The Only Place Which The Maps Show
About That Position Is Min-Ts'ing Hien.
And the Dutch mission of
1664-1665 names this as "Binkin, by some called Min-sing." (Astley, III.
461.)
[Mr. Phillips writes (T. Pao, I. 224-225): "Going downstream from
Kien-Ning, we arrive first at Yen-Ping on the Min Main River. Eighty-seven
li further down is the mouth of the Yiu-Ki River, up which stream, at a
distance of eighty li, is Yiu-Ki city, where travellers disembark for the
land journey to Yung-chun and Chinchew. This route is the highway from the
town of Yiu-Ki to the seaport of Chinchew. This I consider to have been
Polo's route, and Ramusio's Unguen I believe to be Yung-chun, locally known
as Eng-chun or Ung-chun, a name greatly resembling Polo's Unguen. I look
upon this mere resemblance of name as of small moment in comparison with
the weighty and important statement, that 'this place is remarkable for a
great manufacture of sugar.' Going south from the Min River towards
Chin-chew, this is the first district in which sugar-cane is seen growing
in any quantity. Between Kien-Ning-Foo and Fuchau I do not know of any
place remarkable for the great manufacture of sugar. Pauthier makes
How-Kuan do service for Unken or Unguen, but this is inadmissible, as there
is no such place as How-Kuan; it is simply one of the divisions of the city
of Fuchau, which is divided into two districts, viz. the Min-Hien and the
How-Kuan-Hien. A small quantity of sugar-cane is, I admit, grown in the
How-Kuan division of Fuchau-foo, but it is not extensively made into sugar.
The cane grown there is usually cut into short pieces for chewing and
hawked about the streets for sale. The nearest point to Foochow where sugar
is made in any great quantity is Yung-Foo, a place quite out of Polo's
route. The great sugar manufacturing districts of Fuh-Kien are Hing-hwa,
Yung-chun, Chinchew, and Chang-chau." - H. C]
The Babylonia of the passage from Ramusio is Cairo, - Babylon of Egypt,
the sugar of which was very famous in the Middle Ages. Zucchero di
Bambellonia is repeatedly named in Pegolotti's Handbook (210, 311, 362,
etc.).
The passage as it stands represents the Chinese as not knowing even how to
get sugar in the granular form: but perhaps the fact was that they did
not know how to refine it. Local Chinese histories acknowledge that the
people of Fo-kien did not know how to make fine sugar, till, in the time
of the Mongols, certain men from the West taught the art.[2] It is a
curious illustration of the passage that in India coarse sugar is commonly
called Chini, "the produce of China," and sugar candy or fine sugar
Misri, the produce of Cairo (Babylonia) or Egypt. Nevertheless, fine
Misri has long been exported from Fo-kien to India, and down to 1862
went direct from Amoy.
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