NOTE 4. - As regards Bayan personally, and the main body under his command,
this seems to be incorrect. His advance took place from Siang-yang along
the lines of the Han River and of the Great Kiang. Another force indeed
marched direct upon Yang-chau, and therefore probably by Hwai-ngan chau
(infra, p. 152); and it is noted that Bayan's orders to the generals of
this force were to spare bloodshed. (Gaubil, 159; D'Ohsson, II. 398.)
NOTE 5. - So in our own age ran the Hindu prophecy that Bhartpur should
never fall till there came a great alligator against it; and when it fell
to the English assault, the Brahmans found that the name of the leader was
Combermere = Kumhir-Mir, the Crocodile Lord!
- "Be those juggling fiends no more believed
That palter with us in a double sense;
That keep the word of promise to our ear
And break it to our hope!"
It would seem from the expression, both in Pauthier's text and in the G.
T., as if Polo intended to say that Chincsan (Cinqsan) meant "One
Hundred Eyes"; and if so we could have no stronger proof of his ignorance
of Chinese. It is Pe-yen, the Chinese form of Bayan, that means, or
rather may be punningly rendered, "One Hundred Eyes." Chincsan, i.e.
Ching-siang, was the title of the superior ministers of state at
Khanbaligh, as we have already seen. The title occurs pretty frequently in
the Persian histories of the Mongols, and frequently as a Mongol title in
Sanang Setzen. We find it also disguised as Chyansam in a letter from
certain Christian nobles at Khanbaligh, which Wadding quotes from the
Papal archives. (See Cathay, pp. 314-315.)
But it is right to observe that in the Ramusian version the mistranslation
which we have noticed is not so undubitable: "Volendo sapere come avea
nome il Capitano nemico, le fu detto, Chinsambaian, cioe Cent'occhi."
A kind of corroboration of Marco's story, but giving a different form to
the pun, has been found by Mr. W.F. Mayers, of the Diplomatic Department
in China, in a Chinese compilation dating from the latter part of the 14th
century. Under the heading, "A Kiang-nan Prophecy," this book states
that prior to the fall of the Sung a prediction ran through Kiang-nan: "If
Kiang-nan fall, a hundred wild geese (Pe-yen) will make their
appearance." This, it is added, was not understood till the generalissimo
Peyen Chingsiang made his appearance on the scene. "Punning prophecies
of this kind are so common in Chinese history, that the above is only
worth noticing in connection with Marco Polo's story." (N. and Q., China
and Japan, vol. ii. p. 162.)
But I should suppose that the Persian historian Wassaf had also heard a
bungled version of the same story, which he tells in a pointless manner of
the fortress of Sinafur (evidently a clerical error for Saianfu, see
below, ch.
