The character Lo, here applied in the Chinese Tract to these people, is
the same as that in the name of the Kwangsi Lo of M. Pauthier.
I append a cut (opposite page) from the drawing representing these
Kolo-man in the original work from which Bridgman translated, and which is
in the possession of Dr. Lockhart.
[I believe we must read To-lo-man. Man, barbarian, T'u-lao or
Shan-tzu (mountaineers) who live in the Yunnanese prefectures of
Lin-ngan, Cheng-kiang, etc. T'u-la-Man or T'u-la barbarians of the Mongol
Annals. (Yuen-shi lei-pien, quoted by Deveria, p. 115.) - H.C.]
NOTE 2. - Magaillans, speaking of the semi-independent tribes of Kwei-chau
and Kwang-si, says: "Their towns are usually so girt by high mountains
and scarped rocks that it seems as if nature had taken a pleasure in
fortifying them" (p. 43). (See cut at p. 131.)
[1] On the other hand, M. Garnier writes: "I do not know any name at all
like Kolo, except Lolo, the generic name given by the
Chinese to the wild tribes of Yun-nan." Does not this look as if
Kolo were really the old name, Luluh or Lolo the later?
CHAPTER LIX.
CONCERNING THE PROVINCE OF CUIJU.
Cuiju is a province towards the East.[NOTE 1] After leaving Coloman you
travel along a river for 12 days, meeting with a good number of towns and
villages, but nothing worthy of particular mention. After you have
travelled those twelve days along the river you come to a great and noble
city which is called FUNGUL.
The people are Idolaters and subject to the Great Kaan, and live by trade
and handicrafts. You must know they manufacture stuffs of the bark of
certain trees which form very fine summer clothing.[NOTE 2] They are good
soldiers, and have paper-money. For you must understand that henceforward
we are in the countries where the Great Kaan's paper-money is current.
[Illustration: The Koloman after a Chinese drawing
"Coloman est une provence vers levant
El sunt mult belles jens et ne
sunt mie bien blances mes biunz
El sunt bien homes d'armes"]
The country swarms with lions to that degree that no man can venture to
sleep outside his house at night.[NOTE 3] Moreover, when you travel on
that river, and come to a halt at night, unless you keep a good way from
the bank the lions will spring on the boat and snatch one of the crew and
make off with him and devour him. And but for a certain help that the
inhabitants enjoy, no one could venture to travel in that province,
because of the multitude of those lions, and because of their strength and
ferocity.
But you see they have in this province a large breed of dogs, so fierce
and bold that two of them together will attack a lion.[NOTE 4] So every
man who goes a journey takes with him a couple of those dogs, and when a
lion appears they have at him with the greatest boldness, and the lion
turns on them, but can't touch them for they are very deft at eschewing
his blows. So they follow him, perpetually giving tongue, and watching
their chance to give him a bite in the rump or in the thigh, or wherever
they may. The lion makes no reprisal except now and then to turn fiercely
on them, and then indeed were he to catch the dogs it would be all over
with them, but they take good care that he shall not. So, to escape the
dogs' din, the lion makes off, and gets into the wood, where mayhap he
stands at bay against a tree to have his rear protected from their
annoyance. And when the travellers see the lion in this plight they take
to their bows, for they are capital archers, and shoot their arrows at him
till he falls dead. And 'tis thus that travellers in those parts do
deliver themselves from those lions.
They have a good deal of silk and other products which are carried up and
down, by the river of which we spoke, into various quarters.[NOTE 5]
You travel along the river for twelve days more, finding a good many towns
all along, and the people always Idolaters, and subject to the Great Kaan,
with paper-money current, and living by trade and handicrafts. There are
also plenty of fighting men. And after travelling those twelve days you
arrive at the city of Sindafu of which we spoke in this book some time
ago.[NOTE 6]
From Sindafu you set out again and travel some 70 days through the
provinces and cities and towns which we have already visited, and all
which have been already particularly spoken of in our Book. At the end of
those 70 days you come to Juju where we were before.[NOTE 7]
From Juju you set out again and travel four days towards the south,
finding many towns and villages. The people are great traders and
craftsmen, are all Idolaters, and use the paper-money of the Great Kaan
their Sovereign. At the end of those four days you come to the city of
Cacanfu belonging to the province of Cathay, and of it I shall now speak.
NOTE 1. - In spite of difficulties which beset the subject (see Note 6
below) the view of Pauthier, suggested doubtingly by Marsden, that the
Cuiju of the text is KWEI-CHAU, seems the most probable one. As the latter
observes, the reappearance of paper money shows that we have got back into
a province of China Proper. Such, Yun nan, recently conquered from a Shan
prince, could not be considered. But, according to the best view we can
form, the traveller could only have passed through the extreme west of the
province of Kwei-chau.
