- The traveller's route proceeds from Kinsay or Hang-chau southward
to the mountains of Fo-kien, ascending the valley of the Ts'ien T'ang,
commonly called by Europeans the Green River.
The general line, directed
as we shall see upon Kien-ning fu in Fo-kien, is clear enough, but some of
the details are very obscure, owing partly to vague indications and partly
to the excessive uncertainty in the reading of some of the proper names.
No name resembling Tanpiju (G.T., Tanpigui; Pauthier, Tacpiguy,
Carpiguy, Capiguy; Ram., Tapinzu) belongs, so far as has yet been
shown, to any considerable town in the position indicated.[2] Both
Pauthier and Mr. Kingsmill identify the place with Shao-hing fu, a large
and busy town, compared by Fortune, as regards population, to Shang-hai.
Shao-hing is across the broad river, and somewhat further down than
Hang-chau: it is out of the traveller's general direction; and it seems
unnatural that he should commence his journey by passing this wide river,
and yet not mention it.
For these reasons I formerly rejected Shao-hing, and looked rather to
Fu-yang as the representative of Tanpiju. But my opinion is shaken when I
find both Mr. Elias and Baron Richthofen decidedly opposed to Fu-yang, and
the latter altogether in favour of Shao-hing. "The journey through a
plenteous region, passing a succession of dwellings and charming gardens;
the epithets 'great, rich, and fine city'; the 'trade, manufactures, and
handicrafts,' and the 'necessaries in great plenty and cheapness,' appear
to apply rather to the populous plain and the large city of ancient fame,
than to the small Fu-yang hien ... shut in by a spur from the hills, which
would hardly have allowed it in former days to have been a great city."
(Note by Baron R.) The after route, as elucidated by the same authority,
points with even more force to Shao-hing.
[Mr. G. Phillips has made a special study of the route from Kinsay to
Zaytun in the T'oung Pao, I. p. 218 seq. (The Identity of Marco
Polo's Zaitun with Changchau). He says (p. 222): "Leaving Hangchau by
boat for Fuhkien, the first place of importance is Fuyang, at 100 li
from Hangchau. This name does not in any way resemble Polo's Ta Pin Zu,
but I think it can be no other." Mr. Phillips writes (pp. 221-222) that by
the route he describes, he "intends to follow the highway which has been
used by travellers for centuries, and the greater part of which is by
water." He adds: "I may mention that the boats used on this route can be
luxuriously fitted up, and the traveller can go in them all the way from
Hangchau to Chinghu, the head of the navigation of the Ts'ien-t'ang River.
At this Chinghu, they disembark and hire coolies and chairs to take them
and their luggage across the Sien-hia pass to Puching in Fuhkien. This
route is described by Fortune in an opposite direction, in his Wanderings
in China, vol.
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