For in that Sea there are but two winds that blow, the one that
carries them outward and the other that brings them homeward; and the one
of these winds blows all the winter, and the other all the summer. And you
must know these regions are so far from India that it takes a long time
also for the voyage thence.
Though that Sea is called the Sea of Chin, as I have told you, yet it is
part of the Ocean Sea all the same. But just as in these parts people talk
of the Sea of England and the Sea of Rochelle, so in those countries they
speak of the Sea of Chin and the Sea of India, and so on, though they all
are but parts of the Ocean.[NOTE 3]
Now let us have done with that region which is very inaccessible and out
of the way. Moreover, Messer Marco Polo never was there. And let me tell
you the Great Kaan has nothing to do with them, nor do they render him any
tribute or service.
So let us go back to Zayton and take up the order of our book from that
point.[NOTE 4]
NOTE 1. - "Several of the (Chinese) gods have horns on the forehead, or
wear animals' heads; some have three eyes.... Some are represented in the
Indian manner with a multiplicity of arms. We saw at Yang-cheu fu a
goddess with thirty arms." (Deguignes, I. 364-366.)
The reference to any particular form of idolatry here is vague. But in
Tibetan Buddhism, with which Marco was familiar, all these extravagances
are prominent, though repugnant to the more orthodox Buddhism of the
South.
When the Dalai Lama came to visit the Altun Khan, to secure the
reconversion of the Mongols in 1577, he appeared as a manifest embodiment
of the Bodhisatva Avalokitecvara, with four hands, of which two were
always folded across the breast! The same Bodhisatva is sometimes
represented with eleven heads. Manjushri manifests himself in a golden
body with 1000 hands and 1000 Patras or vessels, in each of which were
1000 figures of Sakya visible, etc. (Koeppen, II. 137; Vassilyev,
200.)
NOTE 2. - Polo seems in this passage to be speaking of the more easterly
Islands of the Archipelago, such as the Philippines, the Moluccas, etc.,
but with vague ideas of their position.
NOTE 3. - In this passage alone Polo makes use of the now familiar name of
CHINA. "Chin" as he says, "in the language of those Isles means
Manzi." In fact, though the form Chin is more correctly Persian, we do
get the exact form China from "the language of those Isles," i.e. from
the Malay. China is also used in Japanese.
What he says about the Ocean and the various names of its parts is nearly
a version of a passage in the geographical Poem of Dionysius, ending: -
[Greek:
Outos Okeanos peridedrome gaian hapasan
Toios eon kai toia met' andrasin ounomath' elkon] (42-3).
So also Abulfeda: "This is the sea which flows from the Ocean Sea....
This sea takes the names of the countries it washes. Its eastern extremity
is called the Sea of Chin ... the part west of this is called the Sea of
India ... then comes the Sea of Fars, the Sea of Berbera, and lastly the
Sea of Kolzum" (Red Sea).
NOTE 4. - The Ramusian here inserts a short chapter, shown by the awkward
way in which it comes in to be a very manifest interpolation, though
possibly still an interpolation by the Traveller's hand: -
"Leaving the port of Zayton you sail westward and something south-westward
for 1500 miles, passing a gulf called CHEINAN, having a length of two
months' sail towards the north. Along the whole of its south-east side it
borders on the province of Manzi, and on the other side with Anin and
Coloman, and many other provinces formerly spoken of. Within this Gulf
there are innumerable Islands, almost all well-peopled; and in these is
found a great quantity of gold-dust, which is collected from the sea where
the rivers discharge. There is copper also, and other things; and the
people drive a trade with each other in the things that are peculiar to
their respective Islands. They have also a traffic with the people of the
mainland, selling them gold and copper and other things; and purchasing in
turn what they stand in need of. In the greater part of these Islands
plenty of corn grows. This gulf is so great, and inhabited by so many
people, that it seems like a world in itself."
This passage is translated by Marsden with much forcing, so as to describe
the China Sea, embracing the Philippine Islands, etc.; but, as a matter
of fact, it seems clearly to indicate the writer's conception as of a
great gulf running up into the continent between Southern China and
Tong-king for a length equal to two months' journey.
The name of the gulf, Cheinan, i.e. Heinan, may either be that of the
Island so called, or, as I rather incline to suppose, 'An-nan, i.e.
Tong-king. But even by Camoens, writing at Macao in 1559-1560, the Gulf of
Hainan is styled an unknown sea (though this perhaps is only appropriate to
the prophetic speaker): -
"Ves, corre a costa, que Champa se chama,
Cuja mata he do pao cheiroso ornada:
Ves, Cauchichina esta de escura fama,
E de Ainao ve a incognita enseada" (X. 129).
And in Sir Robert Dudley's Arcano del Mare (Firenze, 1647), we find a
great bottle-necked gulf, of some 5-1/2 deg. in length, running up to the
north from Tong-king, very much as I have represented the Gulf of Cheinan
in the attempt to realise Polo's Own Geography.
