CHAPTER LXXVIII.

Now I will tell you about the great revenue which the Great Kaan draweth every year from the said city of Kinsay and its territory, forming a ninth part of the whole country of Manzi.

First there is the salt, which brings in a great revenue. For it produces every year, in round numbers, fourscore tomans of gold; and the toman is worth 70,000 saggi of gold, so that the total value of the fourscore tomans will be five millions and six hundred thousand saggi of gold, each saggio being worth more than a gold florin or ducat; in sooth, a vast sum of money! [This province, you see, adjoins the ocean, on the shores of which are many lagoons or salt marshes, in which the sea-water dries up during the summer time; and thence they extract such a quantity of salt as suffices for the supply of five of the kingdoms of Manzi besides this one.]

Having told you of the revenue from salt, I will now tell you of that which accrues to the Great Kaan from the duties on merchandize and other matters.

You must know that in this city and its dependencies they make great quantities of sugar, as indeed they do in the other eight divisions of this country; so that I believe the whole of the rest of the world together does not produce such a quantity, at least, if that be true which many people have told me; and the sugar alone again produces an enormous revenue.—However, I will not repeat the duties on every article separately, but tell you how they go in the lump. Well, all spicery pays three and a third per cent. on the value; and all merchandize likewise pays three and a third per cent. [But sea-borne goods from India and other distant countries pay ten per cent.] The rice-wine also makes a great return, and coals, of which there is a great quantity; and so do the twelve guilds of craftsmen that I told you of, with their 12,000 stations apiece, for every article they make pays duty. And the silk which is produced in such abundance makes an immense return. But why should I make a long story of it? The silk, you must know, pays ten per cent., and many other articles also pay ten per cent.

And you must know that Messer Marco Polo, who relates all this, was several times sent by the Great Kaan to inspect the amount of his customs and revenue from this ninth part of Manzi,{1} and he found it to be, exclusive of the salt revenue which we have mentioned already, 210 tomans of gold, equivalent to 14,700,000 saggi of gold; one of the most enormous revenues that ever was heard of. And if the sovereign has such a revenue from one-ninth part of the country, you may judge what he must have from the whole of it! However, to speak the truth, this part is the greatest and most productive; and because of the great revenue that the Great Kaan derives from it, it is his favourite province, and he takes all the more care to watch it well, and to keep the people contented.{2}

Now we will quit this city and speak of others.

Note 1.—Pauthier’s text seems to be the only one which says that Marco was sent by the Great Kaan. The G. Text says merely: “Si qe jeo March Pol qe plusor foies hoï faire le conte de la rende de tous cestes couses,”—“had several times heard the calculations made.”

Note 2.—Toman is 10,000. And the first question that occurs in considering the statements of this chapter is as to the unit of these tomans, as intended by Polo. I believe it to have been the tael (or Chinese ounce) of gold.

We do not know that the Chinese ever made monetary calculations in gold. But the usual unit of the revenue accounts appears from Pauthier’s extracts to have been the ting, i.e. a money of account equal to ten taels of silver, and we know (supra, ch. l. note 4) that this was in those days the exact equivalent of one tael of gold.

The equation in our text is 10,000 x = 70,000 saggi of gold, giving x, or the unit sought, = 7 saggi. But in both Ramusio on the one hand, and in the Geog. Latin and Crusca Italian texts on the other hand, the equivalent of the toman is 80,000 saggi; though it is true that neither with one valuation nor the other are the calculations consistent in any of the texts, except Ramusio’s.[1] This consistency does not give any greater weight to Ramusio’s reading, because we know that version to have been edited, and corrected when the editor thought it necessary: but I adopt his valuation, because we shall find other grounds for preferring it. The unit of the toman then is = 8 saggi.

The Venice saggio was one-sixth of a Venice ounce. The Venice mark of 8 ounces I find stated to contain 3681 grains troy;[2] hence the saggio = 76 grains. But I imagine the term to be used by Polo here and in other Oriental computations, to express the Arabic misḳál, the real weight of which, according to Mr. Maskelyne, is 74 grains troy. The misḳál of gold was, as Polo says, something more than a ducat or sequin, indeed, weight for weight, it was to a ducat nearly as 1·4:1.

Eight saggi or misḳáls would be 592 grains troy. The tael is 580, and the approximation is as near as we can reasonably expect from a calculation in such terms.

Taking the silver tael at 6s. 7d., the gold tael, or rather the ting, would be = 3l. 5s. 10d.; the toman = 32,916l. 13s. 4d.; and the whole salt revenue (80 tomans) = 2,633,333l.; the revenue from other sources (210 tomans) = 6,912,500l.; total revenue from Kinsay and its province (290 tomans) = 9,545,833l. A sufficiently startling statement, and quite enough to account for the sobriquet of Marco Milioni.

Pauthier, in reference to this chapter, brings forward a number of extracts regarding Mongol finance from the official history of that dynasty. The extracts are extremely interesting in themselves, but I cannot find in them that confirmation of Marco’s accuracy which M. Pauthier sees.

First as to the salt revenue of Kiang-Ché, or the province of Kinsay. The facts given by Pauthier amount to these: that in 1277, the year in which the Mongol salt department was organised, the manufacture of salt amounted to 92,148 yin, or 22,115,520 kilos.; in 1286 it had reached 450,000 yin, or 108,000,000 kilos.; in 1289 it fell off by 100,000 yin.

The price was, in 1277, 18 liang or taels, in chao or paper-money of the years 1260–64 (see vol. i. p. 426); in 1282 it was raised to 22 taels; in 1284 a permanent and reduced price was fixed, the amount of which is not stated.

M. Pauthier assumes as a mean 400,000 yin, at 18 taels, which will give 7,200,000 taels; or, at 6s. 7d. to the tael, 2,370,000l. But this amount being in chao or paper-currency, which at its highest valuation was worth only 50 per cent. of the nominal value of the notes, we must halve the sum, giving the salt revenue on Pauthier’s assumptions = 1,185,000l.

Pauthier has also endeavoured to present a table of the whole revenue of Kiang-Ché under the Mongols, amounting to 12,955,710 paper taels, or 2,132,294l., including the salt revenue. This would leave only 947,294l. for the other sources of revenue, but the fact is that several of these are left blank, and among others one so important as the sea-customs. However, even making the extravagant supposition that the sea-customs and other omitted items were equal in amount to the whole of the other sources of revenue, salt included, the total would be only 4,264,585l.

Marco’s amount, as he gives it, is, I think, unquestionably a huge exaggeration, though I do not suppose an intentional one. In spite of his professed rendering of the amounts in gold, I have little doubt that his tomans really represent paper-currency, and that to get a valuation in gold, his total has to be divided at the very least by two. We may then compare his total of 290 tomans of paper ting with Pauthier’s 130 tomans of paper ting, excluding sea-customs and some other items. No nearer comparison is practicable; and besides the sources of doubt already indicated, it remains uncertain what in either calculation are the limits of the province intended. For the bounds of Kiang-Ché seem to have varied greatly, sometimes including and sometimes excluding Fo-kien.

I may observe that Rashiduddin reports, on the authority of the Mongol minister Pulad Chingsang, that the whole of Manzi brought in a revenue of “900 tomans.” This Quatremère renders “nine million pieces of gold,” presumably meaning dinars. It is unfortunate that there should be uncertainty here again as to the unit. If it were the dinar the whole revenue of Manzi would be about 5,850,000l., whereas if the unit were, as in the case of Polo’s toman, the ting, the revenue would be nearly 30,000,000 sterling!

It does appear that in China a toman of some denomination of money near the dinar was known in account. For Friar Odoric states the revenue of Yang-chau in tomans of Balish, the latter unit being, as he explains, a sum in paper-currency equivalent to a florin and a half (or something more than a dinar); perhaps, however, only the liang or tael (see vol. i. pp. 426–7).

It is this calculation of the Kinsay revenue which Marco is supposed to be expounding to his fellow-prisoner on the title-page of this volume. [See P. Hoang, Commerce Public du Sel, Shanghai, 1898, Liang-tché-yen, pp. 6–7.—H. C.]

CHAPTER LXXIX.

When you leave Kinsay and travel a day’s journey to the south-east, through a plenteous region, passing a succession of dwellings and charming gardens, you reach the city of Tanpiju, a great, rich, and fine city, under Kinsay. The people are subject to the Kaan, and have paper-money, and are Idolaters, and burn their dead in the way described before. They live by trade and manufactures and handicrafts, and have all necessaries in great plenty and cheapness.{1}

But there is no more to be said about it, so we proceed, and I will tell you of another city called Vuju at three days’ distance from Tanpiju. The people are Idolaters, &c., and the city is under Kinsay. They live by trade and manufactures.

Travelling through a succession of towns and villages that look like one continuous city, two days further on to the south-east, you find the great and fine city of Ghiuju which is under Kinsay. The people are Idolaters, &c. They have plenty of silk, and live by trade and handicrafts, and have all things necessary in abundance. At this city you find the largest and longest canes that are in all Manzi; they are full four palms in girth and 15 paces in length.{2}

When you have left Ghiuju you travel four days S.E. through a beautiful country, in which towns and villages are very numerous. There is abundance of game both in beasts and birds; and there are very large and fierce lions. After those four days you come to the great and fine city of Changshan. It is situated upon a hill which divides the River, so that the one portion flows up country and the other down.[1] It is still under the government of Kinsay.

I should tell you that in all the country of Manzi they have no sheep, though they have beeves and kine, goats and kids and swine in abundance. The people are Idolaters here, &c.

When you leave Changshan you travel three days through a very fine country with many towns and villages, traders and craftsmen, and abounding in game of all kinds, and arrive at the city of Cuju. The people are Idolaters, &c., and live by trade and manufactures. It is a fine, noble, and rich city, and is the last of the government of Kinsay in this direction.{3} The other kingdom which we now enter, called Fuju, is also one of the nine great divisions of Manzi as Kinsay is.

Note 1.—The traveller’s route proceeds from Kinsay or Hang-chau southward to the mountains of Fo-kien, ascending the valley of the Ts’ien T’ang, commonly called by Europeans the Green River. The general line, directed as we shall see upon Kien-ning fu in Fo-kien, is clear enough, but some of the details are very obscure, owing partly to vague indications and partly to the excessive uncertainty in the reading of some of the proper names.

No name resembling Tanpiju (G. T., Tanpigui; Pauthier, Tacpiguy, Carpiguy, Capiguy; Ram., Tapinzu) belongs, so far as has yet been shown, to any considerable town in the position indicated.[2] Both Pauthier and Mr. Kingsmill identify the place with Shao-hing fu, a large and busy town, compared by Fortune, as regards population, to Shang-hai. Shao-hing is across the broad river, and somewhat further down than Hang-chau: it is out of the traveller’s general direction; and it seems unnatural that he should commence his journey by passing this wide river, and yet not mention it.

For these reasons I formerly rejected Shao-hing, and looked rather to Fu-yang as the representative of Tanpiju. But my opinion is shaken when I find both Mr. Elias and Baron Richthofen decidedly opposed to Fu-yang, and the latter altogether in favour of Shao-hing. “The journey through a plenteous region, passing a succession of dwellings and charming gardens; the epithets ‘great, rich, and fine city’; the ‘trade, manufactures, and handicrafts,’ and the ‘necessaries in great plenty and cheapness,’ appear to apply rather to the populous plain and the large city of ancient fame, than to the small Fu-yang hien ... shut in by a spur from the hills, which would hardly have allowed it in former days to have been a great city.” (Note by Baron R.) The after route, as elucidated by the same authority, points with even more force to Shao-hing.

[Mr. G. Phillips has made a special study of the route from Kinsay to Zaytun in the T’oung Pao, I. p. 218 seq. (The Identity of Marco Polo’s Zaitun with Changchau). He says (p. 222): “Leaving Hangchau by boat for Fuhkien, the first place of importance is Fuyang, at 100 li from Hangchau. This name does not in any way resemble Polo’s Ta Pin Zu, but I think it can be no other.” Mr. Phillips writes (pp. 221–222) that by the route he describes, he “intends to follow the highway which has been used by travellers for centuries, and the greater part of which is by water.” He adds: “I may mention that the boats used on this route can be luxuriously fitted up, and the traveller can go in them all the way from Hangchau to Chinghu, the head of the navigation of the Ts’ien-t’ang River. At this Chinghu, they disembark and hire coolies and chairs to take them and their luggage across the Sien-hia pass to Puching in Fuhkien. This route is described by Fortune in an opposite direction, in his Wanderings in China, vol. ii. p. 139. I am inclined to think that Polo followed this route, as the one given by Yule, by way of Shao-hing and Kin-hua by land, would be unnecessarily tedious for the ladies Polo was escorting, and there was no necessity to take it; more especially as there was a direct water route to the point for which they were making. I further incline to this route, as I can find no city at all fitting in with Yenchau, Ramusio’s Gengiu, along the route given by Yule.”

In my paper on the Catalan Map (Paris, 1895) I gave the following itinerary: Kinsay (Hang-chau), Tanpiju (Shao-hing fu), Vuju (Kin-hwa fu), Ghiuju (K’iu-chau fu), Chan-shan (Sui-chang hien), Cuju (Ch’u-chau), Ke-lin-fu (Kien-ning fu), Unken (Hu-kwan), Fuju (Fu-chau), Zayton (Kayten, Hai-t’au), Zayton (Ts’iuen-chau), Tyunju (Tek-hwa).

Regarding the burning of the dead, Mr. Phillips (T’oung Pao, VI. p. 454) quotes the following passage from a notice by M. Jaubert. “The town of Zaitun is situated half a day’s journey inland from the sea. At the place where the ships anchor, the water is fresh. The people drink this water and also that of the wells. Zaitun is 30 days’ journey from Khanbaligh. The inhabitants of this town burn their dead either with Sandal, or Brazil wood, according to their means; they then throw the ashes into the river.” Mr. Phillips adds: “The custom of burning the dead is a long established one in Fuh-Kien, and does not find much favour among the upper classes. It exists even to this day in the central parts of the province. The time for cremation is generally at the time of the Tsing-Ming. At the commencement of the present dynasty the custom of burning the dead appears to have been pretty general in the Fuchow Prefecture; it was looked upon with disfavour by many, and the gentry petitioned the Authorities that proclamations forbidding it should be issued. It was thought unfilial for children to cremate their parents; and the practice of gathering up the bones of a partially cremated person and thrusting them into a jar, euphoniously called a Golden Jar, but which was really an earthen one, was much commented on, as, if the jar was too small to contain all the bones, they were broken up and put in, and many pieces got thrown aside. In the Changchow neighbourhood, with which we have here most to do, it was a universal custom in 1126 to burn the dead, and was in existence for many centuries after.” (See note, supra, II. p. 134.)

Captain Gill, speaking of the country near the Great Wall, writes (I. p. 61): [“The Chinese] consider mutton very poor food, and the butchers’ shops are always kept by Mongols. In these, however, both beef and mutton can be bought for 3d. or 4d. a lb., while pork, which is considered by the Chinese as the greatest delicacy, sells for double the price.”—H. C.]

Note 2.—Che-kiang produces bamboos more abundantly than any province of Eastern China. Dr. Medhurst mentions meeting, on the waters near Hang-chau, with numerous rafts of bamboos, one of which was one-third of a mile in length. (Glance at Int. of China, p. 53.)

Note 3.—Assuming Tanpiju to be Shao-hing, the remaining places as far as the Fo-kien Frontier run thus:—

• 3 days to Vuju (P. Vugui, G. T. Vugui, Vuigui, Ram. Uguiu).
• 2    „    to Ghiuju (P. Guiguy, G. T. Ghingui, Ghengui, Chengui, Ram. Gengui).
• 4    „    to Changshan (P. Ciancian, G. T. Cianscian, Ram. Zengian).
• 3    „    to Cuju or Chuju (P. Cinguy, G. T. Cugui, Ram. Gieza).

First as regards Changshan, which, with the notable circumstances about the waters there, constitutes the key to the route, I extract the following remarks from a note which Mr. Fortune has kindly sent me: “When we get to Changshan the proof as to the route is very strong. This is undoubtedly my Chang-shan. The town is near the head of the Green River (the Ts’ien T’ang) which flows in a N.E. direction and falls into the Bay of Hang-chau. At Chang-shan the stream is no longer navigable even for small boats. Travellers going west or south-west walk or are carried in sedan-chairs across country in a westerly direction for about 30 miles to a town named Yuh-shan. Here there is a river which flows westward (‘the other half goes down’), taking the traveller rapidly in that direction, and passing en route the towns of Kwansinfu, Hokow or Hokeu, and onward to the Poyang Lake.” From the careful study of Mr. Fortune’s published narrative I had already arrived at the conclusion that this was the correct explanation of the remarkable expressions about the division of the waters, which are closely analogous to those used by the traveller in ch. lxii. of this book when speaking of the watershed of the Great Canal at Sinjumatu. Paraphrased the words might run: “At Chang-shan you reach high ground, which interrupts the continuity of the River; from one side of this ridge it flows up country towards the north, from the other it flows down towards the south.” The expression “The River” will be elucidated in note 4 to ch. lxxxii. below.

This route by the Ts’ien T’ang and the Chang-shan portage, which turns the danger involved in the navigation of the Yang-tzŭ and the Poyang Lake, was formerly a thoroughfare to the south much followed; though now almost abandoned through one of the indirect results (as Baron Richthofen points out) of steam navigation.

The portage from Chang-shan to Yuh-shan was passed by the English and Dutch embassies in the end of last century, on their journeys from Hang-chau to Canton, and by Mr. Fortune on his way from Ningpo to the Bohea country of Fo-kien. It is probable that Polo on some occasion made the ascent of the Ts’ien T’ang by water, and that this leads him to notice the interruption of the navigation.

[Mr. Phillips writes (T. Pao, I. p. 222): “From Fuyang the next point reached is Tunglu, also another 100 li distant. Polo calls this city Ugim, a name bearing no resemblance to Tunglu, but this name and Ta Pin Zu are so corrupted in all editions that they defy conjecture. One hundred li further up the river from Tunglu, we come to Yenchau, in which I think we have Polo’s Gengiu of Ramusio’s text. Yule’s text calls this city Ghiuju, possibly an error in transcription for Ghinju; Yenchau in ancient Chinese would, according to Williams, be pronounced Ngam, Ngin, and Ngienchau, all of which are sufficiently near Polo’s Gengiu. The next city reached is Lan Ki Hien or Lan Chi Hsien, famous for its hams, dates, and all the good things of this life, according to the Chinese. In this city I recognise Polo’s Zen Gi An of Ramusio. Does its description justify me in my identification? ‘The city of “Zen gi an,”’ says Ramusio, ‘is built upon a hill that stands isolated in the river, which latter, by dividing itself into two branches, appears to embrace it. These streams take opposite directions: one of them pursuing its course to the south-east and the other to the north-west.’ Fortune, in his Wanderings in China (vol. ii. p. 139), calls Lan-Khi, Nan-Che-hien, and says: ‘It is built on the banks of the river, and has a picturesque hill behind it.’ Milne, who also visited it, mentions it in his Life in China (p. 258), and says: ‘At the southern end of the suburbs of Lan-Ki the river divides into two branches, the one to the left on south-east leading direct to Kinhua.’ Milne’s description of the place is almost identical with Polo’s, when speaking of the division of the river. There are in Fuchau several Lan-Khi shopkeepers, who deal in hams, dates, etc., and these men tell me the city from the river has the appearance of being built on a hill, but the houses on the hill are chiefly temples. I would divide the name as follows, Zen gi an; the last syllable an most probably represents the modern Hien, meaning District city, which in ancient Chinese was pronounced Han, softened by the Italians into an. Lan-Khi was a Hien in Polo’s day.”—H. C.]

Kin-hwa fu, as Pauthier has observed, bore at this time the name of Wu-chau, which Polo would certainly write Vugiu. And between Shao-hing and Kin-hwa there exists, as Baron Richthofen has pointed out, a line of depression which affords an easy connection between Shao-hing and Lan-ki hien or Kin-hwa fu. This line is much used by travellers, and forms just 3 short stages. Hence Kin-hwa, a fine city destroyed by the T’ai-P’ings, is satisfactorily identified with Vugiu.

The journey from Vugui to Ghiuju is said to be through a succession of towns and villages, looking like a continuous city. Fortune, whose journey occurred before the T’ai-P’ing devastations, speaks of the approach to Kiu-chau as a vast and beautiful garden. And Mr. Milne’s map of this route shows an incomparable density of towns in the Ts’ien T’ang valley from Yen-chau up to Kiu-chau. Ghiuju then will be Kiu-chau. But between Kiu-chau and Chang-shan it is impossible to make four days: barely possible to make two. My map (Itineraries, No. VI.), based on D’Anville and Fortune, makes the direct distance 24 miles; Milne’s map barely 18; whilst from his book we deduce the distance travelled by water to be about 30. On the whole, it seems probable that there is a mistake in the figure here.

Marco Polo’s route from Kinsai to ZAITUN, illustrating Mr. G. Phillips’ theory.

From the head of the great Che-kiang valley I find two roads across the mountains into Fo-kien described.

One leads from Kiang-shan (not Chang-shan) by a town called Ching-hu, and then, nearly due south, across the mountains to Pu-ch’eng in Upper Fo-kien. This is specified by Martini (p. 113): it seems to have been followed by the Dutch Envoy, Van Hoorn, in 1665 (see Astley, III. 463), and it was travelled by Fortune on his return from the Bohea country to Ningpo. (II. 247, 271.)

The other route follows the portage spoken of above from Chang-shan to Yuh-shan, and descends the river on that side to Hokeu, whence it strikes south-east across the mountains to Tsung-ngan-hien in Fo-kien. This route was followed by Fortune on his way to the Bohea country.

Both from Pu-ch’eng on the former route, and from near Tsung-ngan on the latter, the waters are navigable down to Kien-ning fu and so to Fu-chau.

Mr. Fortune judges the first to have been Polo’s route. There does not, however, seem to be on this route any place that can be identified with his Cuju or Chuju. Ching-hu seems to be insignificant, and the name has no resemblance. On the other route followed by Mr. Fortune himself from that side we have Kwansin fu, Hokeu, Yen-shan, and (last town passed on that side) Chuchu. The latter, as to both name and position, is quite satisfactory, but it is described as a small poor town. Hokeu would be represented in Polo’s spelling as Caghiu or Cughiu. It is now a place of great population and importance as the entrepôt of the Black Tea Trade, but, like many important commercial cities in the interior, not being even a hien, it has no place either in Duhalde or in Biot, and I cannot learn its age.

It is no objection to this line that Polo speaks of Cuju or Chuju as the last city of the government of Kinsay, whilst the towns just named are in Kiang-si. For Kiang-Ché, the province of Kinsay, then included the eastern part of Kiang-si. (See Cathay, p. 270.)

[Mr. Phillips writes (T. Pao, I. 223–224): “Eighty-five li beyond Lan-ki hien is Lung-yin, a place not mentioned by Polo, and another ninety-five li still further on is Chüchau or Keuchau, which is, I think, the Gie-za of Ramusio, and the Cuju of Yule’s version. Polo describes it as the last city of the government of Kinsai (Che-kiang) in this direction. It is the last Prefectural city, but ninety li beyond Chü-chau, on the road to Pu-chêng, is Kiang-shan, a district city which is the last one in this direction. Twenty li from Kiang-shan is Ching-hu, the head of the navigation of the T’sien-T’ang river. Here one hires chairs and coolies for the journey over the Sien-hia Pass to Pu-chêng, a distance of 215 li. From Pu-chêng, Fu-chau can be reached by water in 4 or 5 days. The distance is 780 li.”—H. C.]

CHAPTER LXXX.

On leaving Cuju, which is the last city of the kingdom of Kinsay, you enter the kingdom of Fuju, and travel six days in a south-easterly direction through a country of mountains and valleys, in which are a number of towns and villages with great plenty of victuals and abundance of game. Lions, great and strong, are also very numerous. The country produces ginger and galingale in immense quantities, insomuch that for a Venice groat you may buy fourscore pounds of good fine-flavoured ginger. They have also a kind of fruit resembling saffron, and which serves the purpose of saffron just as well.{1}

And you must know the people eat all manner of unclean things, even the flesh of a man, provided he has not died a natural death. So they look out for the bodies of those that have been put to death and eat their flesh, which they consider excellent.{2}

Those who go to war in those parts do as I am going to tell you. They shave the hair off the forehead and cause it to be painted in blue like the blade of a glaive. They all go afoot except the chief; they carry spears and swords, and are the most savage people in the world, for they go about constantly killing people, whose blood they drink, and then devour the bodies.{3}

Now I will quit this and speak of other matters. You must know then that after going three days out of the six that I told you of you come to the city of Kelinfu, a very great and noble city, belonging to the Great Kaan. This city hath three stone bridges which are among the finest and best in the world. They are a mile long and some nine paces in width, and they are all decorated with rich marble columns. Indeed they are such fine and marvellous works that to build any one of them must have cost a treasure.{4}

The people live by trade and manufactures, and have great store of silk [which they weave into various stuffs], and of ginger and galingale. {5} [They also make much cotton cloth of dyed thread, which is sent all over Manzi.] Their women are particularly beautiful. And there is a strange thing there which I needs must tell you. You must know they have a kind of fowls which have no feathers, but hair only, like a cat’s fur.{6} They are black all over; they lay eggs just like our fowls, and are very good to eat.

In the other three days of the six that I have mentioned above{7}, you continue to meet with many towns and villages, with traders, and goods for sale, and craftsmen. The people have much silk, and are Idolaters, and subject to the Great Kaan. There is plenty of game of all kinds, and there are great and fierce lions which attack travellers. In the last of those three days’ journey, when you have gone 15 miles you find a city called Unken, where there is an immense quantity of sugar made. From this city the Great Kaan gets all the sugar for the use of his Court, a quantity worth a great amount of money. [And before this city came under the Great Kaan these people knew not how to make fine sugar; they only used to boil and skim the juice, which when cold left a black paste. But after they came under the Great Kaan some men of Babylonia who happened to be at the Court proceeded to this city and taught the people to refine the sugar with the ashes of certain trees.{8}]

There is no more to say of the place, so now we shall speak of the splendour of Fuju. When you have gone 15 miles from the city of Unken, you come to this noble city which is the capital of the kingdom. So we will now tell you what we know of it.

Note 1.—The vague description does not suggest the root turmeric with which Marsden and Pauthier identify this “fruit like saffron.” It is probably one of the species of Gardenia, the fruits of which are used by the Chinese for their colouring properties. Their splendid yellow colour “is due to a body named crocine which appears to be identical with the polychroite of saffron.” (Hanbury’s Notes on Chinese Mat. Medica, pp. 21–22.) For this identification, I am indebted to Dr. Flückiger of Bern. [“Colonel Yule concludes that the fruit of a Gardenia, which yields a yellow colour, is meant. But Polo’s vague description might just as well agree with the Bastard Saffron, Carthamus tinctorius, a plant introduced into China from Western Asia in the 2nd century B.C., and since then much cultivated in that country.” (Bretschneider, Hist. of Bot. Disc. I. p. 4.)—H. C.]

Scene in the Bohea Mountains, on Polo’s route between Kiang-si and Fo-kien. (From Fortune.)

“Adonc entre l’en en roiaume de Fugiu, et ici comance. Et ala siz jornée por montangnes e por valés....”

Note 2.—See vol. i. p. 312.

Note 3.—These particulars as to a race of painted or tattooed caterans accused of cannibalism apparently apply to some aboriginal tribe which still maintained its ground in the mountains between Fo-kien and Che-kiang or Kiang-si. Davis, alluding to the Upper part of the Province of Canton, says: “The Chinese History speaks of the aborigines of this wild region under the name of Mân (Barbarians), who within a comparatively recent period were subdued and incorporated into the Middle Nation. Many persons have remarked a decidedly Malay cast in the features of the natives of this province; and it is highly probable that the Canton and Fo-kien people were originally the same race as the tribes which still remain unreclaimed on the east side of Formosa.”[1] (Supply. Vol. p. 260.) Indeed Martini tells us that even in the 17th century this very range of mountains, farther to the south, in the Ting-chau department of Fo-kien, contained a race of uncivilised people, who were enabled by the inaccessible character of the country to maintain their independence of the Chinese Government (p. 114; see also Semedo, p. 19).

[“Colonel Yule’s ‘pariah caste’ of Shao-ling, who, he says, rebelled against either the Sung or the Yüan, are evidently the tomin of Ningpo and zikas of Wênchow. Colonel Yule’s ‘some aboriginal tribe between Fo-kien and Che-kiang’ are probably the zikas of Wênchow and the siapo of Fu-kien described by recent travellers. The zikas are locally called dogs’ heads, which illustrates Colonel Yule’s allophylian theories.” (Parker, China Review, XIV. p. 359.) Cf. A Visit to the “Dog-Headed Barbarians” or Hill People, near Fu-chow, by Rev. F. Ohlinger, Chinese Recorder, July, 1886, pp. 265–268.—H. C.]

Note 4.—Padre Martini long ago pointed out that this Quelinfu is Kien-ning fu, on the upper part of the Min River, an important city of Fo-kien. In the Fo-kien dialect he notices that l is often substituted for n, a well-known instance of which is Liampoo, the name applied by F. M. Pinto and the old Portuguese to Ningpo.

[Mr. Phillips writes (T. Pao, I. p. 224): “From Puchêng to Kien-Ning-Foo the distance is 290 li, all down stream. I consider this to have been the route followed by Polo. His calling Kien-Ning-Foo, Que-lin-fu, is quite correct, as far as the Ling is concerned, the people of the city and of the whole southern province pronounce Ning, Ling. The Ramusian version gives very full particulars regarding the manufactures of Kien-Ning-Foo, which are not found in the other texts; for example, silk is said in this version to be woven into various stuffs, and further: ‘They also make much cotton cloth of dyed thread which is sent all over Manzi.’ All this is quite true. Much silk was formerly and is still woven in Kien-Ning, and the manufacture of cotton cloth with dyed threads is very common. Such stuff is called Hung Lu Kin ‘red and green cloth.’ Cotton cloth, made with dyed thread, is also very common in our day in many other cities in Fuh-Kien.”—H. C.]

In Ramusio the bridges are only “each more than 100 paces long and 8 paces wide.” In Pauthier’s text each is a mile long, and 20 feet wide. I translate from the G. T.

Martini describes one beautiful bridge at Kien-ning fu: the piers of cut stone, the superstructure of timber, roofed in and lined with houses on each side (pp. 112–113). If this was over the Min it would seem not to survive. A recent journal says: “The river is crossed by a bridge of boats, the remains of a stone bridge being visible just above water.” (Chinese Recorder (Foochow), August, 1870, p. 65.)

Note 5.—Galanga or Galangal is an aromatic root belonging to a class of drugs once much more used than now. It exists of two kinds: 1. Great or Java Galangal, the root of the Alpinia Galanga. This is rarely imported and hardly used in Europe in modern times, but is still found in the Indian bazaars. 2. Lesser or China Galangal is imported into London from Canton, and is still sold by druggists in England. Its botanical origin is unknown. It is produced in Shan-si, Fo-kien, and Kwang-tung, and is called by the Chinese Liang Kiang or “Mild Ginger.”

[“According to the Chinese authors the province of Sze-ch’wan and Han-chung (Southern Shen-si) were in ancient times famed for their Ginger. Ginger is still exported in large quantities from Han k’ou. It is known also to be grown largely in the southern provinces.—Galingale is the Lesser or Chinese Galanga of commerce, Alpinia officinarum Hance.” (Bretschneider, Hist. of Bot. Disc. I. p. 2. See Heyd, Com. Levant, II. 616–618.)—H. C.]

Galangal was much used as a spice in the Middle Ages. In a syrup for a capon, temp. Rich. II., we find ground-ginger, cloves, cinnamon and galingale. “Galingale” appears also as a growth in old English gardens, but this is believed to have been Cyperus Longus, the tubers of which were substituted for the real article under the name of English Galingale.

The name appears to be a modification of the Arabic Kulíjan, Pers. Kholinján, and these from the Sanskrit Kulanjana. (Mr. Hanbury; China Comm.-Guide, 120; Eng. Cycl.; Garcia, f. 63; Wright, p. 352.)

Note 6.—The cat in question is no doubt the fleecy Persian. These fowls,—but white,—are mentioned by Odoric at Fu-chau; and Mr. G. Phillips in a MS. note says that they are still abundant in Fo-kien, where he has often seen them; all that he saw or heard of were white. The Chinese call them “velvet-hair fowls.” I believe they are well known to poultry-fanciers in Europe. [Gallus Lanatus, Temm. See note, p. 286, of my edition of Odoric.—H. C.]

Note 7.—The times assigned in this chapter as we have given them, after the G. Text, appear very short; but I have followed that text because it is perfectly consistent and clear. Starting from the last city of Kinsay government, the traveller goes six days south-east; three out of those six days bring him to Kelinfu; he goes on the other three days and at the 15th mile of the 3rd day reaches Unken; 15 miles further bring him to Fuju. This is interesting as showing that Polo reckoned his day at 30 miles.

In Pauthier’s text again we find: “Sachiez que quand on est alé six journées, après ces trois que je vous ay dit,” not having mentioned trois at all “on treuve la cité de Quelifu.” And on leaving Quelinfu: “Sachiez que es autres trois journées oultre et plus xv. milles treuve l’en une cité qui a nom Vuguen.” This seems to mean from Cugui to Kelinfu six days, and thence to Vuguen (or Unken) three and a half days more. But evidently there has been bungling in the transcript, for the es autre trois journées belongs to the same conception of the distance as that in the G. T. Pauthier’s text does not say how far it is from Unken to Fuju. Ramusio makes six days to Kelinfu, three days more to Unguem, and then 15 miles more to Fuju (which he has erroneously as Cãgiu here, though previously given right, Fugiu).

The latter scheme looks probable certainly, but the times in the G. T. are quite admissible, if we suppose that water conveyance was adopted where possible.

For assuming that Cugiu was Fortune’s Chuchu at the western base of the Bohea mountains (see note 3, ch. lxxix.), and that the traveller reached Tsun-ngan-hien, in two marches, I see that from Tsin-tsun, near Tsun-ngan-hien, Fortune says he could have reached Fu-chau in four days by boat. Again Martini, speaking of the skill with which the Fo-kien boatmen navigate the rocky rapids of the upper waters, says that even from Pu-ch’eng the descent to the capital could be made in three days. So the thing is quite possible, and the G. Text may be quite correct. (See Fortune, II. 171–183 and 210; Mart. 110.) A party which recently made the journey seem to have been six days from Hokeu to the Wu-e-shan and then five and a half days by water (but in stormy weather) to Fu-chau. (Chinese Recorder, as above.)

Note 8.—Pauthier supposes Unken, or Vuguen as he reads it, to be Hukwan, one of the hiens under the immediate administration of Fu-chau city. This cannot be, according to the lucid reading of the G. T., making Unken 15 miles from the chief city. The only place which the maps show about that position is Min-ts’ing hien. And the Dutch mission of 1664–1665 names this as “Binkin, by some called Min-sing.” (Astley, III. 461.)

[Mr. Phillips writes (T. Pao, I. 224–225): “Going down stream from Kien-Ning, we arrive first at Yen-Ping on the Min Main River. Eighty-seven li further down is the mouth of the Yiu-Ki River, up which stream, at a distance of eighty li, is Yiu-Ki city, where travellers disembark for the land journey to Yung-chun and Chinchew. This route is the highway from the town of Yiu-Ki to the seaport of Chinchew. This I consider to have been Polo’s route, and Ramusio’s Unguen I believe to be Yung-chun, locally known as Eng-chun or Ung-chun, a name greatly resembling Polo’s Unguen. I look upon this mere resemblance of name as of small moment in comparison with the weighty and important statement, that ‘this place is remarkable for a great manufacture of sugar.’ Going south from the Min River towards Chinchew, this is the first district in which sugar-cane is seen growing in any quantity. Between Kien-Ning-Foo and Fuchau I do not know of any place remarkable for the great manufacture of sugar. Pauthier makes How-Kuan do service for Unken or Unguen, but this is inadmissible, as there is no such place as How-Kuan; it is simply one of the divisions of the city of Fuchau, which is divided into two districts, viz. the Min-Hien and the How-Kuan-Hien. A small quantity of sugar-cane is, I admit, grown in the How-Kuan division of Fuchau-foo, but it is not extensively made into sugar. The cane grown there is usually cut into short pieces for chewing and hawked about the streets for sale. The nearest point to Foochow where sugar is made in any great quantity is Yung-Foo, a place quite out of Polo’s route. The great sugar manufacturing districts of Fuh-Kien are Hing-hwa, Yung-chun, Chinchew, and Chang-chau.”—H. C.]

The Babylonia of the passage from Ramusio is Cairo,—Babylon of Egypt, the sugar of which was very famous in the Middle Ages. Zucchero di Bambellonia is repeatedly named in Pegolotti’s Handbook (210, 311, 362, etc.).

The passage as it stands represents the Chinese as not knowing even how to get sugar in the granular form: but perhaps the fact was that they did not know how to refine it. Local Chinese histories acknowledge that the people of Fo-kien did not know how to make fine sugar, till, in the time of the Mongols, certain men from the West taught the art.[2] It is a curious illustration of the passage that in India coarse sugar is commonly called Chíní, “the produce of China,” and sugar candy or fine sugar Misri, the produce of Cairo (Babylonia) or Egypt. Nevertheless, fine Misri has long been exported from Fo-kien to India, and down to 1862 went direct from Amoy. It is now, Mr. Phillips states, sent to India by steamers viâ Hong-Kong. I see it stated, in a late Report by Mr. Consul Medhurst, that the sugar at this day commonly sold and consumed throughout China is excessively coarse and repulsive in appearance. (See Academy, February, 1874, p. 229.) [We note from the Returns of Trade for 1900, of the Chinese Customs, p. 467, that during that year 1900, the following quantities of sugar were exported from Amoy: Brown, 89,116 piculs, value 204,969 Hk. taels; white, 3,708 piculs, 20,024 Hk. taels; candy, 53,504 piculs, 304,970 Hk. taels.—H. C.]

[Dr. Bretschneider (Hist. of Bot. Disc. I. p. 2) remarks that “the sugar cane although not indigenous in China, was known to the Chinese in the 2nd century B.C. It is largely cultivated in the Southern provinces.”—H. C.]

The fierce lions are, as usual, tigers. These are numerous in this province, and tradition points to the diversion of many roads, owing to their being infested by tigers. Tiger cubs are often offered for sale in Amoy.[3]