CHAPTER XXXVIII.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER XXXIX.

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER XL.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER XLI.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Plan of Ki-chau, after Duhalde.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Photo-lithograph, from a Rubbing.

W. GRIGGS, PHOTO-LITH.

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER XLII.