It Is Very Seldom That Captives Get Out Of
Lo-Lo-Dom, Because The Ransom Asked Is Too High, And The Chinese Officials
Are Not Gallant Enough To Buy Out Their Unfortunate Countrymen.
The Lo-los
hold thousands of Chinese in slavery; and more are added yearly to the
number." - H.C.] Two routes run from Ch'eng-tu fu to Yun-nan; these fork at
Ya-chau and thenceforward are entirely separated by this barrier.
To the
east of it is the route which descends the Min River to Siu-chau, and then
passes by Chao-tong and Tong-chuan to Yun-nan fu: to the west of the
barrier is a route leading through Kien-ch'ang to Ta-li fu, but throwing
off a branch from Ning-yuan southward in the direction of Yun-nan fu.
This road from Ch'eng-tu fu to Ta-li by Ya-chau and Ning-yuan appears to
be that by which the greater part of the goods for Bhamo and Ava used to
travel before the recent Mahomedan rebellion; it is almost certainly the
road by which Kublai, in 1253, during the reign of his brother Mangku
Kaan, advanced to the conquest of Ta-li, then the head of an independent
kingdom in Western Yun-nan. As far as Ts'ing-k'i hien, 3 marches beyond
Ya-chau, this route coincides with the great Tibet road by Ta-t'sien lu
and Bathang to L'hasa, and then it diverges to the left.
We may now say without hesitation that by this road Marco travelled. His
Tibet commences with the mountain region near Ya-chau; his 20 days'
journey through a devastated and dispeopled tract is the journey to
Ning-yuan fu. Even now, from Ts'ing-k'i onwards for several days, not a
single inhabited place is seen. The official route from Ya-chau to
Ning-yuan lays down 13 stages, but it generally takes from 15 to 18 days.
Polo, whose journeys seem often to have been shorter than the modern
average,[2] took 20. On descending from the highlands he comes once more
into a populated region, and enters the charming Valley of Kien-ch'ang.
This valley, with its capital near the upper extremity, its numerous towns
and villages, its cassia, its spiced wine, and its termination southward on
the River of the Golden Sands, is CAINDU. The traveller's road from
Ningyuan to Yunnanfu probably lay through Hwei-li, and the Kin-sha Kiang
would be crossed as already indicated, near its most southerly bend, and
almost due north of Yun-nan fu. (See Richthofen as quoted at pp. 45-46.)
As regards the name of CAINDU or GHEINDU (as in G.T.), I think we may
safely recognise in the last syllable the do which is so frequent a
termination of Tibetan names (Amdo, Tsiamdo, etc.); whilst the Cain, as
Baron Richthofen has pointed out, probably survives in the first part of
the name Kienchang.
[Baber writes (pp. 80-81): "Colonel Yule sees in the word Caindu a
variation of 'Chien-ch'ang,' and supposes the syllable 'du' to be the same
as the termination 'du,' 'do,' or 'tu,' so frequent in Tibetan names. In
such names, however, 'do' never means a district, but always a confluence,
or a town near a confluence, as might almost be guessed from a map of
Tibet.... Unsatisfied with Colonel Yule's identification, I cast about for
another, and thought for a while that a clue had been found in the term
'Chien-t'ou' (sharp-head), applied to certain Lolo tribes. But the idea
had to be abandoned, since Marco Polo's anecdote about the 'caitiff,' and
the loose manners of his family, could never have referred to the Lolos,
who are admitted even by their Chinese enemies to possess a very strict
code indeed of domestic regulations. The Lolos being eliminated, the
Si-fans remained; and before we had been many days in their neighbourhood,
stories were told us of their conduct which a polite pen refuses to record.
It is enough to say that Marco's account falls rather short of the truth,
and most obviously applies to the Si-fan."
[Illustration: Road descending from the Table-Land of Yun-nan into the
Valley of the Kin-sha Kiang (the Brius of Polo).
(After Garnier.)]
Deveria (Front. p. 146 note) says that Kien-ch'ang is the ancient
territory of Kiung-tu which, under the Han Dynasty, fell into the hands of
the Tibetans, and was made by the Mongols the march of Kien-ch'ang
(Che-Kong-t'u); it is the Caindu of Marco Polo; under the Han Dynasty
it was the Kiun or division of Yueh-sui or Yueh-hsi. Deveria quotes from
the Yuen-shi-lei pien the following passage relating to the year 1284:
"The twelve tribes of the Barbarians to the south-west of Kien-tou and
Kin-Chi submitted; Kien-tou was administered by Mien (Burma); Kien-tou
submits because the Kingdom of Mien has been vanquished." Kien-tou is the
Chien-t'ou of Baber, the Caindu of Marco Polo. (Melanges de Harlez, p.
97.) According to Mr. E.H. Parker (China Review, xix. p. 69), Yueh-hsi
or Yueh-sui "is the modern Kien-ch'ang Valley, the Caindu of Marco Polo,
between the Yalung and Yang-tzu Rivers; the only non-Chinese races found
there now are the Si-fan and Lolos." - H.C.]
Turning to minor particulars, the Lake of Caindu in which the pearls were
found is doubtless one lying near Ning-yuan, whose beauty Richthofen heard
greatly extolled, though nothing of the pearls. [Mr. Hosie writes (Three
Years, 112-113): "If the former tradition be true (the old city of
Ning-yuan having given place to a large lake in the early years of the Ming
Dynasty), the lake had no existence when Marco Polo passed through Caindu,
and yet we find him mentioning a lake in the country in which pearls were
found. Curiously enough, although I had not then read the Venetian's
narrative, one of the many things told me regarding the lake was that
pearls are found in it, and specimens were brought to me for inspection."
The lake lies to the south-east of the present city.
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