[On the lands adjoining this river there grow vast quantities of great
canes, some of which are a foot or a foot and a half (in girth), and these
the natives employ for many useful purposes.]
After passing the river and travelling two days westward you come to the
noble city of CACHANFU, which we have already named. The inhabitants are
all Idolaters. And I may as well remind you again that all the people of
Cathay are Idolaters. It is a city of great trade and of work in
gold-tissues of many sorts, as well as other kinds of industry.
There is nothing else worth mentioning, and so we will proceed and tell
you of a noble city which is the capital of a kingdom, and is called
Kenjanfu.
NOTE 1. - Kara-Muren, or Black River, is one of the names applied by the
Mongols to the Hwang Ho, or Yellow River, of the Chinese, and is used by
all the mediaeval western writers, e.g. Odoric, John Marignolli,
Rashiduddin.
The River, where it skirts Shan-si, is for the most part difficult both of
access and of passage, and ill adapted to navigation, owing to the
violence of the stream. Whatever there is of navigation is confined to the
transport of coal down-stream from Western Shan-si, in large flats. Mr.
Elias, who has noted the River's level by aneroid at two points 920 miles
apart, calculated the fall over that distance, which includes the contour
of Shan-si, at 4 feet per mile. The best part for navigation is above
this, from Ning-hia to Chaghan Kuren (in about 110 deg. E. long.), in which
Captain Prjevalski's observations give a fall of less than 6 inches per
mile. (Richthofen, Letter VII. 25; Williamson, I. 69; J.R.G.S.
XLIII. p. 115; Petermann, 1873, pp. 89-91.)
[On 5th January, 1889, Mr. Rockhill coming to the Yellow River from
P'ing-yang, found (Land of the Lamas, p. 17) that "the river was between
500 and 600 yards wide, a sluggish, muddy stream, then covered with
floating ice about a foot thick.... The Yellow River here is shallow, in
the main channel only is it four or five feet deep." The Rev. C. Holcombe,
who crossed in October, says (p. 65): that "it was nowhere more than 6 feet
deep, and on returning, three of the boatmen sprang into the water in
midstream and waded ashore, carrying a line from the ferry-boat to prevent
us from rapidly drifting down with the current. The water was just up to
their hips." - H.C.]
NOTE 2. - It is remarkable that the abundance of silk in Shan-si and
Shen-si is so distinctly mentioned in these chapters, whereas now there is
next to no silk at all grown in these districts.
