[2] One of the Hien, forming the special districts of Hang-Chau itself,
now called Tsien-tang, was formerly called Tang-wei-tang. But it
embraces the eastern part of the district, and can, I think, have
nothing to do with Tanpiju. (See Biot, p. 257, and Chin. Repos.
for February, 1842, p. 109.)
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.[NOTE 1]
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.[NOTE 2]
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.[NOTE 3]
Now I will quit this and speak of other matters. You 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.[NOTE 4]
The people live by trade and manufactures, and have great store of silk
[which they weave into various stuffs], and of ginger and galingale.
[NOTE 5] [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.
[NOTE 6] 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[NOTE 7],
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.[NOTE 8]]
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, pp.
21-22.) For this identification, I am indebted to Dr. Flueckiger of Bern.
["Colonel Yule concludes that the fruit of a Gardenia, which yields a
yellow colour, is meant. But Polo's vague description might just as well
agree with the Bastard Saffron, Carthamus tinctorius, a plant introduced
into China from Western Asia in the 2nd century B.C., and since then much
cultivated in that country." (Bretschneider, Hist. of Bot. Disc. I. p.
4.) - H.C.]
[Illustration: Scene in the Bohea Mountains, on Polo's route between
Kiang-si and Fo-kien (From Fortune.)
"Adonc entre l'en en roiaume de Fugin, et ici comance. Et ala siz jornee
por
montangnes e por bales...."]
NOTE 2. - See vol. i. p. 312.
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 Fo-kien and Che-kiang
or Kiang-si.
