The Grand
Can Is The King Of China, And He Dwells At ZEITON." Giovanni Hoped To Get
To Zeiton Before He Died.[2]
The port of T'swan-chau is generally called in our modern charts
Chinchew.
Now Chincheo is the name given by the old Portuguese
navigators to the coast of Fo-kien, as well as to the port which they
frequented there, and till recently I supposed this to be T'swan-chau. But
Mr. Phillips, in his paper alluded to at p. 232, asserted that by
Chincheo modern Spaniards and Portuguese designated (not T'swan-chau
but) Chang-chau, a great city 60 miles W.S.W. of T'swan-chau, on a river
entering Amoy Harbour. On turning, with this hint, to the old maps of the
17th century, I found that their Chincheo is really Chang-chau. But Mr.
Phillips also maintains that Chang-chau, or rather its port, a place
formerly called Gehkong and now Haiteng, is Zayton. Mr. Phillips does
not adduce any precise evidence to show that this place was known as a
port in Mongol times, far less that it was known as the most famous haven
in the world; nor was I able to attach great weight to the arguments which
he adduced. But his thesis, or a modification of it, has been taken up and
maintained with more force, as already intimated, by the Rev. Dr. Douglas.
The latter makes a strong point in the magnificent character of Amoy
Harbour, which really is one of the grandest havens in the world, and thus
answers better to the emphatic language of Polo, and of Ibn Batuta, than
the river of T'swan-chau.
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