate as to its origin, as long as we have no positive
information on the intentions of the artist. The striped mantle of the
Lo-han is by no means singular, for it occurs with seventeen others. The
facts simply amount to this, that the figure in question does not represent
a Portuguese sailor or Marco Polo or any other European, but solely an
Indian Lo-han (Arhat), while the peculiar hat remains to be explained.
Introduction, p. 92.
THIBAUT DE CHEPOY.
Thibaut de Chepoy (Chepoy, canton of Breteuil, Oise), son of the knight
Jean de Chepoy, was one of the chief captains of King Philip the Fair. He
entered the king's service in 1285 as squire and valet; went subsequently
to Robert d'Artois, who placed him in charge of the castle of Saint Omer,
and took him, in 1296, to Gascony to fight the English. He was afterwards
grand master of the cross-bow men. He then entered the service of Charles
de Valois, brother of Philip the Fair, who sent him to Constantinople to
support the claims to the throne of his wife, Catherine of Courtenay.
Thibaut left Paris on the 9th Sept., 1306, passed through Venice, where he
met Marco Polo who gave him a copy of his manuscript. Thibaut died between
22nd May, 1311, and 22nd March, 1312. (See Joseph PETIT, in _Le Moyen
Age_, Paris, 1897, pp. 224-239.)
THE BOOK OF MARCO POLO.
PROLOGUE
II., p. 6.
SARAI.
"Cordier (Yule) identifiziert den von Pegolotti gewaehlten Namen Saeracanco
mit dem juengeren Sarai oder Zarew (dem Sarai grande Fra Mauros), was mir
vollkommen untunlich erscheint; es waere dann die Route des Reisenden
geradezu ein Zickzackweg gewesen, der durch nichts zu rechtfertigen waere."
(Dr. Ed. FRIEDMANN, _Pegolotti_, p. 14.)
Prof. Pelliot writes to me: "Il n'y a aucune possibilite de retrouver dans
_Saracanco, Sarai + Kunk_. Le mot _Kunk_ n'est pas autrement
atteste, et la construction mongole ou turque exigerait _kunk-sarai_."
XIII., pp. 25-26.
SHANG TU.
See also A. POZDNEIEV, _Mongoliya i Mongoly_, II., pp. 303 seq.
XV., pp. 27, 28-30. Now it came that Marco, the son of Messer Nicolo, sped
wondrously in learning the customs of the Tartars, as well as their
language, their manner of writing, and their practice of war--in fact he
came in a brief space to know several languages, and four sundry written
characters.
On the linguistic office called _Sse yi kwan_, cf. an interesting
note by H. MASPERO, p. 8, of _Bul. Ecole franc. Ext. Orient_,
XII., No. 1, 1912.
XV., p. 28 n. Of the Khitan but one inscription was known and no key.
Prof. Pelliot remarks, _Bul. Ecole franc. Ext. Orient_, IV., July-Sept.,
1904: "In fact a Chinese work has preserved but five k'i-tan characters,
however with the Chinese translation." He writes to me that we do not know
_any_ k'itan inscription, but half a dozen characters reproduced in a work
of the second half of the fourteenth century. The Uighur alphabet is of
Aramean origin through Sogdian; from this point of view, it is not
necessary to call for Estranghelo, nor Nestorian propaganda. On the other
hand we have to-day documents in Uighur writing older than the _Kudatku
Bilik_.
BOOK FIRST.
ACCOUNT OF REGIONS VISITED OR HEARD OF ON THE JOURNEY FROM THE LESSER
ARMENIA TO THE COURT OF THE GREAT KAAN AT CHANDU.
BOOK I.
VI., p. 63. "There is also on the river, as you go from Baudas to Kisi, a
great city called Bastra, surrounded by woods, in which grow the best
dates in the world."
"The products of the country are camels, sheep and dates." (At Pi-ssi-lo,
Basra. CHAU JU-KWA, p. 137.)
VI., pp. 63, 65. "In Baudas they weave many different kinds of silk stuffs
and gold brocades, such as _nasich_, and _nac_, and _cramoisy_, and many
other beautiful tissue richly wrought with figures of beasts and birds."
In the French text we have _nassit_ and _nac_.
"S'il faut en croire M. Defremery, au lieu de _nassit_, il faut evidemment
lire _nassij_ (necidj), ce qui signifie un tissu, en general, et designe
particulierement une etoffe de soie de la meme espece que le _nekh_. Quant
aux etoffes sur lesquelles etaient figures des animaux et des oiseaux, le
meme orientaliste croit qu'il faut y reconnaitre le _thardwehch_, sorte
d'etoffe de soie qui, comme son nom l'indique, representait des scenes de
chasse. On sait que l'usage de ces representations est tres ancien en
Orient, comme on le voit dans des passages de Philostrate et de
Quinte-Curce rapportes par Mongez." (FRANCISQUE-MICHEL, _Recherches sur le
Commerce_, I., p. 262.)
VI., p. 67.
DEATH OF MOSTAS'IM.
According to Al-Fakhri, translated by E. Amar (_Archives marocaines_ XVI.,
p. 579), Mostas'im was put to death with his two eldest sons on the 4th of
safar, 656 (3rd February, 1258).
XI., p. 75. "The [the men of Tauris] weave many kinds of beautiful and
valuable stuffs of silk and gold."
Francisque-Michel (I., p. 316) remarks: "De ce que Marco Polo se borne a
nommer Tauris comme la ville de Perse ou il se fabriquait maints draps
d'or et de soie, il ne faudrait pas en conclure que cette industrie
n'existat pas sur d'autres points du meme royaume. Pour n'en citer qu'un
seul, la ville d'Arsacie, ancienne capitale des Parthes, connue
aujourd'hui sous le nom de Caswin, possedait vraisemblablement deja cette
industrie des beaux draps d'or et de soie qui existait encore au temps de
Huet, c'est-a-dire au XVII'e siecle."
XIII., p. 78. "Messer Marco Polo found a village there which goes by the
name of CALA ATAPERISTAN, which is as much as to say, 'The Castle of the
Fire-worshippers.'"
With regard to Kal'ah-i Atashparastan, Prof. A.V.W. Jackson writes
(_Persia_, 1906, p. 413): "And the name is rightly applied, for the people
there do worship fire. In an article entitled _The Magi in Marco Polo
(Journ. Am. Or. Soc._, 26, 79-83) I have given various reasons for
identifying the so-called 'Castle of the Fire-Worshippers' with Kashan,
which Odoric mentions or a village in its vicinity, the only rival to the
claim being the town of Nain, whose Gabar Castle has already been
mentioned above."
XIV., p. 78.
PERSIA.
Speaking of Saba and of Cala Ataperistan, Prof. E.H. Parker (_Asiatic
Quart. Rev._, Jan., 1904, p. 134) has the following remarks: "It is not
impossible that certain unexplained statements in the Chinese records may
shed light upon this obscure subject. In describing the Arab Conquest of
Persia, the Old and New T'ang Histories mention the city of Hia-lah as
being amongst those captured; another name for it was _Sam_ (according to
the Chinese initial and final system of spelling words). A later Chinese
poet has left the following curious line on record: 'All the priests
venerate Hia-lah.' The allusion is vague and undated, but it is difficult
to imagine to what else it can refer. The term _seng_, or 'bonze,' here
translated 'priests,' was frequently applied to Nestorian and Persian
priests, as in this case."
XIV., p. 80. "Three Kings."
Regarding the legend of the stone cast into a well, cf. F.W.K. MUELLER,
_Uigurica_, pp. 5-10 (Pelliot).
XVII., p. 90. "There are also plenty of veins of steel and _Ondanique_."
"The _ondanique_ which Marco Polo mentions in his 42nd chapter is almost
certainly the _pin t'ieh_ or 'pin iron' of the Chinese, who frequently
mention it as coming from Arabia, Persia, Cophene, Hami, Ouigour-land and
other High Asia States." (E.H. PARKER, _Journ. North China Br. Roy.
Asiatic Soc._, XXXVIII., 1907, p. 225.)
XVIII., pp. 97, 100. "The province that we now enter is called
REOBARLES.... The beasts also are peculiar.... Then there are sheep here
as big as asses; and their tails are so large and fat, that one tail shall
weight some 30 lbs. They are fine fat beasts, and afford capital mutton."
Prof. E.H. PARKER writes in the _Journ. of the North China Branch of the
Royal Asiatic Soc._, XXXVII., 1906, p. 196: "Touching the fat-tailed sheep
of Persia, the _Shan-hai-king_ says the Yueh-chi or Indo-Scythy had a
'big-tailed sheep' the correct name for which is _hien-yang_. The Sung
History mentions sheep at Hami with tails so heavy that they could not
walk. In the year 1010 some were sent as tribute to China by the King of
Kuche."
"Among the native products [at Mu lan p'i, Murabit, Southern Coast of
Spain] are foreign sheep, which are several feet high and have tails as
big as a fan. In the spring-time they slit open their bellies and take out
some tens of catties of fat, after which they sew them up again, and the
sheep live on; if the fat were not removed, (the animal) would swell up
and die." (CHAU JU-KWA, pp. 142-3.)
"The Chinese of the T'ang period had heard also of the trucks put under
these sheep's tails. 'The Ta-shi have a foreign breed of sheep (_hu-yang_)
whose tails, covered with fine wool, weigh from ten to twenty catties; the
people have to put carts under them to hold them up. Fan-kuo-chi as quoted
in Tung-si-yang-k'au." (HIRTH and ROCKHILL, p. 143.)
Leo Africanus, _Historie of Africa_, III., 945 (Hakluyt Soc. ed.), says he
saw in Egypt a ram with a tail weighing eighty pounds!:
OF THE AFRICAN RAMME.
"There is no difference betweene these rammes of Africa and others, saue
onely in their tailes, which are of a great thicknes, being by so much the
grosser, but how much they are more fatte, so that some of their tailes
waigh tenne, and other twentie pounds a peece, and they become fatte of
their owne naturall inclination: but in Egypt there are diuers that feede
them fatte with bran and barly, vntill their tailes growe so bigge that
they cannot remooue themselves from place to place: insomuch that those
which take charge of them are faine to binde little carts vnder their
tailes, to the end they may haue strength to walke. I my selfe saw at a
citie in Egypt called Asiot, and standing vpon Nilus, about an hundred and
fiftie miles from Cairo, one of the saide rams tailes that weighed
fowerscore pounds, and others affirmed that they had seene one of those
tailes of an hundred and fiftie pounds weight. All the fatte therefore of
this beast consisteth in his taile; neither is there any of them to be
founde but onely in Tunis and in Egypt." (LEO AFRICANUS, edited by Dr.
Robert BROWN, III., 1896, Hakluyt Society, p. 945.)
XVIII., pp. 97, 100 n.
Dr. B. Laufer draws my attention to what is probably the oldest mention of
this sheep from Arabia, in Herodotus, Book III., Chap. 113:
"Concerning the spices of Arabia let no more be said. The whole country is
scented with them, and exhales an odour marvellously sweet. There are also
in Arabia two kinds of sheep worthy of admiration, the like of which is
nowhere else to be seen; the one kind has long tails, not less than three
cubits in length, which, if they were allowed to trail on the ground,
would be bruised and fall into sores. As it is, all the shepherds know
enough of carpentering to make little trucks for their sheep's tails. The
trucks are placed under the tails, each sheep having one to himself, and
the tails are then tied down upon them. The other kind has a broad tail,
which is a cubit across sometimes."
Canon G. Rawlinson, in his edition of Herodotus, has the following note on
this subject (II., p. 500):--
"Sheep of this character have acquired among our writers the name of Cape
Sheep, from the fact that they are the species chiefly affected by our
settlers at the Cape of Good Hope. They are common in Africa and
throughout the East, being found not only in Arabia, but in Persia, Syria,
Affghanistan, Egypt, Barbary, and even Asia Minor. A recent traveller,
writing from Smyrna, says: 'The sheep of the country are the Cape sheep,
having a kind of apron tail, entirely of rich marrowy fat, extending to
the width of their hind quarters, and frequently trailing on the ground;
the weight of the tail is often more than six or eight pounds' (FELLOWS'S
_Asia Minor_, p. 10). Leo Africanus, writing in the 15th century, regards
the broad tail as the great difference between the sheep of Africa and
that of Europe. He declares that one which _he had seen_ in Egypt weighed
80 lbs. He also mentions the use of trucks which is still common in North
Africa."
XVIII., p. 98. "Camadi.--Reobarles.--In this plain there are a number of
villages and towns which have lofty walls of mud, made as a defence
against the banditti, who are very numerous, and are called CARAONAS. This
name is given them because they are the sons of Indian mothers by Tartar
fathers."
Mirza Haidar writes (_Tarikh-i-Rashidi_, p. 148): "The learned Mirza Ulugh
Beg has written a history which he has called _Ulus Arbaa_. One of the
'four hordes' is that of the Moghul, who are divided into two branches,
the Moghul and the Chaghatai. But these two branches, on account of their
mutual enmity, used to call each other by a special name, by way of
depreciation. Thus the Chaghatai called the Moghul _Jatah_, while the
Moghul called the Chaghatai _Karawanas_."
Cf. Ney ELIAS, l.c., pp. 76-77, and App. B, pp. 491-2, containing an
inquiry made in Khorasan by Mr. Maula Bakhsh, Attache at the Meshed
Consulate General, of the families of Karnas, he has heard or seen; he
says: "These people speak Turki now, and are considered part of the Goklan
Turkomans. They, however, say they are Chingiz-Khani Moghuls, and are no
doubt the descendants of the same Karnas, or Karavanas, who took such a
prominent part in the victories in Persia.
"The word Karnas, I was told by a learned Goklan Mullah, means _Tirandaz_,
or _Shikari_ (i.e. Archer or Hunter), and was applied to this tribe of
Moghuls on account of their professional skill in shooting, which
apparently secured them an important place in the army. In Turki the word
Karnas means _Shikamparast_--literally, 'belly worshippers,' which implies
avarice. This term is in use at present, and I was told, by a Kazi of
Bujnurd, that it is sometimes used by way of reproach.... The Karnas
people in Mana and Gurgan say it is the name of their tribe, and they can
give no other explanation."
XVIII., pp. 98, 102, 165. "The King of these scoundrels is called
NOGODAR."
Sir Aurel Stein has the following regarding the route taken by this Chief
in _Serindia_, I., pp. 11-12:--
"To revert to an earlier period it is noteworthy that the route in Marco
Polo's account, by which the Mongol partisan leader Nigudar, 'with a great
body of horsemen, cruel unscrupulous fellows,' made his way from
Badakhshan 'through another province called PASHAI-DIR, and then through
another called ARIORA-KESHEMUR' to India, must have led down the Bashgol
Valley. The name of _Pashai_ clearly refers to the Kafirs among whom this
tribal designation exists to this day, while the mention of Dir indicates
the direction which this remarkable inroad had taken. That its further
progress must have lain through Swat is made probable by the name which,
in Marco Polo's account, precedes that of 'Keshemur' or Kashmir; for in
the hitherto unexplained _Ariora_ can be recognized, I believe, the
present Agror, the name of the well-known hill-tract on the Hazara border
which faces Buner from the left bank of the Indus. It is easy to see from
any accurate map of these regions, that for a mobile column of horsemen
forcing its way from Badakhshan to Kashmir, the route leading through the
Bashgol Valley, Dir, Talash, Swat, Buner, Agror, and up the Jhelam Valley,
would form at the present day, too, the most direct and practicable line
of invasion."
In a paper on _Marco Polo's Account of a Mongol inroad into Kashmir_
(_Geog. Jour._, August, 1919), Sir Aurel Stein reverts again to the same
subject. "These [Mongol] inroads appear to have commenced from about 1260
A.D., and to have continued right through the reign of Ghiasuddin, Sultan
of Delhi (1266-1286), whose identity with Marco's _Asedin Soldan_ is
certain. It appears very probable that Marco's story of Nogodar, the
nephew of Chaghatai, relates to one of the earliest of these incursions
which was recent history when the Poli passed through Persia about 1272-73
A.D."
Stein thinks, with Marsden and Yule, that _Dilivar_ (pp. 99, 105) is
really a misunderstanding of "_Citta_ di Livar" for _Lahawar_ or Lahore.
_Dir_ has been dealt with by Yule and Pauthier, and we know that it is
"the mountain tract at the head of the western branch of the Panjkora
River, through which leads the most frequented route from Peshawar and the
lower Swat valley to Chitral" (Stein, l.c.). Now with regard to the
situation of _Pashai_ (p. 104):
"It is clear that a safe identification of the territory intended cannot
be based upon such characteristics of its people as Marco Polo's account
here notes obviously from hearsay, but must reckon in the first place with
the plainly stated bearing and distance. And Sir Henry Yule's difficulty
arose just from the fact that what the information accessible to him
seemed to show about the location of the name _Pashai_ could not be
satisfactorily reconciled with those plain topographical data. Marco's
great commentator, thoroughly familiar as he was with whatever was known
in his time about the geography of the western Hindukush and the regions
between Oxus and Indus, could not fail to recognize the obvious connection
between our _Pashai_ and the tribal name _Pashai_ borne by Muhammanized
Kafirs who are repeatedly mentioned in mediaeval and modern accounts of
Kabul territory. But all these accounts seemed to place the Pashais in the
vicinity of the great Panjshir valley, north-east of Kabul, through which
passes one of the best-known routes from the Afghan capital to the
Hindukush watershed and thence to the Middle Oxus. Panjshir, like Kabul
itself, lies to the _south-west_ of Badakshan, and it is just this
discrepancy of bearing together with one in the distance reckoned to
Kashmir which caused Sir Henry Yule to give expression to doubts when
summing up his views about Nogodar's route."
From Sir George Grierson's _Linguistic Survey of India_ we learn that to
the south of the range of the Hindukush "the languages spoken from Kashmir
in the east to Kafiristan in the west are neither of Indian nor of Iranian
origin, but form a third branch of the Aryan stock of the great
Indo-European language family. Among the languages of this branch, now
rightly designated as 'Dardic,' the Kafir group holds a very prominent
place. In the Kafir group again we find the _Pashai_ language spoken over a
very considerable area. The map accompanying Sir George Grierson's
monograph on 'The Pisaca Languages of North-Western India' [Asiatic Society
Monographs, VIII., 1906], shows _Pashai_ as the language spoken along the
right bank of the Kunar river as far as the Asmar tract as well as in the
side valleys which from the north descend towards it and the Kabul river
further west. This important fact makes it certain that the tribal
designation of Pashai, to which this Kafir language owes its name, has to
this day an application extending much further east than was indicated by
the references which travellers, mediaeval and modern, along the Panjshir
route have made to the Pashais and from which alone this ethnic name was
previously known."
Stein comes to the conclusion that "the Mongols' route led across the
Mandal Pass into the great Kafir valley of Bashgol and thus down to
Arnawai on the Kunar. Thence Dir could be gained directly across the
Zakhanna Pass, a single day's march. There were alternative routes, too,
available to the same destination either by ascending the Kunar to Ashreth
and taking the present 'Chitral Road' across the Lowarai, or descending
the river to Asmar and crossing the Binshi Pass."
From Dir towards Kashmir for a large body of horsemen "the easiest and in
matter of time nearest route must have led them as now down the Panjkora
Valley and beyond through the open tracts of Lower Swat and Buner to the
Indus about Amb. From there it was easy through the open northern part of
the present Hazara District (the ancient Urasa) to gain the valley of the
Jhelam River at its sharp bend near Muzzaffarabad."
The name of _Agror_ (the direct phonetic derivative of the Sanskrit
_Atyugrapura_) = _Ariora_; it is the name of the hill-tract on the Hazara
border which faces Buner on the east from across the left bank of the
Indus.
XVIII., p. 101.
Line 17, Note 4. _Korano_ of the Indo-Scythic Coins is to be read
_Kosano_. (PELLIOT.)
XVIII., p. 102.
On the Mongols of Afghanistan, see RAMSTEDT, _Mogholica_, in _Journ. de la
Soc. Finno-Ougrienne_, XXIII., 1905. (PELLIOT.)
XIX., p. 107. "The King is called RUOMEDAN AHOMET."
About 1060, Mohammed I. Dirhem Kub, from Yemen, became master of Hormuz,
but his successors remained in the dependency of the sovereigns of Kerman
until 1249, when Rokn ed-Din Mahmud III. Kalhaty (1242-1277) became
independent. His successors in Polo's time were Seif ed-Din Nusrat
(1277-1290), Mas'ud (1290-1293), Beha ed-Din Ayaz Seyfin (1293-1311).
XIX., p. 115.
HORMOS.
The Travels of Pedro Teixeira, a Portuguese traveller, probably of Jewish
origin, certainly not a Jesuit, have been published by the Hakluyt
Society:
The Travels of Pedro Teixeira; with his "Kings of Harmuz," and extracts
from his "King of Persia." Translated and annotated by William F.
Sinclair, Bombay Civil Service (Rtd.); With further Notes and an
Introduction by Donald Ferguson, London: Printed for the Hakluyt Society,
MDCCCCII, 8 vo. pp. cvii-292.
See Appendix A. A Short Narrative of the Origin of the Kingdom of Harmusz,
and of its Kings, down to its Conquest by the Portuguese; extracted from
its History, written by Torunxa, King of the Same, pp. 153-195. App. D.
Relation of the Chronicle of the Kings of Ormuz, taken from a Chronicle
composed by a King of the same Kingdom, named Pachaturunza, written in
Arabic, and summarily translated into the Portuguese language by a friar
of the order of Saint Dominick, who founded in the island of Ormuz a house
of his order, pp. 256-267.
See Yule, _Hobson-Jobson_, s.v. _Ormus_.
Mr. Donald Ferguson, in a note, p. 155, says: "No dates are given in
connection with the first eleven rulers of Hormuz; but assuming as correct
the date (1278) given for the death of the twelfth, and allowing to each
of his predecessors an average reign of thirteen years, the foundation of
the kingdom of Hormuz would fall in A.D. 1100. Yule places the founding
somewhat earlier; and Valentyn, on what authority I know not, gives A.D.
700 as the date of the founder Muhammad."
XIX., I., p. 116; II., p. 444.
DIET OF THE GULF PEOPLE.
Prof. E.H. Parker says that the T'ang History, in treating of the Arab
conquests of Fuh-lin [or Frank] territory, alludes to the "date and dry
fish diet of the Gulf people." The exact Chinese words are: "They feed
their horses on dried fish, and themselves subsist on the _hu-mang_, or
Persian date, as Bretschneider has explained." (_Asiatic Quart. Rev._,
Jan., 1904, p. 134.)
Bretschneider, in _Med. Researches_, II., p. 134, n. 873, with regard to
the dates writes: "_Wan nien tsao_, 'ten thousand years' jujubes'; called
also _Po-sze tao_, or 'Persian jujubes.' These names and others were
applied since the time of the T'ang dynasty to the dates brought from
Persia. The author of the _Pen ts'ao kang mu_ (end of the sixteenth
century) states that this fruit is called _k'u-lu-ma_ in Persia. The
Persian name of the date is _khurma_."
Cf. CHAU JU-KWA, p. 210.
XXII., p. 128 n.
TUN-O-KAIN.
Major Sykes had adopted Sir Henry Yule's theory of the route from
Kuh-benan to Tun. He has since altered his opinion in the _Geographical
Journal_, October, 1905, p. 465: "I was under the impression that a route
ran direct from Kubunan to Tabas, but when visiting this latter town a few
months ago I made careful inquiries on the subject, which elicited the fact
that this was not the case, and that the route invariably followed by
Kubunan-Tabas caravans joined the Kerman-Ravar-Naiband route at Chah-Kuru,
12 miles south of Darbana. It follows this track as far as Naiband, whence
the route to Tabas branches off; but the main caravan route runs via
Zenagan and Duhuk to Tun. This new information, I would urge, makes it
almost certain that Ser Marco travelled to Tun, as Tabas falls to the west
of the main route. Another point is that the district of Tabas only grows
four months' supplies, and is, in consequence, generally avoided by
caravans owing to its dearness.
"In 1893 I travelled from Tun to the south across the Lut as far as Chah
Kuru by this very route, and can testify to the general accuracy of Ser
Marco's description,[1] although there are now villages at various points
on the way. Finally, as our traveller especially mentions Tonocain, or Tun
va Kain, one is inclined to accept this as evidence of first-rate
importance, especially as it is now corroborated by the information I
gained at Tabas. The whole question, once again, furnishes an example of
how very difficult it is to make satisfactory inquiries, except on the
spot."
It was also the opinion (1882) of Colonel C.E. Stewart, who says: "I was
much interested in hearing of Kuh Banan, as it is one of the places
mentioned by Marco Polo as on his route. Kuh Banan is described as a group
of villages about 26 miles from the town of Rawar, in the Karman district.
I cannot help thinking the road travelled by Marco Polo from Karman to
Kain is the one by Naiband. Marco Polo speaks of Tun-o-Cain, which,
Colonel Yule has pointed out, undoubtedly means Tun and Kain. At present
Tun does not belong to the Kain district, but to the Tabbas district, and
is always spoken of as Tun-o-Tabbas; and if it belonged, as I believe it
formerly did, to the Kain district, it would be spoken of as Tun-o-Kain,
exactly as Marco Polo does. Through Naiband is the shortest and best road
to either Tun or Kain." (_Proc. Royal Geog. Soc._, VIII., 1886, p. 144.)
Support to Yule's theory has been brought by Sven Hedin, who devotes a
chapter to Marco Polo in his _Overland to India_, II., 1910, Chap. XL.,
and discusses our traveller's route between Kuh-benan and Tabbas, pp. 71
seq.:
"As even Sykes, who travelled during several years through Persia in all
directions, cannot decide with full certainty whether Marco Polo travelled
by the western route through Tebbes or the eastern through Naibend, it is
easy to see how difficult it is to choose between the two roads. I cannot
cite the reasons Sir Henry Yule brings forward in favour of the western
route--it would take us too far. I will, instead, set forth the grounds of
my own conviction that Marco Polo used the direct caravan road between
Kuh-benan and Tebbes.
"The circumstance that the main road runs through Naibend is no proof, for
we find that Marco Polo, not only in Persia but also in Central Asia,
exhibited a sovereign contempt for all routes that might be called
convenient and secure.
"The distance between Kerman and Kuh-benan in a direct line amounts to 103
miles. Marco Polo travelled over this stretch in seven days, or barely 15
miles a day. From Kuh-benan to Tebbes the distance is 150 miles, or fully
18 miles a day for eight days. From Kuh-benan via Naibend to Tun, the
distance is, on the other hand, 205 miles, or more than 25 miles a day. In
either case we can perceive from the forced marches that after leaving
Kuh-benan he came out into a country where the distances between the wells
became much greater.
"If he travelled by the eastern route he must have made much longer day's
journeys than on the western. On the eastern route the distances between
the wells were greater. Major Sykes has himself travelled this way, and
from his detailed description we get the impression that it presented
particular difficulties. With a horse it is no great feat to ride 25 miles
a day for eight days, but it cannot be done with camels. That I rode
42-1/2 miles a day between Hauz-i-Haji-Ramazan and Sadfe was because of the
danger from rain in the Kevir, and to continue such a forced march for more
than two days is scarcely conceivable. Undoubtedly Marco Polo used camels
on his long journeys in Eastern Persia, and even if he had been able to
cover 205 miles in eight days, he would not be obliged to do so, for on the
main road through Naibend and Duhuk to Tun there are abundant opportunities
of procuring water. Had he travelled through Naibend, he would in any case
have had no need to hurry on so fast. He would probably keep to the same
pace as on the way from Kerman to Kuh-benan, and this length he
accomplished in seven days. Why should he have made the journey from
Kuh-benan to Tun, which is exactly double as far, in only eight days
instead of fourteen, when there was no necessity? And that he actually
travelled between Kuh-benan and Tunocain in eight days is evident, because
he mentions this number twice.
"He also says explicitly that during these eight days neither fruits nor
trees are to be seen, and that you have to carry both food and water. This
description is not true of the Naibend route, for in Naibend there are
excellent water, fine dates, and other fruits. Then there is Duhuk, which,
according to Sykes, is a very important village with an old fort and about
200 houses. After leaving Duhuk for the south, Sykes says: 'We continued
our journey, and were delighted to hear that at the next stage, too, there
was a village, proving that this section of the Lut is really quite
thickly populated.' [_Ten Thousand Miles in Persia_, p. 35.] This does not
agree at all with Marco Polo's description.
"I therefore consider it more probable that Marco Polo, as Sir Henry Yule
supposes, travelled either direct to Tebbes, or perhaps made a trifling
detour to the west, through the moderate-sized village Bahabad, for from
this village a direct caravan road runs to Tebbes, entirely through
desert. Marco Polo would then travel 150 miles in eight days compared with
103 miles in seven days between Kerman and Kuh-benan. He therefore
increased his speed by only 4 miles a day, and that is all necessary on
the route in question.
"Bahabad lies at a distance of 36 miles from Kubenan--all in a straight
line. And not till beyond Bahabad does the real desert begin.
"To show that a caravan road actually connects Tebbes with Bahabad, I have
inserted in the first and second columns of the following table the data I
obtained in Tebbes and Fahanunch, and in the third the names marked on the
'Map of Persia (in six sheets) compiled in the Simla Drawing Office of the
Survey of India, 1897.'
From Tebbes to Bahabad | From Fahanunch to Bahabad
1. Kurit . . . . . . . 4 | 2. Moghu . . . . . . . . 4-1/2
2. Moghu . . . . . . . 9 | 3. Sefid-ab . . . . . . 6
3. Sefid-ab . . . . . 6 | 4. Belucha . . . . . . . 5
4. Burch . . . . . . . 5 | 5. God-i-shah-taghi . . 6
5. God . . . . . . . . 5 | 6. Rizab . . . . . . . . 5
6. Rizab . . . . . . . 6 | 7.{Teng-i-Tebbes . . . . 4-1/2
7. Pudenum . . . . . . 8 | {Pudenun . . . . . . . 4-1/2
8. Ser-i-julge . . . . 4 | 8. Kheirabad . . . . . . 4
9. Bahabad . . . . . . 4 | 9. Bahabad . . . . . . . 4
-- | --
Farsakh . . . . . 51 | Farsakh . . . . . . 43-1/2
_Map of Persia_.
2. Maga . . . . . . . Salt well.
3. Chashma Sufid . . " "
4.{Khudafrin . . . . Sweet spring.
{Pir Moral . . . . Salt well.
5. God Hashtaki . . . " "
6. Rezu . . . . . . . " "
"These details are drawn from different authorities, but are in excellent
agreement. That the total distances are different in the first two columns
is because Fahanunch lies nearer than Tebbes to Bahabad. Two or three
discrepancies in the names are of no importance. Burch denotes a castle or
fort; Belucha is evidently Cha-i-beluch or the well of the Baluchi, and it
is very probable that a small fort was built some time or other at this
well which was visited by raiders from Baluchistan. Ser-i-julge and
Kheirabad may be two distinct camping grounds very near each other. The
Chasma Sufid or 'white spring' of the English map is evidently the same
place as Sefid-ab, or 'white water.' Its God Hashtaki is a corruption of
the Persian God-i-shah-taghi, or the 'hollow of the royal saxaul.'
Khudafrin, on the other hand, is very apocryphal. It is no doubt
Khuda-aferin or 'God be praised!'--an ejaculation very appropriate in the
mouth of a man who comes upon a sweet spring in the midst of the desert. If
an Englishman travelled this way he might have mistaken this ejaculation
for the name of the place. But then 'Unsurveyed' would hardly be placed
just in this part of the Bahabad Desert.
"The information I obtained about the road from Tebbes to Bahabad was
certainly very scanty, but also of great interest. Immediately beyond
Kurit the road crosses a strip of the Kevir, 2 farsakh broad, and
containing a river-bed which is said to be filled with water at the end of
February. Sefid-ab is situated among hillocks and Burch in an upland
district; to the south of it follows Kevir barely a farsakh broad, which
may be avoided by a circuitous path. At God-i-shah-taghi, as the name
implies, saxaul grows (_Haloxylon Ammodendron_). The last three
halting-places before Bahabad all lie among small hills.
"This desert route runs, then, through comparatively hilly country,
crosses two small Kevir depressions, or offshoots of one and the same
Kevir, has pasturage at at least one place, and presents no difficulties
of any account. The distance in a direct line is 113 miles, corresponding
to 51 Persian farsakh--the farsakh in this district being only about 2.2
miles long against 2.9 in the great Kevir. The caravans which go through
the Bahabad desert usually make the journey in ten days, one at least of
which is a rest day, so that they cover little more than 12 miles a day.
If water more or less salt were not to be found at all the eight
camping-grounds, the caravans would not be able to make such short marches.
It is also quite possible that sweet water is to be found in one place;
where saxaul grows driftsand usually occurs, and wells digged in sand are
usually sweet.
"During my stay in Tebbes a caravan of about 300 camels, as I have
mentioned before, arrived from Sebsevar. They were laden with _naft_
(petroleum), and remained waiting till the first belt of Kevir was dried
after the last rain. As soon as this happened the caravan would take the
road described above to Bahabad, and thence to Yezd. And this caravan
route, Sebsevar, Turshiz, Bajistan, Tun, Tebbes, Bahabad, and Yezd, is
considered less risky than the somewhat shorter way through the great
Kevir. I myself crossed a part of the Bahabad desert where we did not once
follow any of the roads used by caravans, and I found this country by no
means one of the worst in Eastern Persia.
"In the above exposition I believe that I have demonstrated that it is
extremely probable that Marco Polo travelled, not through Naibend to Tun,
but through Bahabad to Tebbes, and thence to Tun and Kain. His own
description accords in all respects with the present aspect and
peculiarities of the desert route in question. And the time of eight days
he assigns to the journey between Kuh-benan and Tonocain renders it also
probable that he came to the last-named province at Tebbes, even if he
travelled somewhat faster than caravans are wont to do at the present day.
It signifies little that he does not mention the name Tebbes; he gives
only the name of the province, adding that it contains a great many towns
and villages. One of these was Tebbes."
XXII., p. 126.
TUTIA.
"It seems that the word is 'the Arabicized word _dudha_, being Persian for
"smokes."' There can be little doubt that we have direct confirmation of
this in the Chinese words _t'ou-t'ieh_ (still, I think, in use) and
_t'ou-shik_, meaning '_tou_-iron' and '_t'ou_-ore.' The character _T'ou_
[Chinese] does not appear in the old dictionaries; its first appearance is
in the History of the Toba (Tungusic) Dynasty of North China. This History
first mentions the name 'Persia' in A.D. 455 and the existence there of
this metal, which, a little later on, is also said to come from a State in
the Cashmeer region. K'ang-hi's seventeenth-century dictionary is more
explicit: it states that Termed produces this ore, but that 'the true sort
comes from Persia, and looks like gold, but on being heated it turns
carnation, and _not_ black.' As the Toba Emperors added 1000 new characters
to the Chinese stock, we may assume this one to have been invented, for the
specific purpose indicated.'" (E.H. PARKER, _Asiatic Quart. Rev._, Jan.,
1904, pp. 135-6.) Prof. Parker adds the following note, l.c., p. 149:
"Since writing the above, I have come across a passage in the 'History of
the Sung Dynasty' (chap. 490, p. 17) stating that an Arab junk-master
brought to Canton in A.D. 990, and sent on thence to the Chinese Emperor in
Ho Nan, 'one vitreous bottle of _tutia_.' The two words mean
'metropolis-father,' and are therefore without any signification, except as
a foreign word. According to Yule's notes (I., p. 126), _tutia_, or
_dudha_, in one of its forms was used as an eye-ointment or collyrium."
XXII., pp. 127-139. The Province of Tonocain "contains an immense plain on
which is found the ARBRE SOL, which we Christians call the _Arbre Sec_;
and I will tell you what it is like. It is a tall and thick tree, having
the bark on one side green and the other white; and it produces a rough
husk like that of a chestnut, but without anything in it. The wood is
yellow like box, and very strong, and there are no other trees near it nor
within a hundred miles of it, except on one side, where you find trees
within about ten miles distance."
In a paper published in the _Journal of the R. As. Soc._, Jan., 1909, Gen.
Houtum-Schindler comes to the conclusion, p. 157, that Marco Polo's tree
is not the "Sun Tree," but the Cypress of Zoroaster; "Marco Polo's _arbre
sol_ and _arbre seul_ stand for the Persian _dirakht i sol, i.e. the
cypress-tree. If General Houtum Schindler had seen the third edition of
the _Book of Ser Marco Polo_, I., p. 113, he would have found that I read
his paper of the _J.R.A.S._, of January, 1898."
XXII., p. 132, l. 22. The only current coin is millstones.
Mr. T.B. CLARKE-THORNHILL wrote to me in 1906: "Though I can hardly
imagine that there can be any connection between the Caroline Islands and
the 'Amiral d'Outre l'Arbre Sec,' still it may interest you to know that
the currency of 'millstones' existed up to a short time ago, and may do so
still, in the island of Yap, in that group. It consisted of various-sized
discs of quartz from about 6 inches to nearly 3 feet in diameter, and from
1/2 an inch to 3 or 4 inches in thickness."
XXV., p. 146.
OLD MAN OF THE MOUNTAIN.
Regarding the reduction of the Ismaelites, the _Yuaen Shi_ tells us that
in 1222, on his way back after the taking of Nishapur, Tuli, son of
Genghis, plundered the State of Mu-la-i, captured Herat, and joined his
father at Talecan. In 1229 the King of Mu-lei presented himself at the
Mongol Court.... The following statement is also found in the Mongol
Annals: "In the seventh moon [1252] the Emperor ordered K'i-t'ah-t'eh
Pu-ha to carry war against the Ma-la-hi.'" (E.H. PARKER, _Asiatic Quart.
Rev._, Jan., 1904, p. 136.)
XXVI., p. 149. "On leaving the Castle [of the Old Man], you ride over fine
plains and beautiful valleys, and pretty hill-sides producing excellent
grass pasture, and abundance of fruits, and all other products.... This
kind of country extends for six days' journey, with a goodly number of
towns and villages, in which the people are worshippers of Mahommet.
Sometimes also you meet with a tract of desert extending for 50 or 60
miles, or somewhat less, and in these deserts you find no water, but have
to carry it along with you.... So after travelling for six days as I have
told you, you come to a city called Sapurgan...."
Sven Hedin remarks: "From this it is apparent that the six days' journey
of fine country were traversed immediately before Marco Polo reached
Sapurgan. Sir Henry Yule says in a note: 'Whether the true route be, as I
suppose, by Nishapur and Meshed, or, as Khanikoff supposes, by Herat and
Badghis, it is strange that no one of those famous cities is mentioned.
And we feel constrained to assume that something has been misunderstood in
the dictation, or has dropped out of it.' Yule removes the six days of
fine country to the district between Sebsevar and Meshed, and considers
that for at least the first day's marches beyond Nishapur Marco Polo's
description agrees admirably with that given by Fraser and Ferrier.
"I travelled between Sebsevar and Meshed in the autumn of 1890, and I
cannot perceive that Marco Polo's description is applicable to the country.
He speaks of six days' journey through beautiful valleys and pretty
hillsides. To the east of Sebsevar you come out into desert country, which,
however passes into fertile country with many villages.[2] Then there comes
a boundless dreary steppe to the south. At the village Seng-i-kal-i-deh you
enter an undulating country with immense flocks of sheep. 'The first
stretch of the road between Shurab and Nishapur led us through perfect
desert..; but the landscape soon changed its aspect; the desert passed by
degrees into cultivated lands, and we rode past several villages surrounded
by fields and gardens.... We here entered the most fertile and densely
peopled region in Khorasan, in the midst of which the town of Nishapur is
situated.' Of the tract to the east of Nishapur I say: 'Here are found
innumerable villages. The plain and slopes are dotted with them. This
district is extraordinarily densely inhabited and well cultivated.' But
then all this magnificence comes to an end, and of the last day's journey
between Kademgah and Meshed I write: 'The country rose and we entered a
maze of low intricate hillocks.... The country was exceedingly dreary and
bare. Some flocks of sheep were seen, however, but what the fat and sleek
sheep lived on was a puzzle to me.... This dismal landscape was more and
more enlivened by travellers.... To the east stretched an undulating steppe
up to the frontier of Afghanistan.'
"The road between Sebsevar and Meshed is, in short, of such a character
that it can hardly fit in with Marco Polo's enthusiastic description of
the six days. And as these came just before Sapurgan, one cannot either
identify the desert regions named with the deserts about the middle course
of the Murgab which extend between Meshed and Shibirkhan. He must have
crossed desert first, and it may be identified with the nemek-sar or salt
desert east of Tun and Kain. The six days must have been passed in the
ranges Paropamisus, Firuz-kuh, and Bend-i-Turkestan. Marco Polo is not
usually wont to scare his readers by descriptions of mountainous regions,
but at this place he speaks of mountains and valleys and rich pastures. As
it was, of course, his intention to travel on into the heart of Asia, to
make a detour through Sebsevar was unnecessary and out of his way. If he
had travelled to Sebsevar, Nishapur, and Meshed, he would scarcely call
the province of Tun-o-Kain the extremity of Persia towards the north, even
as the political boundaries were then situated.
"From Balkh his wonderful journey proceeded further eastwards, and
therefore we take leave of him. Precisely in Eastern Persia his
descriptions are so brief that they leave free room for all kinds of
speculations. In the foregoing pages it has been simply my desire to
present a few new points of view. The great value of Marco Polo's
description of the Persian desert consists in confirming and proving its
physical invariableness during more than six hundred years. It had as
great a scarcity of oases then as now, and the water in the wells was not
less salt than in our own days." (_Overland to India_, II., pp. 75-77.)
XXVII., p. 152 n.
DOGANA.
"The country of Dogana is quite certain to be the Chinese T'u-ho-lo or
Tokhara; for the position suits, and, moreover, nearly all the other
places named by Marco Polo along with Dogana occur in Chinese History
along with Tokhara many centuries before Polo's arrival. Tokhara being the
most important, it is inconceivable that Marco Polo would omit it. Thus,
Poh-lo (Balkh), capital of the Eptals; Ta-la-kien (Talecan), mentioned by
Hiuan Tsang; Ho-sim or Ho-ts'z-mi (Casem), mentioned in the _T'ang
History_; Shik-nih or Shi-k'i-ni (Syghinan) of the _T'ang History_;
Woh-k'an (Vochan), of the same work; several forms of Bolor, etc. (see also
my remarks on the Pamir region in the _Contemporary Review_ for Dec.,
1897)." (E.H. PARKER, _Asiatic Quart. Rev._, Jan., 1904, p. 142.)
XIX., p. 160.
BADAKHSHAN.
"The Chinese name for 'Badakhshan' never appears before the Pa-ta-shan of
Kublai's time." (E.H. PARKER, _Asiatic Quart. Rev._, Jan., 1904, p. 143.)
XXX., pp. 164-166. "You must know that ten days' journey to the south of
Badashan there is a province called PASHAI, the people of which have a
peculiar language, and are Idolaters, of a brown complexion. They are
great adepts in sorceries and the diabolic arts. The men wear earrings and
brooches of gold and silver set with stones and pearls. They are a
pestilent people and a crafty; and they live upon flesh and rice. Their
country is very hot."
Sir A. STEIN writes (_Ancient Khotan_, I., pp. 14-15 n.): "Sir Henry Yule
was undoubtedly right in assuming that Marco Polo had never personally
visited these countries and that his account of them, brief as it is, was
derived from hearsay information about the tracts which the Mongol
partisan leader Nigudar had traversed, about 1260 A.D., on an adventurous
incursion from Badakhshan towards Kashmir and the Punjab. In Chapter
XVIII., where the Venetian relates that exploit (see Yule, _Marco Polo_,
I., p. 98, with note, p. 104), the name of Pashai is linked with _Dir_,
the territory on the Upper Panjkora river, which an invader, wishing to
make his way from Badakhshan into Kashmir by the most direct route, would
necessarily have to pass through.
"The name _Pashai_ is still borne to this day by a Muhamadanized tribe
closely akin to the Siah-posh, settled in the Panjshir Valley and in the
hills on the west and south of Kafiristan. It has been very fully
discussed by Sir Henry Yule (Ibid., I., p. 165), who shows ample grounds
for the belief that this tribal name must have once been more widely
spread over the southern slopes of the Hindu kush as far as they are
comprised in the limits of Kafiristan. If the great commentator
nevertheless records his inability to account for Marco Polo's application
of 'the name Pashai to the country south-east of Badakhshan,' the reason
of the difficulty seems to me to lie solely in Sir Henry Yule's assumption
that the route heard of by the traveller, led 'by the Dorah or the Nuksan
Pass, over the watershed of Hindu kush into Chitral and so to Dir.'
"Though such a route via Chitral would, no doubt, have been available in
Marco Polo's time as much as now, there is no indication whatever forcing
us to believe that it was the one really meant by his informants. When
Nigudar 'with a great body of horsemen, cruel unscrupulous fellows' went
off from Badakhshan towards Kashmir, he may very well have made his way
over the Hindu kush by the more direct line that passes to Dir through the
eastern part of Kafiristan. In fact, the description of the Pashai people
and their country, as given by Marco Polo, distinctly points to such a
route; for we have in it an unmistakable reflex of characteristic features
with which the idolatrous Siah-posh Kafirs have always been credited by
their Muhammadan neighbours.
"It is much to be regretted that the Oriental records of the period, as
far as they were accessible to Sir Henry Yule, seemed to have retained
only faint traces of the Mongol adventurer's remarkable inroad. From the
point of view of Indian history it was, no doubt, a mere passing episode.
But some details regarding it would possess special interest as
illustrating an instance of successful invasion by a route that so far has
not received its due share of attention." [See supra, pp. 4, 22-24.]
XXX., p. 164.
"The Chinese Toba Dynasty History mentions, in company with Samarcand,
_K'a-shi-mih_ (Cashmeer), and Kapisa, a State called _Pan-she_, as sending
tribute to North China along with the Persian group of States. This name
_Pan-she_ [Chinese] does not, to the best of my belief, occur a second
time in any Chinese record." (PARKER, _Asiatic Quart. Rev._, Jan., 1904,
p. 135.)
XXX., p. 164. "Now let us proceed and speak of another country which is
seven day's journey from this one [Pashai] towards the south-east, and the
name of which is KESHIMUR."
This short estimate has perplexed Sir Henry Yule, l.c., p. 166. Sir
Aurel Stein remarks in a note, _Serindia_, I., p. 12: "The route above
indicated [Nigudar's route] permits an explanation. Starting from some
point like Arnawal on the Kunar River which certainly would be well within
'Pashai,' lightly equipped horsemen could by that route easily reach the
border of Agror on the Indus within seven days. Speaking from personal
knowledge of almost the whole of the ground I should be prepared to do the
ride myself by the following stages: Dir, Warai, Sado, Chakdara, Kin
kargalai, Bajkatta, Kai or Darband on the Indus. It must be borne in mind
that, as Yule rightly recognized, Marco Polo is merely reproducing
information derived from a Mongol source and based on Nigudar's raid; and
further that Hazara and the valley of the Jhelam were probably then still
dependent on the Kashmir kingdom, as they were certainly in Kalhana's
time, only a century earlier. As to the rate at which Mongols were
accustomed to travel on 'Dak,' cf. Yule, _Marco Polo_, I., pp. 434 seq."
XXXII., pp. 170, 171. "The people [of Badashan] are Mahommetans, and
valiant in war.... They [the people of Vokhan] are gallant soldiers."
In Afghan Wakhan, Sir Aurel Stein writes:
"On we cantered at the head of quite a respectable cavalcade to where, on
the sandy plain opposite to the main hamlet of Sarhad, two companies of
foot with a squad of cavalry, close on two hundred men in all, were drawn
up as a guard of honour. Hardy and well set up most of them looked, giving
the impression of thoroughly serviceable human material, in spite of a
manifestly defective drill and the motley appearance of dress and
equipment.
"They belonged, so the Colonel explained to me afterwards, to a sort of
militia drafted from the local population of the Badakhshan valleys and
Wakhan into the regiments permanently echeloned as frontier guards along
the Russian border on the Oxus. Apart from the officers, the proportion of
true Pathans among them was slight. Yet I could well believe from all I
saw and heard, that, properly led and provided for, these sturdy Iranian
hillmen might give a good account of themselves. Did not Marco Polo speak
of the people of 'Badashan' as 'valiant in war' and of the men of 'Vokhan'
as gallant soldiers?" (_Ruins of Desert Cathay_, I., p. 66.)
XXXII., pp. 170 seq.
In Chap. III., pp. 64-66, of his _Serindia_, Sir Aurel Stein has the
following on Marco Polo's account of Wakhan:--
"After Wu-k'ung's narrative of his journey the Chinese sources of
information about the Pamirs and the adjoining regions run dry for nearly
a thousand years. But that the routes leading across them from Wakhan
retained their importance also in Muhammedan times is attested by the
greatest mediaeval travellers, Marco Polo. I have already, in _Ancient
Khotan_ [pp. 41 seq.], discussed the portion of his itinerary which
deals with the journey across the Pamirs to 'the kingdom of Cascar' or
Kashgar, and it only remains here to note briefly what he tells us of the
route by which he approached them from Badakhshan: 'In leaving Badashan
you ride twelve days between east and north-east, ascending a river that
runs through land belonging to a brother of the Prince of Badashan, and
containing a good many towns and villages and scattered habitations. The
people are Mahommetans, and valiant in war. At the end of those twelve
days you come to a province of no great size, extending indeed no more
than three days' journey in any direction, and this is called VOKHAN. The
people worship Mahommet, and they have a peculiar language. They are
gallant soldiers, and they have a chief whom they call NONE, which is as
much as to say _Count_, and they are liegemen to the Prince of Badashan.'
[Polo, I., pp. 170-171.]
"Sir Henry Yule was certainly right in assuming that 'the river along
which Marco travels from Badakhshan is no doubt the upper stream of the
Oxus, locally known as the Panja.... It is true that the river is reached
from Badakhshan Proper by ascending another river (the Vardoj) and
crossing the 'Pass of Ishkashm, but in the brief style of our narrative we
must expect such condensation.' [Polo, I., pp. 172-3.] Marco's great
commentator was guided by equally true judgment when he recognized in the
indications of this passage the same system of government that prevailed
in the Oxus valleys until modern times. Under it the most of the hill
tracts dependent from Badakhshan, including Ishkashim and Wakhan, were
ruled not direct by the Mir, but by relations of his or hereditary chiefs
who held their districts on a feudal tenure. The twelve days' journey
which Marco records between Badashan and 'Vokhan' are, I think, easily
accounted for if it is assumed that the distance from capital to capital
is meant; for twelve marches are still allowed for as the distance from
Baharak, the old Badakhshan capital on the Vardoj, to Kila Panja.
"That the latter was in Marco's days, as at present, the chief place of
Wakhan is indicated also by his narrative of the next stage of his
journey. 'And when you leave this little country, and ride three days
north-east, always among mountains, you get to such a height that 'tis
said to be the highest place in the world! And when you have got to this
height you find [a great lake between two mountains, and out of it] a fine
river running through a plain.... The plain is called PAMIER.' The bearing
and descriptive details here given point clearly to the plain of the Great
Pamir and Victoria Lake, its characteristic feature. About sixty-two miles
are reckoned from Langar-kisht, the last village on the northern branch of
the Ab-i-Panja and some six miles above Kila Panja, to Mazar-tapa where
the plain of the Great Pamir may be said to begin, and this distance
agrees remarkably well with the three marches mentioned by Marco.
"His description of Wakhan as 'a province of no great size, extending
indeed no more than three days' journey in any direction' suggests that a
portion of the valley must then have formed part of the chiefship of
Ishkashim or Zebak over which we may suppose 'the brother of the Prince of
Badashan' to have ruled. Such fluctuations in the extent of Wakhan
territory are remembered also in modern times. Thus Colonel Trotter, who
visited Wakhan with a section of the Yarkand Mission in 1874, distinctly
notes that 'Wakhan formerly contained three "sads" or hundreds, i.e.,
districts, containing 100 houses each' (viz. Sad-i-Sar-hadd, Sad Sipang,
Sad Khandut). To these Sad Ishtragh, the tract extending from Digargand to
Ishkashim, is declared to have been added in recent times, having formerly
been an independent principality. It only remains to note that Marco was
right, too, in his reference to the peculiar language of Wakhan; for
Wakhi--which is spoken not only by the people of Wakhan but also by the
numerous Wakhi colonists spread through Mastuj, Hunza Sarikol, and even
further east in the mountains--is a separate language belonging to the
well-defined group of Galcha tongues which itself forms the chief extant
branch of Eastern Iranian."
XXXII., pp. 171 seq., 175, 182.
THE PLATEAU OF PAMIR.
"On leaving Tash-kurghan (July 10, 1900), my steps, like those of
Hiuan-tsang, were directed towards Kashgar.... In Chapters V.-VII. of my
Personal Narrative I have given a detailed description of this route, which
took me past Muztagh-Ata to Lake Little Kara-kul, and then round the foot
of the great glacier-crowned range northward into the Gez defile, finally
debouching at Tashmalik into the open plain of Kashgari. Though scarcely
more difficult than the usual route over the Chichiklik Pass and by
Yangi-Hisar, it is certainly longer and leads for a considerably greater
distance over ground which is devoid of cultivation or permanent
habitations.
"It is the latter fact which makes me believe that Professor H. Cordier
was right in tracing by this very route Marco Polo's itinerary from the
Central Pamirs to Kashgar. The Venetian traveller, coming from Wakhan,
reached, after three days, a great lake which may be either Lake Victoria
or Lake Chakmak, at a 'height that is said to be the highest place in the
world.' He then describes faithfully enough the desert plain called
'Pamier,' which he makes extend for the distance of a twelve days' ride,
and next tells us: 'Now, if we go on with our journey towards the
east-north-east, we travel a good forty days, continually passing over
mountains and hills, or through valleys, and crossing many rivers and
tracts of wilderness. And in all this way you find neither habitation of
man, nor any green thing, but must carry with you whatever you require.'
"This reference to continuous 'tracts of wilderness' shows clearly that,
for one reason or another, Marco Polo did not pass through the cultivated
valleys of Tash-kurghan or Tagharma, as he would necessarily have done if
his route to Kashgar, the region he next describes, had lain over the
Chichiklik Pass. We must assume that, after visiting either the Great or
Little Pamir, he travelled down the Ak-su river for some distance, and
then crossing the watershed eastwards by one of the numerous passes struck
the route which leads past Muztagh-Ata and on towards the Gez defile. In
the brief supplementary notes contributed to Professor Cordier's critical
analysis of this portion of Marco Polo's itinerary, I have pointed out how
thoroughly the great Venetian's description of the forty days' journey to
the E.N.E. of the Pamir Lake can be appreciated by any one who has passed
through the Pamir region and followed the valleys stretching round the
Muztagh-Ata range on the west and north (cf. Yule, _Marco Polo_, II., pp.
593 seq.). After leaving Tash-kurghan and Tagharma there is no local
produce to be obtained until the oasis of Tashmalik is reached. In the
narrow valley of the Yaman-yar river, forming the Gez defile, there is
scarcely any grazing; its appearance down to its opening into the plain
is, in fact, far more desolate than that of the elevated Pamir regions.
"In the absence of any data as to the manner and season in which Marco
Polo's party travelled, it would serve no useful purpose to hazard
explanations as to why he should assign a duration of forty days to a
journey which for a properly equipped traveller need not take more than
fifteen or sixteen days, even when the summer floods close the passage
through the lower Gez defile, and render it necessary to follow the
circuitous track over the Tokuk Dawan or 'Nine Passes.' But it is
certainly worth mention that Benedict Goez, too, speaks of the desert of
'Pamech' (Pamir) as taking forty days to cross if the snow was extensive,
a record already noted by Sir H. Yule (_Cathay_, II., pp. 563 seq.). It
is also instructive to refer once more to the personal experience of the
missionary traveller on the alternative route by the Chichiklik Pass.
According to the record quoted above, he appears to have spent no less
than twenty-eight days in the journeys from the hamlets of 'Sarcil'
(Sarikol, i.e. Tash-kurghan) to 'Hiarchan' (Yarkand)--a distance of some
188 miles, now reckoned at ten days' march." (Stein, _Ancient Khotan_, pp.
40-42.)
XXXII., p. 171. "The Plain is called PAMIER, and you ride across it for
twelve days together, finding nothing but a desert without habitations or
any green thing, so that travellers are obliged to carry with them
whatever they have need of."
At Sarhad, Afghan Wakhan, Stein, _Ruins of Desert Cathay_, I., p. 69,
writes: "There was little about the low grey houses, or rather hovels, of
mud and rubble to indicate the importance which from early times must have
attached to Sarhad as the highest place of permanent occupation on the
direct route leading from the Oxus to the Tarim Basin. Here was the last
point where caravans coming from the Bactrian side with the products of
the Far West and of India could provision themselves for crossing that
high tract of wilderness 'called Pamier' of which old Marco Polo rightly
tells us: 'You ride across it ...' And as I looked south towards the
snow-covered saddle of the Baroghil, the route I had followed myself, it
was equally easy to realize why Kao Hsien-chih's strategy had, after the
successful crossing of the Pamirs, made the three columns of his Chinese
Army concentrate upon the stronghold of Lien-yuen, opposite the present
Sarhad. Here was the base from which Yasin could be invaded and the
Tibetans ousted from their hold upon the straight route to the Indus."
XXXII., p. 174.
"The note connecting Hiuan Tsang's Kieh sha with Kashgar is probably based
upon an error of the old translators, for the Sita River was in the Pamir
region, and _K'a sha_ was one of the names of Kasanna, or Kieh-shwang-na,
in the Oxus region." (E.H. PARKER, _Asiatic Quart. Rev._, Jan., 1904, p.
143.)
XXXII., I. p. 173; II. p. 593.
PAONANO PAO.
Cf. _The Name Kushan_, by J.F. Fleet, _Jour. Roy. As. Soc._, April, 1914,
pp. 374-9; _The Shaonano Shao Coin Legend;_ and a Note on the name Kushan
by J. Allan, Ibid., pp. 403-411. PAONANO PAO. Von Joh. Kirste. (_Wiener
Zeit. f. d. Kunde d. Morg._, II., 1888, pp. 237-244.)
XXXII., p. 174.
YUE CHI.
"The old statement is repeated that the Yueeh Chi, or Indo-Scyths (i.e.
the Eptals), 'are said to have been of Tibetan origin.' A long account of
this people was given in the _Asiatic Quart. Rev._ for July, 1902. It
seems much more likely that they were a branch of the Hiung-nu or Turks.
Albiruni's 'report' that they were of Tibetan origin is probably founded
on the Chinese statement that some of their ways were like Tibetan ways,
and that polyandry existed amongst them; also that they fled from the
Hiung-nu westwards along the _north edge_ of the Tibetan territory, and
some of them took service as Tibetan officials." (E.H. PARKER, _Asiatic
Quart. Rev._, Jan., 1904, p. 143.)
XXXII., pp. 178-179.
BOLOR.
We read in the _Tarikh-i-Rashidi_ of Mirza Haidar (Notes by Ney Elias;
translated by E.D. Ross, 1895), p. 135, that Sultan Said Khan, son of
Mansur Khan, sent the writer in the year 934 (1528), "with Rashid Sultan,
to Balur, which is a country of infidels [_Kafiristan_], between
Badakhshan and Kashmir, where we conducted successfully a holy war
[_ghazat_], and returned victorious, loaded with booty and covered with
glory."
Mirza Haidar gives the following description of Bolor (pp. 384-5): "Balur
is an infidel country [_Kafiristan_], and most of its inhabitants are
mountaineers. Not one of them has a religion or a creed. Nor is there
anything which they [consider it right to] abstain from or to avoid [as
impure]; but they do whatever they list, and follow their desires without
check or compunction. Baluristan is bounded on the east by the province of
Kashgar and Yarkand; on the north by Badakhshan; on the west by Kabul and
Lumghan; and on the south by the dependencies of Kashmir. It is four
months' journey in circumference. Its whole extent consists of mountains,
valleys, and defiles, insomuch that one might almost say that in the whole
of Baluristan, not one _farsakh_ of level ground is to be met with. The
population is numerous. No village is at peace with another, but there is
constant hostility, and fights are continually occurring among them."
From the note to this passage (p. 385) we note that "for some twenty years
ago, Mr. E.B. Shaw found that the Kirghiz of the Pamirs called Chitral by
the name of _Palor_. To all other inhabitants of the surrounding regions,
however, the word appears now to be unknown....
"The Balur country would then include Hunza, Nagar, possibly Tash Kurghan,
Gilgit, Panyal, Yasin, Chitral, and probably the tract now known as
Kafiristan: while, also, some of the small states south of Gilgit, Yasin,
etc., may have been regarded as part of Balur....
"The conclusions arrived at [by Sir H. Yule], are very nearly borne out by
Mirza Haidar's description. The only differences are (1) that, according
to our author, Baltistan cannot have been included in Balur, as he always
speaks of that country, later in his work, as a separate province with the
name of _Balti_, and says that it bordered on Balur; and (2) that _Balur_
was confined almost entirely, as far as I am able to judge from his
description in this passage and elsewhere, to the southern slopes of the
Eastern Hindu Kush, or Indus water-parting range; while Sir H. Yule's map
makes it embrace Sarigh-Kul and the greater part of the eastern Pamirs."
XXXIII., p. 182. "The natives [of Cascar] are a wretched, niggardly set of
people; they eat and drink in miserable fashion."
The people of Kashgar seem to have enjoyed from early times a reputation
for rough manners and deceit (Stein, _Ancient Khotan_, p. 49 n). Stein, p.
70, recalls Hiuan Tsang's opinion: "The disposition of the men is fierce
and impetuous, and they are mostly false and deceitful. They make light of
decorum and politeness, and esteem learning but little." Stein adds, p.
70, with regard to Polo's statement: "Without being able to adduce from
personal observation evidence as to the relative truth of the latter
statement, I believe that the judgements recorded by both those great
travellers may be taken as a fair reflex of the opinion in which the
'Kashgarliks' are held to this day by the people of other Turkestan
districts, especially by the Khotanese. And in the case of Hiuan Tsang at
least, it seems probable from his long stay in, and manifest attachment
to, Khotan that this neighbourly criticism might have left an impression
upon him."
XXXVI., p. 188.
KHOTAN.
Sir Aurel Stein writes (_Ancient Khotan_, I., pp. 139-140): "Marco Polo's
account of Khotan and the Khotanese forms an apt link between these early
Chinese notices and the picture drawn from modern observation. It is brief
but accurate in all details. The Venetian found the people 'subject to the
Great Kaan' and 'all worshippers of Mahommet.' 'There are numerous towns
and villages in the country, but Cotan, the capital, is the most noble of
all and gives its name to the kingdom. Everything is to be had there in
plenty, including abundance of cotton [with flax, hemp, wheat, wine, and
the like]. The people have vineyards and gardens and estates. They live by
commerce and manufactures, and are no soldiers.' Nor did the peculiar
laxity of morals, which seems always to have distinguished the people of
the Khotan region, escape Marco Polo's attention. For of the 'Province of
Pein' which, as we shall see, represents the oases of the adjoining modern
district of Keriya, he relates the custom that 'if the husband of any
woman go away upon a journey and remain away for more than twenty days, as
soon as that term is past the woman may marry another man, and the husband
also may then marry whom he pleases.'
"No one who has visited Khotan or who is familiar with the modern accounts
of the territory, can read the early notices above extracted without being
struck at once by the fidelity with which they reflect characteristic
features of the people at the present day. Nor is it necessary to
emphasize the industrial pre-eminence which Khotan still enjoys in a
variety of manufactures through the technical skill and inherited training
of the bulk of its population."
Sir Aurel Stein further remarks (_Ancient Khotan_, I., p. 183): "When
Marco Polo visited Khotan on his way to China, between the years 1271 and
1275, the people of the oasis were flourishing, as the Venetian's
previously quoted account shows. His description of the territories
further east, Pein, Cherchen, and Lop, which he passed through before
crossing 'the Great Desert' to Sha-chou, leaves no doubt that the route
from Khotan into Kan-su was in his time a regular caravan road. Marco Polo
found the people of Khotan 'all worshippers of Mahommet' and the territory
subject to the 'Great Kaan', i.e. Kublai, whom by that time almost the
whole of the Middle Kingdom acknowledged as emperor. While the
neighbouring Yarkand owed allegiance to Kaidu, the ruler of the Chagatai
dominion, Khotan had thus once more renewed its old historical connexion
with China."
XXVI., p. 190.
"A note of Yule's on p. 190 of Vol. I. describes Johnson's report on the
people of Khoten (1865) as having 'a slightly Tartar cast of countenance.'
The Toba History makes the same remark 1300 years earlier: 'From
Kao-ch'ang (Turfan) westwards the people of the various countries have deep
eyes and high noses; the features in only this one country (Khoten) are not
very _Hu_ (Persian, etc.), but rather like Chinese.' I published a
tolerably complete digest of Lob Nor and Khoten early history from Chinese
sources, in the _Anglo-Russian Society's Journal_ for Jan. and April, 1903.
It appears to me that the ancient capital Yotkhan, discovered thirty-five
years ago, and visited in 1891 by MM. de Rhins and Grenard, probably
furnishes a clue to the ancient Chinese name of Yu-t'ien." (E.H. PARKER,
_Asiatic Quart. Rev._, Jan., 1904, p. 143.)
XXXVII., p. 190 n.
Stein has devoted a whole chapter of his _Sand-buried Ruins of Khotan_,
Chap. XVI., pp. 256 seq. to _Yotkan, the Site of the Ancient Capital_.
XXXVII., p. 191, n. 1.
PEIN.
"It is a mistake to suppose that the earlier pilgrim Fa-hien (A.D. 400)
followed the 'directer route' from China; he was obliged to go to Kao
ch'ang, and then turn sharp south to Khoten." (E.H. PARKER, _Asiatic
Quart. Rev._, Jan., 1904, p. 143.)
XXXVII., p. 192.
I have embodied, in Vol. II., p. 595, of Marco Polo, some of the remarks
of Sir Aurel Stein regarding Pein and Uzun Tati. In _Ancient Khotan_, I.,
pp. 462-3, he has given further evidence of the identity of Uzun Tati and
P'i mo, and he has discussed the position of Ulug-Ziarat, probably the Han
mo of Sung Yun.
XXXVII., p. 191; II., p. 595.
"Keriya, the Pein of Marco Polo and Pimo of Hwen Tsiang, writes
Huntington, is a pleasant district, with a population of about fifteen
thousand souls." Huntington discusses (p. 387) the theory of Stein:
"Stein identifies Pimo or Pein, with ancient Kenan, the site ... now known
as Uzun Tetti or Ulugh Mazar, north of Chira. This identification is
doubtful, as appears from the following table of distances given by Hwen
Tsiang, which is as accurate as could be expected from a casual traveller.
I have reckoned the 'li,' the Chinese unit of distance, as equivalent to
0.26 of a mile.
Distance according to
Names of Places. True Distance. Hwen Tsiang.
Khotan (Yutien) to Keriya (Pimo) 97 miles. 330 li 86 miles.
Keriya (Pimo) to Niya (Niyang) 64 " 200 " 52 "
Niya (Niyang) to Endereh (Tuholo) 94 " 400 " 104 "
Endereh (Tuholo) to Kotak Sheri? (Chemotona) 138? " 600 " 156 "
Kotak Sheri (Chemotona) to Lulan (Nafopo) 264? " 1000 " 260 "
"If we use the value of the 'li' 0.274 of a mile given by Hedin, the
distances from Khotan to Keriya and from Keriya to Niya, according to Hwen
Tsiang, become 91 and 55 miles instead of 86 and 52 as given in the table,
which is not far from the true distances, 97 and 64.
"If, however, Pimo is identical with Kenan, as Stein thinks, the distances
which Hwen Tsiang gives as 86 and 52 miles become respectively 60 and 89,
which is evidently quite wrong.
"Strong confirmation of the identification of Keriya with Pimo is found in
a comparison of extracts from Marco Polo's and Hwen Tsiang's accounts of
that city with passages from my note-book, written long before I had read
the comments of the ancient travellers. Marco Polo says that the people of
Pein, or Pima, as he also calls it, have the peculiar custom 'that if a
married man goes to a distance from home to be about twenty days, his wife
has a right, if she is so inclined, to take another husband; and the men,
on the same principle, marry wherever they happen to reside.' The
quotation from my notes runs as follows: 'The women of the place are noted
for their attractiveness and loose character. It is said that many men
coming to Keriya for a short time become enamoured of the women here, and
remain permanently, taking new wives and abandoning their former wives and
families.'
"Hwen Tsiang observed that thirty 'li,' seven or eight miles, west of
Pimo, there is 'a great desert marsh, upwards of several acres in extent,
without any verdure whatever. The surface is reddish black.' The natives
explained to the pilgrim that it was the blood-stained site of a great
battle fought many years before. Eighteen miles north-west of Keriya
bazaar, or ten miles from the most westerly village of the oasis, I
observed that 'some areas which are flooded part of the year are of a deep
rich red colour, due to a small plant two or three inches high.' I saw
such vegetation nowhere else and apparently it was an equally unusual
sight to Hwen Tsiang.
"In addition to these somewhat conclusive observations, Marco Polo says
that jade is found in the river of Pimo, which is true of the Keriya, but
not of the Chira, or the other rivers near Kenan." (Ellsworth HUNTINGTON,
_The Pulse of Asia_, pp. 387-8.)
XXVIII., p. 194. "The whole of the Province [of Charchan] is sandy, and so
is the road all the way from Pein, and much of the water that you find is
bitter and bad. However, at some places you do find fresh and sweet
water."
Sir Aurel Stein remarks (_Ancient Khotan_, I., p. 436): "Marco Polo's
description, too, 'of the Province of Charchan' would agree with the
assumption that the route west of Charchan was not altogether devoid of
settlements even as late as the thirteenth century.... [His] account of
the route agrees accurately with the conditions now met with between Niya
and Charchan. Yet in the passage immediately following, the Venetian tells
us how 'when an army passes through the land, the people escape with their
wives, children, and cattle a distance of two or three days' journey into
the sandy waste; and, knowing the spots where water is to be had, they are
able to live there, and to keep their cattle alive, while it is impossible
to discover them.' It seems to me clear that Marco Polo alludes here to
the several river courses which, after flowing north of the Niya-Charchan
route, lose themselves in the desert. The jungle belt of their terminal
areas, no doubt, offered then, as it would offer now, safe places of
refuge to any small settlements established along the route southwards."
XXXIX., P. 197.
OF THE CITY OF LOP.
Stein remarks, _Ruins of Desert Cathay_, I., p. 343: "Broad
geographical facts left no doubt for any one acquainted with local
conditions that Marco Polo's Lop, 'a large town at the edge of the Desert'
where 'travellers repose before entering on the Desert' _en route_
for Sha chou and China proper, must have occupied the position of the
present Charklik. Nor could I see any reason for placing elsewhere the
capital of that 'ancient kingdom of Na-fo-po, the same as the territory of
Lou-lan,' which Hiuan Tsang reached after ten marches to the north-east of
Chue-mo or Charchan, and which was the pilgrim's last stage before his
return to Chinese soil."
In his third journey (1913-1916), Stein left Charchan on New Year's Eve,
1914, and arrived at Charkhlik on January 8, saying: "It was from this
modest little oasis, the only settlement of any importance in the Lop
region, representing Marco Polo's 'City of Lop,' that I had to raise the
whole of the supplies, labour, and extra camels needed by the several
parties for the explorations I had carefully planned during the next three
months in the desert between Lop-nor and Tunhuang."
"The name of LOB appears under the form _Lo pou_ in the _Yuan-shi_, _s.a._
1282 and 1286. In 1286, it is mentioned as a postal station near those of
K'ie-t'ai, Che-ch'an and Wo-tuan. Wo-tuan is Khotan. Che-ch'an, the name
of which reappears in other paragraphs, is Charchan. As to K'ie-t'ai, a
postal station between those of Lob and Charchan, it seems probable that
it is the Kaetaek of the _Tarikh-i-Rashidi_." (PELLIOT.)
See in the _Journ. Asiatique_, Jan.-Feb., 1916, pp. 117-119, Pelliot's
remarks on _Lob, Navapa_, etc.
XXXIX., pp. 196-7.
THE GREAT DESERT.
After reproducing the description of the Great Desert in Sir Henry Yule's
version, Stein adds, _Ruins of Desert Cathay_, I., p. 518:
"It did not need my journey to convince me that what Marco here tells us
about the risks of the desert was but a faithful reflex of old folklore
beliefs he must have heard on the spot. Sir Henry Yule has shown long ago
that the dread of being led astray by evil spirits haunted the imagination
of all early travellers who crossed the desert wastes between China and
the oases westwards. Fa-hsien's above-quoted passage clearly alludes to
this belief, and so does Hiuan Tsang, as we have seen, where he points in
graphic words the impressions left by his journey through the sandy desert
between Niya and Charchan.
"Thus, too, the description we receive through the Chinese
historiographer, Ma Tuan-lin, of the shortest route from China towards
Kara-shahr, undoubtedly corresponding to the present track to Lop-nor,
reads almost like a version from Marco's book, though its compiler, a
contemporary of the Venetian traveller, must have extracted it from some
earlier source. 'You see nothing in any direction but the sky and the
sands, without the slightest trace of a road; and travellers find nothing
to guide them but the bones of men and beasts and the droppings of camels.
During the passage of this wilderness you hear sounds, sometimes of
singing, sometimes of wailing; and it has often happened that travellers
going aside to see what these sounds might be have strayed from their
course and been entirely lost; for they were voices of spirits and
goblins.'...
"As Yule rightly observes, 'these Goblins are not peculiar to the Gobi.'
Yet I felt more than ever assured that Marco's stories about them were of
genuine local growth, when I had travelled over the whole route and seen
how closely its topographical features agree with the matter-of-fact
details which the first part of his chapter records. Anticipating my
subsequent observations, I may state here at once that Marco's estimate of
the distance and the number of marches on this desert crossing proved
perfectly correct. For the route from Charklik, his 'town of Lop,' to the
'City of Sachiu,' i.e. Sha-chou or Tun-huang, our plane-table survey,
checked by cyclometer readings, showed an aggregate marching distance of
close on 380 miles."
XXXIX., p. 196.
OF THE CITY OF LOP AND THE GREAT DESERT.
"In the hope of contributing something toward the solution of these
questions [contradictory statements of Prjevalsky, Richthofen, and Sven
Hedin]," writes Huntington, "I planned to travel completely around the
unexplored part of the ancient lake, crossing the Lop desert in its widest
part. As a result of the journey, I became convinced that two thousand
years ago the lake was of great size, covering both the ancient and the
modern locations; then it contracted, and occupied only the site shown on
the Chinese maps; again, in the Middle Ages, it expanded; and at present
it has contracted and occupies the modern site.
"Now, as in Marco Polo's days, the traveller must equip his caravan for
the desert at Charklik, also known as Lop, two days' journey south-west of
the lake." (Ellsworth HUNTINGTON, _The Pulse of Asia_, pp. 240-1.)
XXXIX., pp. 197, 201.
NOISES IN THE GREAT DESERT.
As an answer to a paper by C. TOMLINSON, in _Nature_, Nov. 28, 1895, p.
78, we find in the same periodical, April 30, 1896, LIII., p. 605, the
following note by KUMAGUSU MINAKATA: "The following passage in a Chinese
itinerary of Central Asia--Chun Yuen's _Si-yih-kien-wan-luh_, 1777
(British Museum, No. 15271, b. 14), tom. VII., fol. 13 b.--appears to
describe the icy sounds similar to what Ma or Head observed in North
America (see supra, ibid., p. 78).
"Muh-sueh-urh-tah-fan (= Muzart), that is Ice Mountain [_Snowy_ according
to Prjevalsky], is situated between Ili and Ushi.... In case that one
happens to be travelling there close to sunset, he should choose a rock of
moderate thickness and lay down on it. In solitary night then, he would
hear the sounds, now like those of gongs and bells, and now like those of
strings and pipes, which disturb ears through the night: these are
produced by multifarious noises coming from the cracking ice."
Kumagusu Minakata has another note on remarkable sounds in Japan in
_Nature_, LIV., May 28, 1896, p. 78.
Sir T. Douglas Forsyth, _Buried Cities in the Shifting Sands of the Great
Desert of Gobi, Proc. Roy. Geog. Soc._, Nov. 13, 1876, says, p. 29: "The
stories told by Marco Polo, in his 39th chapter, about shifting sands and
strange noises and demons, have been repeated by other travellers down to
the present time. Colonel Prjevalsky, in pp. 193 and 194 of his
interesting _Travels_, gives his testimony to the superstitions of the
Desert; and I find, on reference to my diary, that the same stories were
recounted to me in Kashghar, and I shall be able to show that there is
some truth in the report of treasures being exposed to view."
P. 201, Line 12. Read the Governor of Urumtsi _founded_ instead of
_found_.
XL., p. 203. Marco Polo comes to a city called Sachiu belonging to a
province called Tangut. "The people are for the most part Idolaters....
The Idolaters have a peculiar language, and are no traders, but live by
their agriculture. They have a great many abbeys and minsters full of
idols of sundry fashions, to which they pay great honour and reverence,
worshipping them and sacrificing to them with much ado."
Sachiu, or rather Tun Hwang, is celebrated for its "Caves of Thousand
Buddhas"; Sir Aurel Stein wrote the following remarks in his _Ruins of
Desert Cathay_, II., p. 27: "Surely it was the sight of these colossal
images, some reaching nearly a hundred feet in height, and the vivid first
impressions retained of the cult paid to them, which had made Marco Polo
put into his chapter on 'Sachiu,' i.e. Tun-huang, a long account of the
strange idolatrous customs of the people of Tangut.... Tun-huang manifestly
had managed to retain its traditions of Buddhist piety down to Marco's
days. Yet there was plentiful antiquarian evidence showing that most of the
shrines and art remains at the Halls of the Thousand Buddhas dated back to
the period of the T'ang Dynasty, when Buddhism flourished greatly in China.
Tun-huang, as the westernmost outpost of China proper, had then for nearly
two centuries enjoyed imperial protection both against the Turks in the
north and the Tibetans southward. But during the succeeding period, until
the advent of paramount Mongol power, some two generations before Marco
Polo's visit, these marches had been exposed to barbarian inroads of all
sorts. The splendour of the temples and the number of the monks and nuns
established near them had, no doubt, sadly diminished in the interval."
XL., p. 205.
Prof. Pelliot accepts as a Mongol plural _Tangut_, but remarks that it is
very ancient, as _Tangut_ is already to be found in the Orkhon
inscriptions. At the time of Chingiz, _Tangut_ was a singular in Mongol,
and _Tangu_ is nowhere to be found.
XL., p. 206.
The Tangutans are descendants of the Tang-tu-chueh; it must be understood
that they are descendants of _T'u Kiueh_ of the T'ang Period. (PELLIOT.)
Lines 7 and 8 from the foot of the page: instead of T'ung hoang, read Tun
hoang; Kiu-kaan, read Tsiu tsuean.
XL., p. 207, note 2. The "peculiar language" is si-hia (PELLIOT).
XLI., pp. 210, 212, n. 3.
THE PROVINCE OF CAMUL.
See on the discreditable custom of the people of Qamul, a long note in the
second edition of _Cathay_, I., pp. 249-250.
XLI., p. 211.
Prof. Parker remarks (_Asiatic Quart. Rev._, Jan., 1904, p. 142) that:
"The Chinese (Manchu) agent at Urga has not (nor, I believe, ever had) any
control over the Little Bucharia Cities. Moreover, since the reconquest of
Little Bucharia in 1877-1878, the whole of those cities have been placed
under the Governor of the New Territory (Kan Suh Sin-kiang Sun-fu), whose
capital is at Urumtsi. The native Mohammedan Princes of Hami have still
left to them a certain amount of home rule, and so lately as 1902 a decree
appointing the rotation of their visits to Peking was issued. The present
Prince's name is _Shamu Hust_, or _Hussot_."
XLII., p. 215.
THE PROVINCE OF CHINGINTALAS.
Prof. E.H. PARKER writes in the _Journ. of the North China Branch of the
Royal As. Soc._, XXXVII., 1906, p. 195: "On p. 215 of Yule's Vol. I. some
notes of Palladius' are given touching Chingkintalas, but it is not stated
that Palladius supposed the word _Ch'ih kin_ to date after the Mongols,
that is, that Palladius felt uncertain about his identification. But
Palladius is mistaken in feeling thus uncertain: in 1315 and 1326 the
Mongol History twice mentions the garrison starts at _Ch'ih kin_, and in
such a way that the place must be where Marco Polo puts it, i.e. west of
Kia-yueh Kwan."
OF THE PROVINCE OF SUKCHUR.
XLIII., p. 217. "Over all the mountains of this province rhubarb is found
in great abundance, and thither merchants come to buy it, and carry it
thence all over the world. Travellers, however, dare not visit those
mountains with any cattle but those of the country, for a certain plant
grows there which is so poisonous that cattle which eat it loose their
hoofs. The cattle of the country know it and eschew it."
During his crossing of the Nan Shan, Sir Aurel Stein had the same
experience, five of his ponies being "benumbed and refusing to touch grass
or fodder." The traveller notes that, _Ruins of Desert Cathay_, II., p.
303: "I at once suspected that they had eaten of the poisonous grass which
infests certain parts of the Nan Shan, and about which old Marco has much
to tell in his chapter on 'Sukchur' or Su-chou. The Venetian's account had
proved quite true; for while my own ponies showed all the effects of this
inebriating plant, the local animals had evidently been wary of it. A
little bleeding by the nose, to which Tila Bai, with the veterinary skill
of an old Ladak 'Kirakash,' promptly proceeded, seemed to afford some
relief. But it took two or three days before the poor brutes were again in
full possession of their senses and appetites."
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