CHAPTER LXXXII.

OF THE CITY AND GREAT HAVEN OF ZAYTON.

Now when you quit Fuju and cross the River, you travel for five days south-east through a fine country, meeting with a constant succession of flourishing cities, towns, and villages, rich in every product. You travel by mountains and valleys and plains, and in some places by great forests in which are many of the trees which give Camphor.' There is plenty of game on the road, both of bird and beast. The people are all traders and craftsmen, subjects of the Great Kaan, and under the government of Fuju. When you have accomplished those five days' journey you arrive at the very great and noble city of ZAYTON, which is also subject to Fuju.

At this city you must know is the Haven of Zayton, frequented by all the ships of India, which bring thither spicery and all other kinds of costly wares. It is the port also that is frequented by all the merchants of Manzi, for hither is imported the most astonishing quantity of goods and of precious stones and pearls, and from this they are distributed all over Manzi. And I assure you that for one shipload of pepper that goes to Alexandria or elsewhere, destined for Christendom, there come a hundred such, aye and more too, to this haven of Zayton; for it is one of the two greatest havens in the world for commerce.3

The Great Kaan derives a very large revenue from the duties paid in this city and haven; for you must know that on all the merchandize imported, including precious stones and pearls, he levies a duty of ten per cent., or in other words takes tithe of everything. Then again the ship's charge for freight on small wares is 30 per cent., on pepper 44 per cent., and on lignaloes, sandalwood, and other bulky goods 40 per cent.; so that between freight and the Kaan's

duties the merchant has to pay a good half the value of his investment [though on the other half he makes such a profit that he is always glad to come back with a new supply of merchandize.] But you may well believe from what I have said that the Kaan hath a vast revenue from this city.

There is great abundance here of all provision for every necessity of man's life. [It is a charming country, and the people are very quiet, and fond of an easy life. Many come hither from Upper India to have their bodies painted with the needle in the way we have elsewhere described, there being many adepts at this craft in the city.*]

Let me tell you also that in this province there is a town called TYUNJU, where they make vessels of porcelain of all sizes, the finest that can be imagined. They make it nowhere but in that city, and thence it is exported all over the world. Here it is abundant and very cheap, insomuch that for a Venice groat you can buy three dishes so fine that you could not imagine better.5

I should tell you that in this city (i.e. of Zayton) they have a peculiar language. [For you must know that throughout all Manzi they employ one speech and one kind of writing only, but yet there are local differences of dialect, as you might say of Genoese, Milanese, Florentines, and Neapolitans, who though they speak different dialects can understand one another.]

And I assure you the Great Kaan has as large customs and revenues from this kingdom of Chonka as from Kinsay, and more too."

aye

We have now spoken of but three out of the nine kingdoms of Manzi, to wit Yanju and Kinsay and Fuju. We could tell you about the other six, but it would be too long a business; so we will say no more about them.

And now you have heard all the truth about Cathay and Manzi and many other countries, as has been set down in this Book; the customs of the people and the various objects of commerce, the beasts and birds, the gold and

silver and precious stones, and many other matters have been rehearsed to you. But our Book as yet does not contain nearly all that we purpose to put therein. For we have still to tell you all about the people of India and the notable things of that country, which are well worth the describing, for they are marvellous indeed. What we shall tell is all true, and without any lies. And we shall set down all the particulars in writing just as Messer Marco Polo related them. And he well knew the facts, for he remained so long in India, and enquired so diligently into the manners and peculiarities of the nations, that I can assure you there never was a single man before who learned so much and beheld so much as he did.

NOTE 1.--The Laurus (or Cinnamomum) Camphora, a large timber tree, grows abundantly in Fokien. A description of the manner in which camphor is produced at a very low cost, by sublimation from the chopped twigs, &c., will be found in the Lettres Edifiantes, XXIV. 19 seqq.; and more briefly in Hedde by Rondot, p. 35. Fokien alone has been known to send to Canton in one year 4000 pekuls (of 1333 lbs. each), but the average is 2500 to 3000 (ib.).

NOTE 2.-When Marco says Zayton is one of the two greatest commercial ports in the world, I know not if he has another haven in his eye, or is only using an idiom of the age. For in like manner Friar Odoric calls Java "the second best of all Islands that exist;" and Kansan (or Shensi) the "second best province in the world, and the best populated." But apart from any such idiom, Ibn Batuta pronounces Zayton to be the greatest haven in the world.

Martini relates that when one of the Emperors wanted to make war on Japan, the Province of Fokien offered to bridge the interval with their vessels !

ZAYTON, as Martini and Deguignes conjectured, is T'SWANCHAU-FU, or CHWANCHAU-FU (written by French scholars Thsiouan-tchéou-fou), often called in our charts, &c., Chinchew, a famous seaport of Fokien about 100 miles in a straight line S.W. by S. of Fuchau. Klaproth supposes that the name by which it was known to the Arabs and other Westerns was corrupted from an old Chinese name of the city, given in the Imperial Geography, viz. TSEUTUNG. Zaitún commended itself

Dr. C. Douglas objects to this derivation of Zayton, that the place was never called Tscut'ung absolutely, but T'seu-tung-ching, "city of prickly T'ung-trees;" and this not as a name, but as a polite literary epithet, somewhat like "City of Palaces" applied to Calcuttă.

to Arabian ears, being the Arabic for an olive-tree (whence Jerusalem is called Zaituniyah); but the corruption (if such it be) must be of very old date, as the city appears to have received its present name in the 7th or 8th century.

enter from the China Sea.

Abulfeda, whose Geography was terminated in 1321, had heard the real name of Zayton: "Shanju" he calls it, "known in our time as Zaitún;" and again: "Zaitún, i.e. Shanju, is a haven of China, and, according to the accounts of merchants who have travelled to those parts, is a city of mark. It is situated on a marine estuary which ships The estuary extends fifteen miles, and there is a river at the head of it. According to some who have seen the place, the tide flows. It is half a day from the sea, and the channel by which ships come up from the sea is of fresh water. It is smaller in size than Hamath, and has the remains of a wall which was destroyed by the Tartars. The people drink water from the channel, and also from wells."

Friar Odoric (in China circa 1323-27, who travelled apparently by land from Chin-kalán, i.e. Canton), says, "Passing through many cities and towns, I came to a certain noble city which is called Zayton, where we Friars Minor have two Houses. . . . . In this city is great plenty of all things that are needful for human subsistence. For example, you can get three pounds and eight ounces of sugar for less than half a groat. The city is twice as great as Bologna, and in it are many monasteries of devotees, idol-worshippers every man of them. In one of those monasteries which I visited there were 3000 monks. . . . The place is one of the best in the world. . . . . Thence I passed eastward to a certain city called Fuzo. . . . . The city is a mighty fine one, and standeth upon the sea." Andrew of Perugia, another Franciscan, was Bishop of Zayton from 1322, having resided there from 1318. In 1326 he writes a letter home, in which he speaks of the place as a great city on the shores of the Ocean Sea, which is called in the Persian tongue Cayton (Çayton); and in this city a rich Armenian lady did build a large and fine enough church, which was erected into a cathedral by the Archbishop," and so on. He speaks incidentally of the Genoese merchants frequenting it. John Marignolli, who was there about 1347, calls it "a wondrous fine sea-port, and a city of incredible size, where our Minor Friars have three very fine churches; . . . . and they have a bath also, and a fondaco which serves as a depôt for all the merchants." Ibn Batuta about the same time says: "The first city that I reached after crossing the sea was ZAITÚN. . . It is a great city,

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superb indeed; and in it they make damasks of velvet as well as those of satin (Kimkhá and Atlás), which are called from the name of the city Zaitúniah; they are superior to the stuffs of Khansá and Khánbálik. The harbour of Zaitún is one of the greatest in the world-I am wrong; it is the greatest! I have seen there about an hundred first-class junks together; as for small ones, they were past counting. The harbour is

formed by an estuary which runs inland from the sea until it joins the Great River."

Rashiduddin, in enumerating the Sings or great provincial governments of the empire, has the following: "7th FUCHÚ. This is a city of Manzi. The Sing was formerly located at ZAITÚN, but afterwards established here, where it still remains. Zaitún is a great shippingport, and the commandant there is Boháuddin Kandári." Pauthier's Chinese extracts show us that the seat of the Sing was, in 1281, at T'swanchau, but was then transferred to Fuchau. In 1282 it was removed back to T'swanchau, and in 1283 recalled to Fuchau. That is to say, what the Persian writer tells us of Fújú and Zayton, the Chinese Annalists tell us of Fuchau and T'swanchau. Therefore Fuju and Zayton were respectively Fuchau and T'swanchau.

Further, Zayton was, as we see from this chapter, and from the 2nd and 5th of Book III., in that age the great focus and harbour of communication with India and the Islands. From Zayton sailed Kublai's illfated expedition against Japan. From Zayton Marco Polo seems to have sailed on his return to the West, as did John Marignolli some half century later. At Zayton Ibn Batuta first landed in China, and from

it he sailed on his return.

All that we find quoted from Chinese records regarding T'swanchau corresponds to these Western statements regarding Zayton. For centuries T'swanchau was the seat of the Customs Department of Fokien, nor was this finally removed till 1473. In all the historical notices of the arrival of ships and missions from India and the Indian Islands during the reign of Kublai, T'swanchau, and T'swanchau almost alone, is the port of debarkation; in the notices of Indian regions in the annals of the same reign it is from T'swanchau that the distances are estimated ; it was from T'swanchau that the expeditions against Japan and Java were mainly fitted out. (See quotations by Pauthier, pp. 559, 570, 604, 653, 603, 643; Gaubil, 205, 217; Deguignes, III. 169, 175, 180, 187; Chinese Recorder (Foochow), 1870, p. 45 seqq.)

When the Portuguese, in the 16th century, recovered China to European knowledge, Zayton was no longer the great haven of foreign trade; but yet the old name was not extinct among the mariners of Western Asia. Giovanni d'Empoli, in 1515, writing about China from Cochin, says: "Ships carry spices thither from these parts. Every year there go thither from Sumatra 60,000 cantars of pepper, and 15,000 or 20,000 from Cochin and Malabar, worth 15 to 20 ducats a cantar; besides ginger (?), mace, nutmegs, incense, aloes, velvet, European goldwire, coral, woollens, &c. The Grand Can is the King of China, and he dwells at ZEITON." Giovanni hoped to get to Zeiton before he died.*

* Giovanni did not get to Zayton; but two years later he got to Canton with Fernão Perez, was sent ashore as Factor, and a few days after died of fever. (De Barros, III. II. viii.). The way in which Botero, a compiler in the latter part of