Bank of the Wei, opposite Pao-ki h'ien, 100 miles
west of Si-ngan fu, and ended near the town of Paoching-h'ien, some 15 or
20 miles north-west from Han-chung.
We are told that Tului, the son of Chinghiz, when directing his march
against Ho-nan in 1231 by this very line from Paoki, had to make a road
with great difficulty; but, as we shall see presently, this can only mean
that the ancient road had fallen into decay, and had to be repaired. The
same route was followed by Okkodai's son Kutan, in marching to attack the
Sung Empire in 1235, and again by Mangku Kaan on his last campaign in
1258. These circumstances show that the road from Paoki was in that age
the usual route into Han-chung and Sze-ch'wan; indeed there is no other
road in that direction that is more than a mere jungle-track, and we may
be certain that this was Polo's route.
This remarkable road was traversed by Baron v. Richthofen in 1872. To my
questions, he replies: "The entire route is a work of tremendous
engineering, and all of this was done by Liu Pei, who first ordered the
construction. The hardest work consisted in cutting out long portions of
the road from solid rock, chiefly where ledges project on the verge of a
river, as is frequently the case on the He-lung Kiang.... It had been done
so thoroughly from the first, that scarcely any additions had to be made
in after days. Another kind of work which generally strikes tourists like
Father Martini, or Chinese travellers, is the poling up of the road on the
sides of steep cliffs....[2] Extensive cliffs are frequently rounded in
this way, and imagination is much struck with the perils of walking on the
side of a precipice, with the foaming river below. When the timbers rot,
such passages of course become obstructed, and thus the road is said to
have been periodically in complete disuse. The repairs, which were chiefly
made in the time of the Ming, concerned especially passages of this sort."
Richthofen also notices the abundance of game; but inhabited places appear
to be rarer than in Polo's time. (See Martini in Blaeu; Chine
Ancienne, p. 234; Ritter, IV. 520; D'Ohsson, II. 22, 80, 328;
Lecomte, II. 95; Chin. Rep. XIX. 225; Richthofen, Letter VII. p.
42, and MS. Notes).
[1] The last is also stated by Klaproth. Ritter has overlooked the
discrepancy of the dates (B.C. and A.D.) and has supposed Liu Pei and
Liu Pang to be the same. The resemblance of the names, and the fact
that both princes were founders of Han Dynasties, give ample room for
confusion.
[2] See cut from Mr. Cooper's book at p. 51 below. This so exactly
illustrates Baron R.'s description that I may omit the latter.
