C. Holcombe, Tour through Shan-hsi and Shen-hsi in Jour.
North China Br.R.A.S.N.S. X. pp. 54-70.) - H.C.]
[Illustration: The Bridge of Pulisanghin. (From the Livre des
Merveilles.)]
NOTE 2. - Pul-i-Sangin, the name which Marco gives the River, means in
Persian simply (as Marsden noticed) "The Stone Bridge." In a very different
region the same name often occurs in the history of Timur applied to a
certain bridge, in the country north of Badakhshan, over the Wakhsh branch
of the Oxus. And the Turkish admiral Sidi 'Ali, travelling that way from
India in the 16th century, applies the name, as it is applied here, to the
river; for his journal tells us that beyond Kulib he crossed "the River
Pulisangin."
We may easily suppose, therefore, that near Cambaluc also, the Bridge,
first, and then the River, came to be known to the Persian-speaking
foreigners of the court and city by this name. This supposition is however
a little perplexed by the circumstance that Rashiduddin calls the River
the Sangin and that Sangkan-Ho appears from the maps or citations of
Martini, Klaproth, Neumann, and Pauthier to have been one of the Chinese
names of the river, and indeed, Sankang is still the name of one of the
confluents forming the Hwan Ho.
[By Sanghin, Polo renders the Chinese Sang-kan, by which name the River
Hun-ho is already mentioned, in the 6th century of our era. Hun-ho is
also an ancient name; and the same river in ancient books is often called
Lu-Kou River also. All these names are in use up to the present time; but
on modern Chinese maps, only the upper part of the river is termed
Sang-Kan ho, whilst south of the inner Great Wall, and in the plain, the
name of Hun-ho is applied to it. Hun ho means "Muddy River," and the
term is quite suitable. In the last century, the Emperor K'ien-lung ordered
the Hun-ho to be named Yung-ting ho, a name found on modern maps, but the
people always call it Hun ho (Bretschneider, Peking, p. 54.) - H.C.]
The River is that which appears in the maps as the Hwan Ho, Hun-ho, or
Yongting Ho, flowing about 7 miles west of Peking towards the south-east
and joining the Pe-Ho at Tientsin; and the Bridge is that which has been
known for ages as the Lu-kou-Kiao or Bridge of Lukou, adjoining the town
which is called in the Russian map of Peking Feuchen, but in the official
Chinese Atlas Kung-Keih-cheng. (See Map at ch. xi. of Bk. II. in the
first Volume.) ["Before arriving at the bridge the small walled city of
Kung-ki cheng is passed.
