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.

ON 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 n, 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 province are the same as those in Central and North China. . . . . The language also is pure Chinese; actually much nearer the ancient form of Chinese than the modern 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.) VOL. II.

Scene in the Bohea Mountains, on Polo's route between Kiangsi and Fokien.-(From Fortune).

"Adonc entre l'en en roiaume de Fugiu, et ici comance. Et ala siz jornće por

montangnes e por vales."

In Ramusio the bridges are only "each more than 100 paces long and 8 paces wide." In Pauthier's text each is a mile long, and 20 feet wide. I translate from the G. T.

Martini describes one beautiful bridge at Kienningfu: the piers of cut stone, the superstructure of timber, roofed in and lined with houses on each side (p. 112-113). If this was over the Min it would seem not to survive. A recent journal says: "The river is crossed by a bridge of boats, the remains of a stone bridge being visible just above water" (Chinese Recorder (Foochow), Aug. 1870, p. 65).

NOTE 5.-Galanga or Galangal is an aromatic root belonging to a class of drugs once much more used than now. It exists of two kinds, 1. Great or Java Galangal, the root of the Alpinia Galanga. This is rarely imported and hardly used in Europe in modern times, but is still found in the Indian bazaars. 2. Lesser or China Galangal is imported into London from Canton, and is still sold by druggists in England. Its botanical origin is unknown. It is produced in Shansi, Fokien, and Kwantung, and is called by the Chinese Liang Kiang or " Mild Ginger."

Galangal was much used as a spice in the Middle Ages. In a syrup for a capon, temp. Rich. II., we find ground-ginger, cloves, cinnamon. and galingale. "Galingale" appears also as a growth in old English gardens, but this is believed to have been Cyperus Longus, the tubers of which were substituted for the real article under the name of English Galingale.

The name appears to be a modification of the Arabic Kulijan, Pers. Kholinján, and these from the Sanskrit Kulanjana. (Mr. Hanbury; China Comm.-Guide, 120; Eng. Cycl.; Garcias, f. 63; Wright, p. 352.)

NOTE 6.-The cat in question is no doubt the fleecy Persian. These fowls, but white,-are mentioned by Odoric at Fuchau; and Mr. G. Phillips in a MS. note says that they are still abundant in Fokien, where he has often seen them; all that he saw or heard of were white. The Chinese call them "velvet-hair fowls." I believe they are well known to poultry-fanciers in Europe.

NOTE 7.-The times assigned in this chapter as we have given them, after the G. Text, appear very short; but I have followed that text because it is perfectly consistent and clear. Starting from the last city of Kinsay government, the traveller goes 6 days south-east; three out of those 6 days bring him to Kelinfu; he goes on the other three days and at the 15th mile of the 3rd day reaches Unken; 15 miles further bring him to Fuju. This is interesting as showing that Polo reckoned his day at 30 miles.

In Pauthier's text again we find: "Sachiez que quand on est ale six journées après ces trois que je vous ay dit," not having mentioned trois at all, "on treuve la cité de Quelifu." And on leaving Quelinfu : "Sachiez que es autres trois journées oultre et plus xv. milles treuve l'en