BOOK II.—continued. PART III.-JOURNEY SOUTHWARD THROUGH EASTERN PROVINCES OF CATHAY AND MANZI. CHAPTER LX. CONCERNING THE CITIES OF CACANFU AND OF CHANGLU. CACANFU is a noble city. The people are Idolaters and burn their dead; they have paper-money, and live by trade and handicrafts. For they have plenty of silk from which they weave stuffs of silk and gold, and sendals in large quantities. [There are also certain Christians at this place, who have a church.] And the city is at the head of an important territory containing numerous towns and villages. [A great river passes through it, on which much merchandize is carried to the city of Cambaluc, for by many channels and canals it is connected therewith.'] We will now set forth again, and travel three days towards the south, and then we come to a town called CHANGLU. This is another great city belonging to the Great Kaan, and to the province of Cathay. The people have paper-money, and are Idolaters and burn their dead. And you must know they make salt in great quantities at this place; I will tell you how 'tis done.' A kind of earth is found there which is exceedingly salt. This they dig up and pile in great heaps. Upon these heaps they pour water in quantities till it runs out at the bottom; and then they take up this water and boil it well in great iron cauldrons, and as it cools it deposits a fine white salt in very small grains. This salt they then carry about for sale to many neighbouring districts, and get great profit thereby. There is nothing else worth mentioning, so let us go forward five days' journey, and we shall come to a city called Chinangli. NOTE 1.—In the greater part of the journey which occupies the remainder of Book II., Pauthier is a chief authority, owing to his industrious Chinese reading and citation. Most of his identifications seem well founded, though sometimes we shall be constrained to dissent from them widely. A considerable number have been anticipated by former editors, but even in such cases he is often able to bring forward new grounds. CACANFU IS HOKIANFU in Pecheli, 52 m. in a direct line south by east of Chochau. It was the head of one of the Lu or circuits into which the Mongols divided China. (Pauthier.) NOTE 2.-Marsden and Murray have identified Changlu with T'SANG-CHAU in Pecheli, about 30 m. east by south of Hokianfu. This seems substantially right, but Pauthier shows that there was an old town actually called CHANGLU, separated from T'sang-chau only by the great canal. The manner of obtaining salt, described in the text, is substantially the same as one described by Duhalde, and by one of the missionaries, as being employed near the mouth of the Yangtse-kiang. There is a town of the third order some miles south-east of T'sang-chau, called Yen-shan or "salt-hill," and according to Pauthier T'sang-chau is the mart for salt produced there. (Duhalde in Astley, IV. 310; Lettres Edif. XI. 267 seqq.; Biot. p. 283.) Polo here introduces a remark about the practice of burning the dead, which, with the notice of the idolatry of the people, and their use of paper-money, constitutes a formula which he repeats all through the Chinese provinces with wearisome iteration. It is, in fact, his definition of the Chinese people, for whom he seems to lack a comprehensive name. A great change seems to have come over Chinese custom, since the Middle Ages, in regard to the disposal of the dead. Cremation is now entirely disused, except in two cases; one, that of the obsequies of a Buddhist priest, and the other that in which the coffin instead of being buried has been exposed in the fields, and in the lapse of time has become decayed. But it is impossible to reject the evidence that it was a common practice in Polo's age. He repeats the assertion that it was the custom at every stage of his journey through Eastern China; though perhaps his taking absolutely no notice of the practice of burial is an instance of that imperfect knowledge of strictly Chinese peculiarities which has been elsewhere ascribed to him. It is the case, however, that the author of the Book of the Estate of the Great Kaan (circa 1330) also speaks of cremation as the usual Chinese practice, and that Ibn Batuta says positively: "The Chinese are infidels and idolaters, and they burn their dead after the manner of the Hindus." This is all the more curious, because the Arab Relations of the 9th century say distinctly that the Chinese bury their dead, though they often kept the body long (as they do still) before burial; and there is no mistaking the description which Conti (15th century) gives of the Chinese mode of sepulture. Mendoza, in the 16th century, alludes to no disposal of the dead except by burial, but Semedo in the early part of the 17th says that bodies were occasionally burnt, especially in Szechwan. And it is very worthy of note that the Chinese envoy to Chinla (Kamboja) in 1295, an individual who may have personally known Marco Polo, in speaking of the custom prevalent there of exposing the dead, adds: "There are some, however, who burn their dead. These are all descendants of Chinese immigrants." (Doolittle, 190; Deguignes, I. 69; I. 56; India in XVth Century, p. 23; I. 128.) Cathay, p. 247, 479; Reinaud. CHAPTER LXI. CONCERNING THE CITY OF CHINANGLI, AND THAT OF TADINFU, AND THE REBELLION OF LITAN. CHINANGLI is a city of Cathay as you go south, and it belongs to the Great Kaan; the people are Idolaters, and have paper-money. There runs through the city a great and wide river, on which a large traffic in silk goods and spices and other costly merchandize passes up and down. When you travel south from Chinangli for five days, you meet everywhere with fine towns and villages, the people of which are all Idolaters, and burn their dead, and are subject to the Great Kaan, and have paper-money, and live by trade and handicrafts, and have all the necessaries of life in great abundance. But there is nothing particular to mention on the way till you come, at the end of those five days, to TADINfu.1 This, you must know, is a very great city, and in old times was the seat of a great kingdom; but the Great Kaan conquered it by force of arms. Nevertheless it is still the noblest city in all those provinces. There are very great merchants here, who trade on a great scale, and the abundance of silk is something marvellous. They have, moreover, most charming gardens abounding with fruit of large size. The city of Tadinfu hath also under its rule eleven imperial cities of great importance, all of which enjoy a large and profitable trade, owing to that immense produce of silk.2 Now, you must know, that in the year of Christ, 1273, the Great Kaan had sent a certain Baron called LIYTAN SANGON,3 with some 80,000 horse, to this province and city to garrison them. And after the said captain had tarried there a while, he formed a disloyal and traitorous plot, and stirred up the great men of the province to rebel against the Great Kaan. And so they did; for they broke into revolt against their sovereign lord, and refused all obedience to him, and made this Liytan, whom their sovereign had sent thither for their protection, to be the chief of their revolt. But the affair was a When the Great Kaan heard thereof he straightway despatched two of his Barons, one of whom was called. AGUIL and the other MONGOTAY; giving them 100,000 horse and a great force of infantry. serious one, for the Barons were met by the rebel Liytan with all those whom he had collected from the province, mustering more than 100,000 horse and a large force of foot. Nevertheless in the battle Liytan and his party were utterly routed, and the two Barons whom the Emperor had sent won the victory. When the news came to the Great Kaan he was right well pleased, and ordered that all the chiefs who had rebelled, or excited others to rebel, should be put to a cruel death, but that those of lower rank should receive a pardon. And so it was done. The two Barons had all the leaders of the enterprise put to a cruel death, and all those of lower rank were pardoned. And thenceforward they conducted themselves with loyalty towards their lord.5 Now having told you all about this affair, let us have done with it, and I will tell you of another place that you come to in going south, which is called SINJU-MATU. NOTE 1.-There seems to be no solution to the difficulties attaching to the account of these two cities (Chinangli and Tadinfu) except that the two have been confounded, either by a lapse of memory on the traveller's part or by a misunderstanding on that of Rusticiano. The position and name of CHINANGLI point, as Pauthier has shown, to T'SINANFU, the chief city of Shantung. The second city is called in the G. Text and Pauthier's MSS. Candinfu, Condinfu, and Cundinfu, names which it has not been found possible to elucidate. But adopting the reading Tadinfu of some of the old printed editions (supported by the Tudinfu of Ramusio and the Tandifu of the Riccardian MS.), Pauthier shows that the city now called Yenchau bore under the Kin the name of TAITINGFU, which may fairly thus be recognized. It was not however Yenchau, but T'sinanfu, which was "the noblest city in all those provinces," and had been "in old times the seat of a kingdom," as well as recently the scene of the episode of Litan's rebellion. T'sinanfu lies in a direct line 86 miles south of T'sangchau (Changlu), near the banks of the Tat'sing-ho, a large river which communicates with the great canal near T'siningchau, and which was, no doubt, of greater importance in Polo's time than in the last six centuries. For up nearly to the origin of the Mongol power it appears to have been one of the main discharges of the Hwang-Ho. The recent changes in that river have again brought its main stream into the same channel, and the "New Yellow River" passes three or four miles to the north of the city. T'sinanfu has frequently of late been visited by European travellers, who report it as still a place of importance, with much life and bustle, numerous book shops, several fine temples, two mosques, and all the furniture of a provincial capital. It has also a Roman Catholic Cathedral of Gothic architecture. (Williamson, I. 102.) NOTE 2.-The Chinese annals, more than 2000 years B.C., speak of silk as an article of tribute from Shantung; and evidently it was one of the provinces most noted in the Middle Ages for that article. Compare |