Over All The Mountains Of This Province Rhubarb Is Found In Great
Abundance, And Thither Merchants Come To Buy It,
And carry it thence all
over the world.[NOTE 3] [Travellers, however, dare not visit those
mountains with any cattle
But those of the country, for a certain plant
grows there which is so poisonous that cattle which eat it lose their
hoofs. The cattle of the country know it and eschew it.[NOTE 4]] The
people live by agriculture, and have not much trade. [They are of a brown
complexion. The whole of the province is healthy.]
NOTE 1. - Referring apparently to Shachau; see Note 1 and the closing words
of last chapter.
NOTE 2. - There is no doubt that the province and city are those of
SUHCHAU, but there is a great variety in the readings, and several texts
have a marked difference between the name of the province and that of the
city, whilst others give them as the same. I have adopted those to which
the resultants of the readings of the best texts seem to point, viz.
Succiur and Succiu, though with considerable doubt whether they should
not be identical. Pauthier declares that Suctur, which is the reading of
his favourite MS., is the exact pronunciation, after the vulgar Mongol
manner, of Suh-chau-lu, the Lu or circuit of Suhchau; whilst Neumann
says that the Northern Chinese constantly add an euphonic particle or to
the end of words. I confess to little faith in such refinements, when no
evidence is produced.
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