But the Jesuit maps have a Modun Khotan ("Wood-ville")
just about the locality supposed, viz.
In the region north of the eastern
extremity of the Great Wall.
[Captain Gill writes (River of Golden Sand, I. p. 111): "This country
around Urh-Chuang is admirably described [in Marco Polo, pp. 403, 406],
and I should almost imagine that the Kaan must have set off south-east
from Peking, and enjoyed some of his hawking not far from here, before he
travelled to Cachar Modun, wherever that may have been."
"With respect to Cachar Modun, Marco Polo intends perhaps by this name
Ho-si wu, which place, together with Yang-ts'un, were comprised in the
general name Ma t'ou (perhaps the Modun of M. Polo). Ma-t'ou is even
now a general term for a jetty in Chinese. Ho-si in the Mongol spelling
was Ha-shin. D'Ohsson, in his translation of Rashid-eddin renders Ho-si
by Co-shi (Hist. des Mongols, I. p. 95), but Rashid in that case
speaks not of Ho-si wu, but of the Tangut Empire, which in Chinese was
called Ho-si, meaning west of the (Yellow) River. (See supra, p. 205).
Ho-si wu, as well as Yang-ts'un, both exist even now as villages on the
Pei-ho River, and near the first ancient walls can be seen. Ho-si wu means:
'Custom's barrier west of the (Pei-ho) river.'" (Palladius, p. 45.) This
identification cannot be accepted on account of the position of Ho-si wu.
- H. C.]
NOTE 7. - I suppose the best accessible illustration of the Kaan's great
tent may be that in which the Emperor Kienlung received Lord Macartney in
the same region in 1793, of which one view is given in Staunton's plates.
Another exists in the Staunton Collection in the B. M., of which I give a
reduced sketch.
Kublai's great tent, after all, was but a fraction of the size of Akbar's
audience-tents, the largest of which held 10,000 people, and took 1000
farrashes a week's work to pitch it, with machines. But perhaps the
manner of holding people is differently estimated. (Ain Akb. 53.)
In the description of the tent-poles, Pauthier's text has "trois
coulombes de fust de pieces moult bien encuierees," etc. The G. T. has
"de leing d'especies mout bien cures," etc. The Crusca, "di spezie
molto belle," and Ramusio going off at a tangent, "di legno intagliate
con grandissimo artificio e indorate." I believe the translation in the
text to indicate the true reading. It might mean camphor-wood, or the
like. The tent-covering of tiger-skins is illustrated by a passage in
Sanang Setzen, which speaks of a tent covered with panther-skins, sent to
Chinghiz by the Khan of the Solongos (p. 77).
[Illustration: The Tents of the Emperor Kienlung.]
[Grenard (pp. 160-162) gives us his experience of Tents in Central Asia
(Khotan). "These Tents which we had purchased at Tashkent were the
'tentes-abris' which are used in campaign by Russian military workshops,
only we made them larger by a third. They were made of grey Kirghiz felt,
which cannot be procured at Khotan. The felt manufactured in this town not
having enough consistency or solidity, we took Aksu felt, which is better
than this of Khotan, though inferior to the felt of Russian Turkestan.
These felt tents are extremely heavy, and, once damp, are dried with
difficulty. These drawbacks are not compensated by any important
advantage; it would be an illusion to believe that they preserve from the
cold any better than other tents. In fact, I prefer the Manchu tent in use
in the Chinese army, which is, perhaps, of all military tents the most
practical and comfortable. It is made of a single piece of double cloth of
cotton, very strong, waterproof for a long time, white inside, blue
outside, and weighs with its three tipped sticks and its wooden poles, 25
kilog. Set up, it forms a ridge roof 7 feet high and shelters fully ten
men. It suits servants perfectly well. For the master who wants to work,
to write, to draw, occasionally to receive officials, the ideal tent would
be one of the same material, but of larger proportions, and comprising two
parallel vertical partitions and surmounted by a ridge roof. The round
form of Kirghiz and Mongol tents is also very comfortable, but it requires
a complicated and inconvenient wooden frame-work, owing to which it takes
some considerable time to raise up the tent." - H. C.]
NOTE 8. - The expressions about the sable run in the G. T., "et l'apellent
les Tartarz les roi des pelaines," etc. This has been curiously
misunderstood both in versions based on Pipino, and in the Geog. Latin and
Crusca Italian. The Geog. Latin gives us "vocant eas Tartari Lenoidae
Pellonae"; the Crusca, "chiamanle li Tartari Leroide Pelame"; Ramusio in
a very odd way combines both the genuine and the blundered interpretation:
"E li Tartari la chiamano Regina delle Pelli; e gli animali si
chiamano Rondes." Fraehn ingeniously suggested that this Rondes (which
proves to be merely a misunderstanding of the French words Roi des) was
a mistake for Kunduz, usually meaning a "beaver," but also a "sable."
(See Ibn Foszlan, p. 57.) Condux, no doubt with this meaning, appears
coupled with vair, in a Venetian Treaty with Egypt (1344), quoted by
Heyd. (II. 208.)
Ibn Batuta puts the ermine above the sable. An ermine pelisse, he says,
was worth in India 1000 dinars of that country, whilst a sable one was
worth only 400 dinars. As Ibn Batuta's Indian dinars are Rupees, the
estimate of price is greatly lower than Polo's. Some years ago I find the
price of a Sack, as it is technically called by the Russian traders, or
robe of fine sables, stated to be in the Siberian market about 7000 banco
rubels, i.e. I believe about 350l. The same authority mentions that in
1591 the Tzar Theodore Ivanovich made a present of a pelisse valued at the
equivalent of 5000 silver rubels of modern Russian money, or upwards of
750l. Atkinson speaks of a single sable skin of the highest quality,
for which the trapper demanded 18l. The great mart for fine sables is at
Olekma on the Lena.
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