when first seeking a discharge south of Shantung. The city extends for about three miles along the canal and much below its level.

The head-quarters of the salt manufacture of Hwaingan is a place called Yen-ching ("Salt-Town ") some distance to the S. of the former city (Pauthier).

CHAPTER LXVII.

OF THE CITIES OF PAUKIN AND CAYU.

WHEN you leave Coiganju you ride south-east for a day along a causeway laid with fine stone, which you find at this entrance to Manzi. On either hand there is a great expanse of water, so that you cannot enter the province except along this causeway. At the end of the day's journey you reach the fine city of PAUKIN. The people are Idolaters, burn their dead, are subject to the Great Kaan, and use paper-money. They live by trade and manufactures and have great abundance of silk, whereof they weave a great variety of fine stuffs of silk and gold. Of all the necessaries of life there is great store.

When you leave Paukin you ride another day to the south-east, and then you arrive at the city of CAYU. The people are Idolaters (and so forth). They live by trade and manufactures and have great store of all necessaries, including fish in great abundance. There is also much game, both beast and bird, insomuch that for a Venice groat you can have three good pheasants.'

NOTE 1.-Paukin is PAO-YNG-Hien; Cayu is KAO-YU-chau, both cities on the east side of the canal. At Kao-yu, the country east of the canal lies some 20 feet below the canal level; so low indeed that the walls of the city are not visible from the further bank of the canal. To the west is the Kao-yu Lake, one of the expanses of water spoken of by Marco, and which threatens great danger to the low country on the east (see Alabaster's Journey in Consular Reports above quoted, p. 5).

There is a fine drawing of Pao-yng, by Alexander, in the Staunton collection, British Museum.

CHAPTER LXVIII.

OF THE CITIES OF TIJU, TINJU, AND YANJU.

WHEN you leave Cayu, you ride another day to the southeast through a constant succession of villages and fields and fine farms until you come to TIJU, which is a city of no great size but abounding in everything. The people are Idolaters (and so forth). There is a great amount of trade, and they have many vessels. And you must know that on your left hand, that is towards the east, and three days' journey distant, is the Ocean Sea. At every place between the sea and the city salt is made in great quantities. And there is a rich and noble city called TINJU, at which there is produced salt enough to supply the whole province, and I can tell you it brings the Great Kaan an incredible revenue. The people are Idolaters and subject to the Kaan. Let us quit this, however, and go back to Tiju.'

Again, leaving Tiju, you ride another day towards the south-east, and at the end of your journey you arrive at the very great and noble city of YANJU, which has sevenand-twenty other wealthy cities under its administration; so that this Yanju is, you see, a city of great importance.2 It is the seat of one of the Great Kaan's Twelve Barons, for it has been chosen to be one of the Twelve Sings. The people are Idolaters and use paper-money, and are subject to the Great Kaan. And Messer Marco Polo himself, of whom this book speaks, did govern this city for three full years, by the order of the Great Kaan.3 The people live by trade and manufactures, for a great amount of harness for knights and men-at-arms is made there.

And in this city and its neighbourhood a large number of troops are stationed by the Kaan's orders.

There is no more to say about it. So now I will tell you about two great provinces of Manzi which lie towards the west. And first of that called Nanghin.

NOTE 1.-Though the text would lead us to look for Tiju on the direct line between Kaoyu and Yangchau, and like them on the canal bank (indeed one MS., C. of Pauthier, specifies its standing on the same river as the cities already passed, i.e., on the canal), we seem constrained to admit the general opinion that this is TAI-CHAU, a town lying some five-and-twenty miles at least to the eastward of the canal, but apparently connected with it by a navigable channel.

Tinju or Chinju (for both the G. T. and Ramusio read Cingui) cannot be identified with certainty. But I should think it likely, from Polo's "geographical style," that when he spoke of the sea as three days distant he had this city in view, and that it is probably TUNG-CHAU near the northern shore of the estuary of the Yangtse, which might be fairly described as three days from Tai-chau. Mr. Kingsmill identifies it with Ichin-hien, the great port on the Kiang for the export of the Yangchau salt. This is possible; but Ichin lies west of the canal, and though the form Chinju would really represent Ichin as then named, such a position seems scarcely compatible with the way, vague as it is, in which Tinju or Chinju is introduced. Moreover, we shall see that Ichin is spoken of hereafter. (Kingsmill in N. and Q. Ch. and Japan, I. 53.)

NOTE 2.-Happily, there is no doubt that this is YANG-CHAU, one of the oldest and most famous great cities of China. Some five-and-thirty years after Polo's departure from China, Friar Odoric found at this city a House of his own Order (Franciscans), and three Nestorian churches. The city also appears in the Catalan Map as Iangio. Yangchau suffered greatly in the Taeping rebellion, but its position is an "obligatory point" for commerce, and it appears to be rapidly recovering its prosperity. It is the head-quarters of the salt manufacture, and it is also now noted for a great manufacture of sweetmeats (see Alabaster's Report, as above, p. 6).

NOTE 3.-What I have rendered "Twelve Sings" is in the G. T. "douze sajes," and in Pauthier's text "sièges." It seems to me a reasonable conclusion that the original word was Sings (see I. 418, supra); anyhow that was the proper term for the thing meant.

In his note on this chapter, Pauthier produces evidence that Yangchau was the seat of a Lu or circuit * from 1277, and also of a Sing or

The Lu or Circuit was an administrative division under the Mongols, intermediate between the Sing and the Fu, or department. There were 185 lu in all China under Kublai (Pauth. 333).

government-general, but only for the first year after the conquest, viz., 1276-77, and he seems (for his argument is obscure) to make from this the unreasonable deduction that at this period Kublai placed Marco Polo-who could not be more than 23 years of age, and had been but two years in Cathay-in charge either of the general government, or of an important district government in the most important province of the empire.

In a later note M. Pauthier speaks of 1284 as the date at which the Sing of the province of Kiang-ché was transferred from Yangchau to Hangchau; this is probably to be taken as a correction of the former citations, and it better justifies Polo's statement (Pauthier, pp. 467, 492).

I do not think that we are to regard Marco as having held at any time the important post of Governor-general of Kiang-ché. The expressions in the G. T. are: "Meser Marc Pol meisme, celui de cui trate ceste livre, seingneurie ceste cité pour trois anz." Pauthier's MS. A. appears to read : "Et ot seigneurie Marc Pol, en ceste cité, trois ans." These expressions probably point to the government of the Lu or circuit of Yangchau, just as we find in chapter lxxiii. another Christian, Mar Sarghis, mentioned as Governor of Chinkiang-fu for the same term of years, that city being also the head of a Lu. It is remarkable that in Pauthier's MS. C., which often contains readings of peculiar value, the passage runs (and also in the Bern MS.): "Et si vous dy que ledit Messire Marc Pol, cellui meisme de qui nostre livre parle, séjourna en ceste cité de Janguy iii ans accompliz, par le commandement du Grant Kaan,” in which the nature of his employment is not indicated at all (though séjourna may be an error for seigneura). The impression of his having been Governor-general is mainly due to the Ramusian version, which says distinctly indeed that "M. Marco Polo di commissione del Gran Can n' ebbe il governo tre anni continui in luogo di un dei detti Baroni,” but it is very probable that this is a gloss of the translator. I should conjecture his rule at Yangchau to have been between 1282, when we know he was at the capital (vol. i. p. 408), and 1287-8, when he must have gone on his first expedition to the Indian Seas.

CHAPTER LXIX.

CONCERNING THE CITY OF NANGHIN.

The

NANGHIN is a very noble Province towards the west. people are Idolaters (and so forth) and live by trade and manufactures. They have silk in great abundance, and they weave many fine tissues of silk and gold. They have

all sorts of corn and victuals very cheap, for the province is a most productive one. Game also is abundant, and lions too are found there. The merchants are great and opulent, and the Emperor draws a large revenue from them, in the shape of duties on the goods which they buy and sell.1

And now I will tell you of the very noble city of Saianfu, which well deserves a place in our book, for there is a matter of great moment to tell about it.

NOTE 1. The name and direction from Yangchau are probably sufficient to indicate (as Pauthier has said) that this is NGANKING on the the Kiang, capital of the modern province of Ngan-hwai. The more celebrated city of Nanking did not bear that name in our traveller's time.

Nganking, when recovered from the Taiping in 1861, was the scene of a frightful massacre by the Imperialists. They are said to have left neither man, woman, nor child alive in the unfortunate city. (Blakiston, p. 55.)

CHAPTER LXX.

CONCERNING THE VERY NOBLE CITY OF SAIANFU, AND HOW ITS
CAPTURE WAS EFFECTED.

SAIANFU is a very great and noble city, and it rules over twelve other large and rich cities, and is itself a seat of great trade and manufacture. The people are Idolaters (and so forth). They have much silk, from which they weave fine silken stuffs; they have also a quantity of game, and in short the city abounds in all that it behoves a noble city to possess.

Now you must know that this city held out against the Great Kaan for three years after the rest of Manzi had surrendered. The Great Kaan's troops made incessant attempts to take it, but they could not succeed because