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 Chitrál by the name of Pálor. 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 Tásh Kurghán, Gilgit, Panyál, Yasin, Chitrál, 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, Baltistán 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 Sárigh-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 ‘Kāshgarliks’ are held to this day by the people of other Turkestān 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. Kúblái, 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.”

XXXVI., 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 Ulūg-Ziārat, 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.

“If we use the value of the ‘li’ 0·274 of a mile given by Hedin, the distances from Khotān 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.)

XXXVIII., 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 Chü-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 Kätäk 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-süh-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 Kashgar, 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-chüeh; 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 tsüan.

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 Sün-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-yüh 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.”

“Wild rhubarb, for which the Nan-shan was famous in Marco Polo’s days, spread its huge fleshy leaves everywhere.” (Stein, Ruins of Desert Cathay, II., p. 305.)

XLIII., p. 218.

SUKCHUR.

The first character of Suchau was pronounced Suk at the time of the T’ang; we find a Sughčiu in von Le Coq’s MSS. from Turkestan and Sughču in the runnic text of W. Thomsen; cf. Pelliot, J. As., Mai–Juin, 1912, p. 591; the pronunciation Suk-chau was still used by travellers coming from Central Asia—for instance, by the envoys of Shah Rukh. See Cathay, III., p. 126 n.

OF THE CITY OF CAMPICHU.

XLIV., pp. 219 seq. “The Idolaters have many minsters and abbeys after their fashion. In these they have an enormous number of idols, both small and great, certain of the latter being a good ten paces in stature; some of them being of wood, others of clay, and others yet of stone. They are all highly polished, and then covered with gold. The great idols of which I speak lie at length. And round about them there are other figures of considerable size, as if adoring and paying homage before them.”

The ambassadors of Shah Rukh to China (1419–1422) wrote:

“In this city of Kamchau there is an idol temple five hundred cubits square. In the middle is an idol lying at length, which measures fifty paces. The sole of the foot is nine paces long, and the instep is twenty-one cubits in girth. Behind this image and overhead are other idols of a cubit (?) in height, besides figures of Bakshis as large as life. The action of all is hit off so admirably that you would think they were alive. Against the wall also are other figures of perfect execution. The great sleeping idol has one hand under his head, and the other resting on his thigh. It is gilt all over, and is known as Shakamuni-fu. The people of the country come in crowds to visit it, and bow to the very ground before this idol” (Cathay, I., p. 277).

XLV., p. 223.

OF THE CITY OF ETZINA.

I said, I., p. 225, that this town must be looked for on the river Hei-shui called Etsina by the Mongols, and would be situated on the river on the border of the Desert, at the top of a triangle, whose bases would be Suhchau and Kanchau. My theory seems to be fully confirmed by Sir Aurel Stein, who writes:

“Advantages of geographical position must at all times have invested this extensive riverine tract, limited as are its resources, with considerable importance for those, whether armed host or traders, who would make the long journey from the heart of Mongolia in the north to the Kansu oases. It had been the same with the ancient Lou-lan delta, without which the Chinese could not have opened up the earliest and most direct route for the expansion of their trade and political influence into Central Asia. The analogy thus presented could not fail to impress me even further when I proceeded to examine the ruins of Khara-khoto, the ‘Black Town’ which Colonel Kozloff, the distinguished Russian explorer, had been the first European to visit during his expedition of 1908–1909. There remained no doubt for me then that it was identical with Marco Polo’s ‘City of Etzina.’ Of this we are told in the great Venetian traveller’s narrative that it lay a twelve days’ ride from the city of Kan-chou, ‘towards the north on the verge of the desert; it belongs to the Province of Tangut.’ All travellers bound for Kara-koram, the old capital of the Mongols, had here to lay in victuals for forty days in order to cross the great ‘desert which extends forty days’ journey to the north, and on which you meet with no habitation nor baiting place.’

“The position thus indicated was found to correspond exactly to that of Khara-khoto, and the identification was completely borne out by the antiquarian evidence brought to light. It soon showed me that though the town may have suffered considerably, as local tradition asserts, when Chingiz Khan with his Mongol army first invaded and conquered Kansu from this side about 1226 A.D., yet it continued to be inhabited down to Marco Polo’s time, and partially at least for more than a century later. This was probably the case even longer with the agricultural settlement for which it had served as a local centre, and of which we traced extensive remains in the desert to the east and north-east. But the town itself must have seen its most flourishing times under Tangut or Hsi-hsia rule from the beginning of the eleventh century down to the Mongol conquest.

“It was from this period, when Tibetan influence from the south seems to have made itself strongly felt throughout Kansu, that most of the Buddhist shrines and memorial Stupas dated, which filled a great portion of the ruined town and were conspicuous also outside it. In one of the latter Colonel Kozloff had made his notable find of Buddhist texts and paintings. But a systematic search of this and other ruins soon showed that the archæological riches of the site were by no means exhausted. By a careful clearing of the débris which covered the bases of Stupas and the interior of temple cellas we brought to light abundant remains of Buddhist manuscripts and block prints, both in Tibetan and the as yet very imperfectly known old Tangut language, as well as plenty of interesting relievos in stucco or terra-cotta and frescoes. The very extensive refuse heaps of the town yielded up a large number of miscellaneous records on paper in the Chinese, Tangut, and Uigur scripts, together with many remains of fine glazed pottery, and of household utensils. Finds of Hsi-hsia coins, ornaments in stone and metal, etc., were also abundant, particularly on wind-eroded ground.

“There was much to support the belief that the final abandonment of the settlement was brought about by difficulties of irrigation.” (A Third Journey of Exploration in Central Asia, 1913–16, Geog. Jour., Aug.–Sept., 1916, pp. 38–39.)

M. Ivanov (Isviestia Petrograd Academy, 1909) thinks that the ruined city of Kara Khoto, a part at the Mongol period of the Yi-tsi-nai circuit, could be its capital, and was at the time of the Si Hia and the beginning of the Mongols, the town of Hei shui. It also confirms my views.

Kozlov found (1908) in a stupa not far from Kara Khoto a large number of Si Hia books, which he carried back to Petrograd, where they were studied by Prof. A. Ivanov, Zur Kenntniss der Hsi-hsia Sprache (Bul. Ac. Sc. Pet., 1909, pp. 1221–1233). See The Si-hia Language, by B. Laufer (T’oung Pao, March, 1916, pp. 1–126).

XLVI., p. 226. “Originally the Tartars dwelt in the north on the borders of Chorcha.”

Prof. Pelliot calls my attention that Ramusio’s text, f. 13 v, has: “Essi habitauano nelle parti di Tramontana, cioè in Giorza, e Bargu, doue sono molte pianure grandi....”

XLVI., p. 230.

TATAR.

“Mr. Rockhill is quite correct in his Turkish and Chinese dates for the first use of the word Tatar, but it seems very likely that the much older eponymous word T’atun refers to the same people. The Toba History says that in A.D. 258 the chieftain of that Tartar Tribe (not yet arrived at imperial dignity) at a public durbar read a homily to various chiefs, pointing out to them the mistake made by the Hiung-nu (Early Turks) and ‘T’a-tun fellows’ (Early Mongols) in raiding his frontiers. If we go back still further, we find the After Han History speaking of the ‘Middle T’atun’; and a scholion tells us not to pronounce the final ‘n.’ If we pursue our inquiry yet further back, we find that T’ah-tun was originally the name of a Sien-pi or Wu-hwan (apparently Mongol) Prince, who tried to secure the shen-yü ship for himself, and that it gradually became (1) a title, (2) and the name of a tribal division (see also the Wei Chi and the Early Han History). Both Sien-pi and Wu-hwan are the names of mountain haunts, and at this very day part of the Russian Liao-tung railway is styled the ‘Sien-pi railway’ by the native Chinese newspapers.” (E. H. Parker, Asiatic Quart. Rev., Jan., 1904, p. 141.)

Page 231, note 3. Instead of Yuché, read Juché.

XLVI., p. 232.

KARACATHAYANS.

“There seems to be no doubt that Kerman in South Persia is the city to which the Kara-Cathayan refugee fled from China in 1124; for Major Sykes, in his recent excellent work on Persia, actually mentions [p. 194] the Kuba Sabz, or ‘Green Dome,’ as having been (until destroyed in 1886 by an earthquake) the most conspicuous building, and as having also been the tomb of the Kara-Khitai Dynasty. The late Dr. Bretschneider (N. China B. R. As. Soc. Journal, Vol. X., p. 101) had imagined the Kara-Cathayan capital to be Kerminé, lying between Samarcand and Bokhara (see Asiatic Quart. Rev. for Dec., 1900, ‘The Cathayans’). Colonel Yule does not appear to be quite correct when he states (p. 232) that ‘the Gurkhan himself is not described to have extended his conquests into Persia,’ for the Chinese history of the Cathayan or Liao Dynasties distinctly states that at Samarcand, where the Cathayan remained for ninety days, the ‘King of the Mohammedans’ brought tribute to the emigrant, who then went West as far as K’i-r-man, where he was proclaimed Emperor by his officers. This was on the fifth day of the second moon in 1124, in the thirty-eighth year of his age, and he then assumed the title of Koh-r-han” (E. H. Parker, Asiatic Quart. Rev., Jan., 1904, pp. 134–5.)

XLVI., p. 236.

KERAITS.

“In his note to Vol. I., p. 236, M. Cordier [read Mr. Rockhill], who seems to have been misled by d’Avezac, confuses the Ch’ih-lêh or T’ieh-lêh (who have been clearly proved to be identical with the Tölös of the Turkish inscriptions) with the much later K’êh-lieh or Keraits of Mongol history; at no period of Chinese history were the Ch’ih-lêh called, as he supposes, K’i-lê, and therefore the Ch’ih-lêh of the third century cannot possibly be identified with the K’ê-lieh of the thirteenth. Besides, the ‘value’ of lêh is ‘luck,’ whilst the ‘value’ of lieh is ‘leet,’ if we use English sounds as equivalents to illustrate Chinese etymology. It is remarkable that the Kin (Nüchen) Dynasty in its Annals leaves no mention whatever of the Kerait tribe, or of any tribe having an approximate name, although the Yüan Shï states that the Princes of that tribe used to hold a Nüchen patent. A solution of this unexplained fact may yet turn up.” (E. H. Parker, Asiatic Quart. Rev., Jan. 1904, p. 139.)

Page 236, note [11]. Instead of Tura, read Tula. (Pelliot.)

LI., pp. 245, 248.

DEATH OF CHINGIZ KHAN.

“Gaubil’s statement that he was wounded in 1212 by a stray arrow, which compelled him to raise the siege of Ta-t’ung Fu, is exactly borne out by the Yüan Shï, which adds that in the seventh moon (August) of 1227 (shortly after the surrender of the Tangut King) the conqueror died at the travelling-palace of Ha-la T’u on the Sa-li stream at the age of sixty-six (sixty-five by our reckoning). As less than a month before he was present at Ts’ing-shui (lat. 34½°, long. 106½°), and was even on his dying bed, giving instructions how to meet the Nüchên army at T’ung-kwan (lat. 34½°, long. 110¼°), we may assume that the place of his death was on the Upper Wei River near the frontiers joining the modern Kan Suh and Shen Si provinces. It is true the Sa-li River (not stream) is thrice mentioned, and also the Sa-lê-chu River, both in Mongolia; on the other hand, the Sa-li Ouigours are frequently mentioned as living in West Kan Suh; so that we may take it the word Sali or Sari was a not uncommon Turkish word. Palladius’ identification of K’i-lien with ‘Kerulen’ I am afraid cannot be entertained. The former word frequently occurs in the second century B.C., and is stated to be a second Hiung-nu (Turkish) word for ‘sky’ or ‘heaven.’ At or about that date the Kerulen was known to the Chinese as the Lu-kü River, and the geographies of the present dynasty clearly identify it as such. The T’ien-Shan are sometimes called the K’i-lien Shan, and the word K’i-lien is otherwise well established along the line of the Great Wall.” (E. H. Parker, Asiatic Quart. Rev., Jan., 1904, pp. 136–7.)

Prof. Pelliot informs me that in No. 3 (Sept., 1918) of Vol. III of Chinese Social and Political Science Review there is an article on the Discovery of and Investigation concerning the Tomb of Gengis Khan. I have not seen it.

LI., p. 249.

TAILGAN.

“The táilgan, or autumn meeting of the Mongols, is probably the tái-lin, or autumn meeting, of the ancient Hiung-nu described on p. 10, Vol. XX. of the China Review. The Kao-ch’ê (= High Carts, Tölös, or early Ouigours) and the early Cathayans (Sien-pi) had very similar customs. Heikel gives an account of analogous ‘Olympic games’ witnessed at Urga in the year 1890.” (E. H. Parker, Asiatic Quart. Rev., Jan., 1904, pp. 140–1.)

LI., p. 251. Read T’ung hwo period (A.D. 992) instead of (A.D. 692).

LII., pp. 252, 254, n. 3. “[The Tartars] live on the milk and meat which their herds supply, and on the produce of the chase; and they eat all kinds of flesh, including that of horses and dogs, and Pharaoh’s rats, of which last there are great numbers in burrows on those plains.”

Pharaoh’s rat was the mangouste or ichneumon (Herpestes ichneumon) formerly found in this part of Asia as well as in Egypt where it was venerated. Cf. Cathay, II., p. 116.

LII., p. 254. Instead of “his tent invariably facing south,” read “facing east” according to the Chou Shu. (Pelliot.)

LII., p. 256 n.

MARRIAGE.

The China Review, Vol. XX. “gives numerous instances of marrying mothers-in-law and sisters-in-law amongst the Hiung nu. The practice was common with all Tartars, as, indeed, is stated by Yule.” (E. H. Parker, Asiatic Quart. Rev., Jan., 1904, p. 141.)

LII., p. 257 n.

TENGRI (HEAVEN).

“The Mongol word Tengri (= Heaven) appears also in Hiung-nu times; in fact, the word shen yü is stated to have been used by the Hiung-nu alternatively with Tengri kudu (Son of Heaven).” (E. H. Parker, Asiatic Quart. Rev., Jan., 1904, p. 141.)

LIV., p. 263 n.

COATS OF MAIL.

Parker’s note is erroneous.—See Laufer, Chinese Clay Figures, Part I.

LV., p. 267. “They [the Tartars] have another notable custom, which is this. If any man have a daughter who dies before marriage, and another man have had a son also die before marriage, the parents of the two arrange a grand wedding between the dead lad and lass. And marry them they do, making a regular contract! And when the contract papers are made out they put them in the fire, in order (as they will have it) that the parties in the other world may know the fact, and so look on each other as man and wife. And the parents thenceforward consider themselves sib to each other, just as if their children had lived and married. Whatever may be agreed on between the parties as dowry, those who have to pay it cause to be painted on pieces of paper and then put these in the fire, saying that in that way the dead person will get all the real articles in the other world.”

Mr. Kumagusu Minakata writes on the subject in Nature, Jan. 7, 1897, pp. 224–5:

“As it is not well known whether or not there is a record of this strange custom earlier than the beginning of the dynasty of Yuen, I was in doubt whether it was originally common to the Chinese and Tartars until I lately came across the following passage in Tsoh-mung-luh (Brit. Mus. copy, 15297, a 1, fol. 11–12), which would seem to decide the question—‘In the North there is this custom. When a youth and a girl of marriageable ages die before marriage, their families appoint a match-maker to negotiate their nuptials, whom they call “Kwei-mei” (i.e. “Match-Maker of Ghosts”). Either family hands over to another a paper noticing all pre-requisites concerning the affair; and by names of the parents of the intended couple asks a man to pray and divine; and if the presage tells that the union is a lucky one, clothes and ornaments are made for the deceased pair. Now the match-maker goes to the burying-ground of the bridegroom, and, offering wine and fruits, requests the pair to marry. There two seats are prepared on adjoining positions, either of which having behind it a small banner more than a foot long. Before the ceremony is consecrated by libation, the two banners remain hanging perpendicularly and still; but when the libation is sprinkled and the deceased couple are requested to marry, the banners commence to gradually approach till they touch one another, which shows that they are both glad of the wedlock. However, when one of them dislikes another, it would happen that the banner representing the unwilling party does not move to approach the other banner. In case the couple should die too young to understand the matter, a dead man is appointed as a tutor to the male defunct, and some effigies are made to serve as the instructress and maids to the female defunct. The dead tutor thus nominated is informed of his appointment by a paper offered to him, on which are inscribed his name and age. After the consummation of the marriage the new consorts appear in dreams to their respective parents-in-law. Should this custom be discarded, the unhappy defuncts might do mischief to their negligent relatives.... On every occasion of these nuptials both families give some presents to the match-maker (“Kwei-mei”), whose sole business is annually to inspect the newly-deceased couples around his village, and to arrange their weddings to earn his livelihood.’”

Mr. Kumagusu Minakata adds:

“The passage is very interesting, for, besides giving us a faithful account of the particulars, which nowadays we fail to find elsewhere, it bears testimony to the Tartar, and not Chinese, origin of this practice. The author, Kang Yu-chi, describes himself to have visited his old home in Northern China shortly after its subjugation by the Kin Tartars in 1126 A.D.; so there is no doubt that among many institutional novelties then introduced to China by the northern invaders, Marriage of the Dead was so striking that the author did not hesitate to describe it for the first time.

“According to a Persian writer, after whom Pétis de la Croix writes, this custom was adopted by Jenghiz Kân as a means to preserve amity amongst his subjects, it forming the subject of Article XIX. of his Yasa promulgated in 1205 A.D. The same writer adds: ‘This custom is still in use amongst the Tartars at this day, but superstition has added more circumstances to it: they throw the contract of marriage into the fire after having drawn some figures on it to represent the persons pretended to be so marry’d, and some forms of beasts; and are persuaded that all this is carried by the smoke to their children, who thereupon marry in the other world’ (Pétis de la Croix, Hist. of Genghizcan, trans. by P. Aubin, Lond., 1722, p. 86). As the Chinese author does not speak of the burning of papers in this connection, whereas the Persian writer speaks definitely of its having been added later, it seems that the marriage of the dead had been originally a Tartar custom, with which the well-known Chinese paper-burning was amalgamated subsequently between the reigns of Genghiz and his grandson Kúblái—under the latter Marco witnessed the customs already mingled, still, perhaps, mainly prevailing amongst the Tartar descendants.”

LV., p. 266. Regarding the scale of blows from seven to 107, Prof. Pelliot writes to me that these figures represent the theoretical number of tens diminished as a favour made to the culprit by three units in the name of Heaven, Earth and the Emperor.

LV., p. 268, n. 2. In the Yuan Shi, XX. 7, and other Chinese Texts of the Mongol period, is to be found confirmation of the fact, “He is slaughtered like a sheep,” i.e. the belly cut open lengthwise. (Pelliot.)

LVI., p. 269. “The people there are called Mescript; they are a very wild race, and live by their cattle, the most of which are stags, and these stags, I assure you, they used to ride upon.”

B. Laufer, in the Memoirs of the American Anthropological Association, Vol. IV., No. 2, 1917 (The Reindeer and its Domestication), p. 107, has the following remarks: “Certainly this is the reindeer. Yule is inclined to think that Marco embraces under this tribal name in question characteristics belonging to tribes extending far beyond the Mekrit, and which in fact are appropriate to the Tungus; and continues that Rashid-eddin seems to describe the latter under the name of Uriangkut of the Woods, a people dwelling beyond the frontier of Barguchin, and in connection with whom he speaks of their reindeer obscurely, as well as of their tents of birchbark, and their hunting on snowshoes. As W. Radloff [Die Jakutische Sprache, Mém. Ac. Sc. Pet., 1908, pp. 54–56] has endeavoured to show, the Wooland Uryangkit, in this form mentioned by Rashid-eddin, should be looked upon as the forefathers of the present Yakut. Rashid-eddin, further, speaks of other Uryangkit, who are genuine Mongols, and live close together in the Territory Barguchin Tukum, where the clans Khori, Bargut, and Tumat, are settled. This region is east of Lake Baikal, which receives the river Barguchin flowing out of Lake Bargu in an easterly direction. The tribal name Bargut (–t being the termination of the plural) is surely connected with the name of the said river.”

LVII., p. 276.

SINJU.

“Marco Polo’s Sinju certainly seems to be the site of Si-ning, but not on the grounds suggested in the various notes. In 1099 the new city of Shen Chou was created by the Sung or ‘Manzi’ Dynasty on the site of what had been called Ts’ing-t’ang. Owing to this region having for many centuries belonged to independent Hia or Tangut, very little exact information is obtainable from any Chinese history; but I think it almost certain that the great central city of Shen Chou was the modern Si-ning. Moreover, there was a very good reason for the invention of this name, as this Shen was the first syllable of the ancient Shen-shen State of Lob Nor and Koko Nor, which, after its conquest by China in 609, was turned into the Shen-shen prefecture; in fact, the Sui Emperor was himself at Kam Chou or ‘Campichu’ when this very step was taken.” (E. H. Parker, Asiatic Quart. Rev., Jan., 1904, p. 144.)

LVIII., p. 282. Alashan is not an abbreviation of Alade-Shan and has nothing to do with the name of Eleuth, written in Mongol Ögälät. Nuntuh (nuntük) is the mediæval Mongol form of the actual nutuk, an encampment. (Pelliot.)

LVIII., p. 283, n. 3.

GURUN.

Gurun = Kurun = Chinese K’u lun = Mongol Urga.

LVIII., p. 283, n. 3. The stuff sa-ha-la (= saghlat) is to be found often in the Chinese texts of the XIVth and XVth Centuries. (Pelliot.)

LIX., pp. 284 seq.

KING GEORGE.

King or Prince George of Marco Polo and Monte Corvino belonged to the Öngüt tribe. He was killed in Mongolia in 1298, leaving an infant child called Shu-ngan (Giòvanni) baptized by Monte Corvino. George was transcribed Körgüz and Görgüz by the Persian historians. See Pelliot, T’oung Pao, 1914, pp. 632 seq. and Cathay, III., p. 15 n.

LIX., p. 286.

TENDUC.

Prof. Pelliot (Journ. As., Mai–Juin, 1912, pp. 595–6) thinks that it might be Tien tö, 天 德, on the river So ling (Selenga).

LIX., p. 291.

CHRISTIANS.

In the Mongol Empire, Christians were known under the name of tarsa and especially under this of ärkägün, in Chinese ye-li-k’o-wen; tarsa, was generally used by the Persian historians. Cf. Pelliot, T’oung Pao, 1914, p. 636.

LIX., p. 295, n. 6. Instead of Ku-wei, read K’u-wai. (Pelliot.)

LXI., pp. 302, 310.

“The weather-conjuring proclivities of the Tartars are repeatedly mentioned in Chinese history. The High Carts (early Ouigours) and Jou-jan (masters of the Early Turks) were both given this way, the object being sometimes to destroy their enemies. I drew attention to this in the Asiatic Quart. Rev. for April, 1902 (‘China and the Avars’).” (E. H. Parker, Asiatic Quart. Rev., Jan., 1904, p. 140.)

LXI., p. 305, n. Harlez’s inscription is a miserable scribble of the facsimile from Dr. Bushell. (Pelliot.)

LXI., p. 308, n. 5. The Yuan Shi, ch. 77, f^o 7 v., says that: “Every year, [the Emperor] resorts to Shang tu. On the 24th day of the 8th moon, the sacrifice called ‘libation of mare’s milk’ is celebrated.” (Pelliot.)