If we can find further
analogies, this may help us to read that mysterious word in the
Nestorian stone inscription, being the name of the first
Christian missionary who carried the cross to China, O lo
pen, as 'Ruben'.
This was indeed a common name among the
Nestorians, for which reason I would give it the preference
over Pauthier's Syriac 'Alopeno'. But Father Havret (Stele
Chretienne, Leide, 1897, p. 26) objects to Dr. Hirth that the
Chinese character lo, to which he gives the sound ru, is
not to be found as a Sanskrit phonetic element in Chinese
characters but that this phonetic element ru is represented
by the Chinese characters pronounced lu and therefore, he,
Father Havret, adopts Colonel Yule's opinion as the only one
being fully satisfactory." - H.C.]
CHAPTER XLII.
CONCERNING THE PROVINCE OF CUNCUN, WHICH IS RIGHT WEARISOME TO TRAVEL
THROUGH.
On leaving the Palace of Mangalai, you travel westward for three days,
finding a succession of cities and boroughs and beautiful plains,
inhabited by people who live by trade and industry, and have great plenty
of silk. At the end of those three days, you reach the great mountains and
valleys which belong to the province of CUNCUN.[NOTE 1] There are towns
and villages in the land, and the people live by tilling the earth, and by
hunting in the great woods; for the region abounds in forests, wherein are
many wild beasts, such as lions, bears, lynxes, bucks and roes, and sundry
other kinds, so that many are taken by the people of the country, who make
a great profit thereof. So this way we travel over mountains and valleys,
finding a succession of towns and villages, and many great hostelries for
the entertainment of travellers, interspersed among extensive forests.
NOTE 1. - The region intended must necessarily be some part of the southern
district of the province of Shen-si, called HAN-CHUNG, the axis of which
is the River Han, closed in by exceedingly mountainous and woody country
to north and south, dividing it on the former quarter from the rest of
Shen-si, and on the latter from Sze-ch'wan. Polo's C frequently expresses
an H, especially the Guttural H of Chinese names, yet Cuncun is not
satisfactory as the expression of Hanchung.
The country was so ragged that in ancient times travellers from Si-ngan fu
had to make a long circuit eastward by the frontier of Ho-nan to reach
Han-chung; but, at an early date, a road was made across the mountains for
military purposes; so long ago indeed that various eras and constructors
are assigned to it. Padre Martini's authorities ascribed it to a general
in the service of Liu Pang, the founder of the first Han Dynasty (B.C.
202), and this date is current in Shan-si, as Baron v. Richthofen tells
me. But in Sze-ch'wan the work is asserted to have been executed during
the 3rd century, when China was divided into several states, by Liu Pei,
of the Han family, who, about A.D. 226, established himself as Emperor
[Minor Han] of Western China at Ch'eng-tu fu.[1] This work, with its
difficulties and boldness, extending often for great distances on timber
corbels inserted in the rock, is vividly described by Martini.
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