THE PROVINCE OF CHINGINTALAS.
Prof. E.H. PARKER writes in the Journ. of the North China Branch of the
Royal As. Soc., XXXVII., 1906, p. 195: "On p. 215 of Yule's Vol. I. some
notes of Palladius' are given touching Chingkintalas, but it is not stated
that Palladius supposed the word Ch'ih kin to date after the Mongols,
that is, that Palladius felt uncertain about his identification. But
Palladius is mistaken in feeling thus uncertain: in 1315 and 1326 the
Mongol History twice mentions the garrison starts at Ch'ih kin, and in
such a way that the place must be where Marco Polo puts it, i.e. west of
Kia-yueh Kwan."
OF THE PROVINCE OF SUKCHUR.
XLIII., p. 217. "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. 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 loose their
hoofs. The cattle of the country know it and eschew it."
During his crossing of the Nan Shan, Sir Aurel Stein had the same
experience, five of his ponies being "benumbed and refusing to touch grass
or fodder." The traveller notes that, Ruins of Desert Cathay, II., p.
303: "I at once suspected that they had eaten of the poisonous grass which
infests certain parts of the Nan Shan, and about which old Marco has much
to tell in his chapter on 'Sukchur' or Su-chou.
