cheapness,' appear to apply rather to the populous plain and the large city of ancient fame, than to the small Fuyang-hien . . . shut in by a spur from the hills, which would hardly have allowed it in former days to have been a great city" (Note by Baron R.). The after route, as elucidated by the same authority, points with even more force to Shaohing.

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

NOTE 3.-Assuming Tanpiju to be Shaohing, the remaining places as far as the Fokien Frontier run thus :—

3 days to Vuju (P. Vugui, G. T. Vugui, Vuigui, Ram. Uguiu).

2 ,, to Ghiuju (P. Guiguy, G. T. Ghingui, Ghengui, Chengui, Ram. Gengui). 4,, to Chanshan (P. Ciancian, G. T. Cianscian, Ram. Zengian).

3,, to Cuju or Chuju (P. Cinguy, G. T. Cugui, Ram. Gieza).

First as regards Chanshan, which, with the notable circumstances about the waters there, constitutes the key to the route, I extract the following remarks from a note which Mr. Fortune has kindly sent me: "When we get to Chanshan the proof as to the route is very strong. This is undoubtedly my Changshan. The town is near the head of the Green River (the Tsien Tang) which flows in a N. E. direction and falls into the Bay of Hangchau. At Changshan the stream is no longer navigable even for small boats. Travellers going west or south-west walk or are carried in sedan-chairs across country in a westerly direction for about 30 miles to a town named Yuhshan. Here there is a river which flows westward (the other half goes down '), taking the traveller rapidly in that direction, and passing en route the towns of Kwansinfu, Hokow or Hokeu, and onward to the Poyang Lake." From the careful study of Mr. Fortune's published narrative I had already arrived at the conclusion that this was the correct explanation of the remarkable expressions about the division of the waters, which are closely analogous to those used by the traveller in ch. Ixii. of this book when speaking of the watershed of the Great Canal at Sinjumatu. Paraphrased the words might run: "At Changshan you reach high ground, which interrupts the continuity of the River; from one side of this ridge it flows up country towards the north, from the other it flows down towards the south." The expression "The River" will be elucidated in note 4 to ch. lxxxii. below.

This route by the Tsientang and the Changshan portage, which turns the dangers involved in the navigation of the Yangtsze and the Poyang Lake, was formerly a thoroughfare to the south much followed; though now almost abandoned through one of the indirect results (as Baron Richthofen points out) of steam navigation.

The portage from Changshan to Yukshan was passed by the English and Dutch enibassies in the end of last century, on their journeys from

Hangchau to Canton, and by Mr. Fortune on his way from Ningpo to the Bohea country of Fokien. It is probable that Polo on some occasion made the ascent of the Tsien Tang by water, and that this leads him to notice the interruption of the navigation.

Kinhwafu, as Pauthier has observed, bore at this time the name of WUCHAU, which Polo would certainly write Vugiu. And between Shaohing and Kinhwa there exists, as Baron Richthofen has pointed out, a line of depression which affords an easy connexion between Shaohing and Lanki-hien or Kinhwa-fu. This line is much used by travellers, and forms just 3 short stages. Hence Kinhwa, a fine city destroyed by the Taepings, is satisfactorily identified with Vugiu.

The journey from Vugui to Ghiuju is said to be through a succession of towns and villages, looking like a continuous city. Fortune, whose journey occurred before the Taeping devastations, speaks of the approach to Kiuchau as a vast and beautiful garden. And Mr. Milne's map of this route shows an incomparable density of towns in the Tsien Tang valley from Yenchau up to Kiuchau. Ghiuju then will be KIUCHAU. But between Kiuchau and Changshan it is impossible to make four days; barely possible to make two. My map (Itineraries, No. VI.), based on D'Anville and Fortune, makes the direct distance 24 miles; Milne's map barely 18; whilst from his book we deduce the distance travelled by water to be about 30. On the whole, it seems probable that there is a mistake in the figure here.

From the head of the great Chekiang valley I find two roads across the mountains into Fokien described.

One leads from Kiangshan (not Changshan) by a town called Chinghu, and then, nearly due south, across the mountains to Puching in Upper Fokien. This is specified by Martini (p. 113): it seems to have been followed by the Dutch Envoy, Van Hoorn, in 1665 (see Astley, III. 463), and it was travelled by Fortune on his return from the Bohea country to Ningpo (II. 247, 271).

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

Both from Puching on the former route, and from near Tsung-ngan on the latter, the waters are navigable down to Kienningfu and so to Fuchau.

Mr. Fortune judges the first to have been Polo's route. There does not, however, seem to be on this route any place that can be identified with his Cuju or Chuju. Chinghu seems to be insignificant and the name has no resemblance. On the other route followed by Mr. Fortune himself from that side we have Kwansinfu, Hokeu, Yenshan, and (last town passed on that side) Chuchu. The latter, as to both name and position, is quite satisfactory, but it is described as a small poor town. Hokeu would be represented in Polo's spelling as Caghiu or Cughiu. It

is now a place of great population and importance as the entrepôt of the Black Tea Trade, but, like many important commercial cities in the interior, not being even a hien, it has no place either in Duhalde or in Biot, and I cannot learn its age.

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

CHAPTER LXXX.

CONCERNING THE KINGDOM OF FUJU.

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

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

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

You

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

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

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

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

NOTE 1.-The vague description does not suggest the root turmeric with which Marsden and Pauthier identify this "fruit like saffron." It is probably one of the species of Gardenia, the fruits of which are used by the Chinese for their colouring properties. Their splendid yellow colour "is due to a body named crocine which appears to be identical with the polychroite of saffron." (Hanbury's Notes on Chinese Mat. Medica, p. 21-22.) For this identification, I am indebted to Dr. Flückiger of Bern.

NOTE 2.-See Vol. I. p. 303.

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

NOTE 4.-Padre Martini long ago pointed out that this Quelinfu is KIENNINGFU, on the upper part of the Min River, an important city of Fokien. In the Fokien dialect he notices that is often substituted for #, a well-known instance of which is Liampoo, the name applied by F. M. Pinto and the old Portuguese to Ningpo.

"It is not improbable that there is some admixture of aboriginal blood in the actual population (of Fuh-Kien), but if so, it cannot be much. The surnames in this prince are the same as those in Central and North China. . . . . The language a. 1 pure Chinese; actually much nearer the ancient form of Chinese than the m-dern Mandarin dialect. There are indeed many words in the vernacular for which no corresponding character has been found in the literary style: but careful investigation is gradually diminishing the number." (Note by Rev. Dr. C. Douglas)