But There Is No More To Be Said About It, So We Proceed, And I Will Tell
You Of Another City Called VUJU At Three Days' Distance From Tanpiju.
The
people are Idolaters, &c., and the city is under Kinsay.
They live by
trade and manufactures.
Travelling through a succession of towns and villages that look like one
continuous city, two days further on to the south-east, you find the great
and fine city of GHIUJU which is under Kinsay. The people are Idolaters,
&c. They have plenty of silk, and live by trade and handicrafts, and have
all things necessary in abundance. At this city you find the largest and
longest canes that are in all Manzi; they are full four palms in girth and
15 paces in length.[NOTE 2]
When you have left Ghiuju you travel four days S.E. through a beautiful
country, in which towns and villages are very numerous. There is abundance
of game both in beasts and birds; and there are very large and fierce
lions. After those four days you come to the great and fine city of
CHANSHAN. It is situated upon a hill which divides the River, so that the
one portion flows up country and the other down.[1] It is still under the
government of Kinsay.
I should tell you that in all the country of Manzi they have no sheep,
though they have beeves and kine, goats and kids and swine in abundance.
The people are Idolaters here, &c.
When you leave Changshan you travel three days through a very fine
country with many towns and villages, traders and craftsmen, and abounding
in game of all kinds, and arrive at the city of CUJU. The people are
Idolaters, &c., and live by trade and manufactures. It is a fine, noble,
and rich city, and is the last of the government of Kinsay in this
direction.[NOTE 3] The other kingdom which we now enter, called Fuju, is
also one of the nine great divisions of Manzi as Kinsay is.
NOTE 1. - The traveller's route proceeds from Kinsay or Hang-chau southward
to the mountains of Fo-kien, ascending the valley of the Ts'ien T'ang,
commonly called by Europeans the Green River. The general line, directed
as we shall see upon Kien-ning fu in Fo-kien, is clear enough, but some of
the details are very obscure, owing partly to vague indications and partly
to the excessive uncertainty in the reading of some of the proper names.
No name resembling Tanpiju (G.T., Tanpigui; Pauthier, Tacpiguy,
Carpiguy, Capiguy; Ram., Tapinzu) belongs, so far as has yet been
shown, to any considerable town in the position indicated.[2] Both
Pauthier and Mr. Kingsmill identify the place with Shao-hing fu, a large
and busy town, compared by Fortune, as regards population, to Shang-hai.
Shao-hing is across the broad river, and somewhat further down than
Hang-chau: it is out of the traveller's general direction; and it seems
unnatural that he should commence his journey by passing this wide river,
and yet not mention it.
For these reasons I formerly rejected Shao-hing, and looked rather to
Fu-yang as the representative of Tanpiju. But my opinion is shaken when I
find both Mr. Elias and Baron Richthofen decidedly opposed to Fu-yang, and
the latter altogether in favour of Shao-hing. "The journey through a
plenteous region, passing a succession of dwellings and charming gardens;
the epithets 'great, rich, and fine city'; the 'trade, manufactures, and
handicrafts,' and the 'necessaries in great plenty and cheapness,' appear
to apply rather to the populous plain and the large city of ancient fame,
than to the small Fu-yang 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 Shao-hing.
[Mr. G. Phillips has made a special study of the route from Kinsay to
Zaytun in the T'oung Pao, I. p. 218 seq. (The Identity of Marco
Polo's Zaitun with Changchau). He says (p. 222): "Leaving Hangchau by
boat for Fuhkien, the first place of importance is Fuyang, at 100 li
from Hangchau. This name does not in any way resemble Polo's Ta Pin Zu,
but I think it can be no other." Mr. Phillips writes (pp. 221-222) that by
the route he describes, he "intends to follow the highway which has been
used by travellers for centuries, and the greater part of which is by
water." He adds: "I may mention that the boats used on this route can be
luxuriously fitted up, and the traveller can go in them all the way from
Hangchau to Chinghu, the head of the navigation of the Ts'ien-t'ang River.
At this Chinghu, they disembark and hire coolies and chairs to take them
and their luggage across the Sien-hia pass to Puching in Fuhkien. This
route is described by Fortune in an opposite direction, in his Wanderings
in China, vol. ii. p. 139. I am inclined to think that Polo followed this
route, as the one given by Yule, by way of Shao-hing and Kin-hua by land,
would be unnecessarily tedious for the ladies Polo was escorting, and
there was no necessity to take it; more especially as there was a direct
water route to the point for which they were making. I further incline to
this route, as I can find no city at all fitting in with Yenchau,
Ramusio's Gengiu, along the route given by Yule."
In my paper on the Catalan Map (Paris, 1895) I gave the following
itinerary: Kinsay (Hang-chau), Tanpiju (Shao-hing fu), Vuju (Kin-hwa fu),
Ghiuju (K'iu-chau fu), Chan-shan (Sui-chang hien), Cuju (Ch'u-chau),
Ke-lin-fu (Kien-ning fu), Unken (Hu-kwan), Fuju (Fu-chau), Zayton (Kayten,
Hai-t'au), Zayton (Ts'iuen-chau), Tyunju (Tek-hwa).
Regarding the burning of the dead, Mr. Phillips (T'oung Pao, VI.
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