- "That The Cosmographers Of Europe May No
Longer Make Such Ridiculous Errors As To The QUINSAI Of Marco Polo, I Will
Here Give You The Very Place.
[He then explains the name.] ...
And to come
to the point; this is the very city that hath those bridges so lofty and
so numberless, both within the walls and in the suburbs; nor will they
fall much short of the 10,000 which the Venetian alleges, if you count
also the triumphal arches among the bridges, as he might easily do because
of their analogous structure, just as he calls tigers lions;.. or if
you will, he may have meant to include not merely the bridges in the city
and suburbs, but in the whole of the dependent territory. In that case
indeed the number which Europeans find it so hard to believe might well be
set still higher, so vast is everywhere the number of bridges and of
triumphal arches. Another point in confirmation is that lake which he
mentions of 40 Italian miles in circuit. This exists under the name of
Si-hu; it is not, indeed, as the book says, inside the walls, but lies
in contact with them for a long distance on the west and south-west, and a
number of canals drawn from it do enter the city. Moreover, the shores
of the lake on every side are so thickly studded with temples,
monasteries, palaces, museums, and private houses, that you would suppose
yourself to be passing through the midst of a great city rather than a
country scene. Quays of cut stone are built along the banks, affording a
spacious promenade; and causeways cross the lake itself, furnished with
lofty bridges, to allow of the passage of boats; and thus you can readily
walk all about the lake on this side and on that. 'Tis no wonder that Polo
considered it to be part of the city. This, too, is the very city that
hath within the walls, near the south side, a hill called Ching-hoang
[6] on which stands that tower with the watchmen, on which there is a
clepsydra to measure the hours, and where each hour is announced by the
exhibition of a placard, with gilt letters of a foot and a half in height.
This is the very city the streets of which are paved with squared stones:
the city which lies in a swampy situation, and is intersected by a number
of navigable canals; this, in short, is the city from which the emperor
escaped to seaward by the great river Ts'ien-T'ang, the breadth of which
exceeds a German mile, flowing on the south of the city, exactly
corresponding to the river described by the Venetian at Quinsai, and
flowing eastward to the sea, which it enters precisely at the distance
which he mentions. I will add that the compass of the city will be 100
Italian miles and more, if you include its vast suburbs, which run out on
every side an enormous distance; insomuch that you may walk for 50 Chinese
li in a straight line from north to south, the whole way through crowded
blocks of houses, and without encountering a spot that is not full of
dwellings and full of people; whilst from east to west you can do very
nearly the same thing." (Atlas Sinensis, p. 99.)
And so we quit what Mr. Moule appropriately calls "Marco's famous rhapsody
of the Manzi capital"; perhaps the most striking section of the whole
book, as manifestly the subject was that which had made the strongest
impression on the narrator.
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