Indeed If They Catch The Big Ones Themselves They Devour Them
Too; They Can Make No Resistance.[NOTE 3]
[Illustration: "Riding long like Frenchmen."
"Et encore sachie qe ceste gens chebauchent lonc come franchois."]
[Illustration: Suspension Bridge, neighbourhood of Tali]
In this province also are bred large and excellent horses which are taken
to India for sale. And you must know that the people dock two or three
joints of the tail from their horses, to prevent them from flipping their
riders, a thing which they consider very unseemly. They ride long like
Frenchmen, and wear armour of boiled leather, and carry spears and shields
and arblasts, and all their quarrels are poisoned.[NOTE 4] [And I was
told as a fact that many persons, especially those meditating mischief,
constantly carry this poison about with them, so that if by any chance
they should be taken, and be threatened with torture, to avoid this they
swallow the poison and so die speedily. But princes who are aware of this
keep ready dog's dung, which they cause the criminal instantly to swallow,
to make him vomit the poison. And thus they manage to cure those
scoundrels.]
I will tell you of a wicked thing they used to do before the Great Kaan
conquered them. If it chanced that a man of fine person or noble birth, or
some other quality that recommended him, came to lodge with those people,
then they would murder him by poison, or otherwise. And this they did, not
for the sake of plunder, but because they believed that in this way the
goodly favour and wisdom and repute of the murdered man would cleave to
the house where he was slain. And in this manner many were murdered before
the country was conquered by the Great Kaan. But since his conquest, some
35 years ago, these crimes and this evil practice have prevailed no more;
and this through dread of the Great Kaan who will not permit such
things.[NOTE 5]
NOTE 1. - There can be no doubt that this second chief city of Carajan is
TALI-FU, which was the capital of the Shan Kingdom called by the Chinese
Nan-Chao. This kingdom had subsisted in Yun-nan since 738, and probably
had embraced the upper part of the Irawadi Valley. For the Chinese tell us
it was also called Maung, and it probably was identical with the Shan
Kingdom of Muang Maorong or of Pong, of which Captain Pemberton procured
a Chronicle. [In A.D. 650, the Ai-Lao, the most ancient name by which the
Shans were known to the Chinese, became the Nan-Chao. The Meng family
ruled the country from the 7th century; towards the middle of the 8th
century, P'i-lo-ko, who is the real founder of the Thai kingdom of
Nan-Chao, received from the Chinese the title of King of Yun-Nan and made
T'ai-ho, 15 lis south of Ta-li, his residence; he died in 748. In A.D.
938, Twan Sze-ying, of an old Chinese family, took Ta-li and established
there an independent kingdom. In 1115 embassies with China were exchanged,
and the Emperor conferred (1119) upon Twan Ch'eng-ya the title of King of
Ta-li (Ta-li Kwo Wang). Twan Siang-hing was the last king of Ta-li
(1239-1251). In 1252 the Kingdom of Nan-Chao was destroyed by the Mongols;
the Emperor She Tsu (Kublai) gave the title of Maharaja (Mo-ho Lo-tso) to
Twan Hing-che (son of Twan Siang-hing), who had fled to Yun-Nan fu and was
captured there. Afterwards (1261) the Twan are known as the eleven
Tsung-Kwan (governors); the last of them, Twan Ming, was made a prisoner
by an army sent by the Ming Emperors, and sent to Nan-King (1381). (E. H.
Parker, Early Laos and China, China Review, XIX. and the Old Thai or Shan
Empire of Western Yun-Nan, Ibid., XX.; E. Rocher, Hist. des Princes du
Yunnan, T'oung Pao, 1899; E. Chavannes, Une Inscription du roy de Nan
Tchao, J.A., November-December, 1900; M. Tchang, Tableau des Souverains
de Nan-Tchao, Bul. Ecole Franc. d'Ext. Orient, I. No. 4.) - H.C.] The city
of Ta-li was taken by Kublai in 1253-1254. The circumstance that it was
known to the invaders (as appeals from Polo's statement) by the name of the
province is an indication of the fact that it was the capital of Carajan
before the conquest. ["That Yachi and Carajan represent Yuennan-fu and
Tali, is proved by topographical and other evidence of an overwhelming
nature. I venture to add one more proof, which seems to have been
overlooked.
"If there is a natural feature which must strike any visitor to those two
cities, it is that they both lie on the shore of notable lakes, of so
large an extent as to be locally called seas; and for the comparison, it
should be remembered that the inhabitants of the Yuennan province have easy
access to the ocean by the Red River, or Sung Ka. Now, although Marco does
not circumstantially specify the fact of these cities lying on large
bodies of water, yet in both cases, two or three sentences further on,
will be found mention of lakes; in the case of Yachi, 'a lake of a good
hundred miles in compass' - by no means an unreasonable estimate.
"Tali-fu is renowned as the strongest hold of Western Yuennan, and it
certainly must have been impregnable to bow and spear. From the western
margin of its majestic lake, which lies approximately north and south,
rises a sloping plain of about three miles average breadth, closed in by
the huge wall of the Tien-tsang Mountains. In the midst of this plain
stands the city, the lake at its feet, the snowy summits at its back. On
either flank, at about twelve and six miles distance respectively, are
situated Shang-Kuan and Hsia-Kuan (upper and lower passes), two strongly
fortified towns guarding the confined strip between mountain and lake; for
the plain narrows at the two extremities, and is intersected by a river at
both points." (Baber, Travels 155.) - H.C.]
The distance from Yachi to this city of Karajang is ten days, and this
corresponds well with the distance from Yun-nan fu to Tali-fu.
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