Ghiuju then will be KIU-CHAU. But between
Kiu-chau and Chang-shan it is impossible to make four days: barely possible
to make two. My map (Itineraries, No. VI.), based on D'Anville and
Fortune, makes the direct distance 24 miles; Milne's map barely 18;
whilst from his book we deduce the distance travelled by water to be about
30. On the whole, it seems probable that there is a mistake in the figure
here.
[Illustration: Marco Polo's route from Kinsai to ZAITUN, illustrating Mr.
G. Phillips' theory.]
From the head of the great Che-kiang valley I find two roads across the
mountains into Fo-kien described.
One leads from Kiang-shan (not Chang-shan) by a town called Ching-hu,
and then, nearly due south, across the mountains to Pu-ch'eng in Upper
Fo-kien. This is specified by Martini (p. 113): it seems to have been
followed by the Dutch Envoy, Van Hoorn, in 1665 (see Astley, III. 463),
and it was travelled by Fortune on his return from the Bohea country to
Ningpo. (II. 247, 271.)
The other route follows the portage spoken of above from Chang-shan to
Yuh-shan, and descends the river on that side to Hokeu, whence it
strikes south-east across the mountains to Tsung-ngan-hien in Fo-kien.
This route was followed by Fortune on his way to the Bohea country.
Both from Pu-ch'eng on the former route, and from near Tsung-ngan on the
latter, the waters are navigable down to Kien-ning fu and so to Fu-chau.
Mr. Fortune judges the first to have been Polo's route. There does not,
however, seem to be on this route any place that can be identified with
his Cuju or Chuju. Ching-hu seems to be insignificant, and the name has no
resemblance. On the other route followed by Mr. Fortune himself from that
side we have Kwansin fu, Hokeu, Yen-shan, and (last town passed on that
side) Chuchu. The latter, as to both name and position, is quite
satisfactory, but it is described as a small poor town. Hokeu would be
represented in Polo's spelling as Caghiu or Cughiu. It is now a place of
great population and importance as the entrepot of the Black Tea Trade,
but, like many important commercial cities in the interior, not being even
a hien it has no place either in Duhalde or in Biot, and I cannot learn
its age.
It is no objection to this line that Polo speaks of Cuju or Chuju as the
last city of the government of Kinsay, whilst the towns just named are in
Kiang-si. For Kiang-Che, the province of Kinsay, then included the
eastern part of Kiang-si.
