The Travels of Marco Polo Volume II Part 30

Mr. Wylie sent Sir Henry Yule a tracing of the figures mentioned in the footnote; it is worth while to append them, at least in _diagram_.

No 1. No 2. No 3.

++ ++ ++ |-----------| |-----------| |-----|------|------| | | | | | | | a | | +| | |+ +| |+ +|-----+------+------|+ +|-----+-----|+ +|-----------|+ +| | | |+ | | | | | | | b | | | | | | | +|-----+------+------|+ |-----------| |-----------| +| | | |+ ++ | | c | | |-----|------|------| ++ ++

No. 1. Plan of a _Fang_ or Square.

No. 2. Plan of a _Fang_ or Square in the South of the Imperial City of Si-ngan fu.

No. 3. Arrangement of Two-Fang Square, with four streets and 8 gates.

a. The Market place.

b. The Official Establishment.

c. Office for regulating Weights.

Compare Polo's statement that in each of the squares at Kinsay, where the markets were held, there were two great Palaces facing one another, in which were established the officers who decided differences between merchants, etc.

The double lines represent streets, and the ++ are gates.

NOTE 4.--There is no mention of _pork_, the characteristic animal food of China, and the only one specified by Friar Odoric in his account of the same city. Probably Mark may have got a little _Saracenized_ among the Mahomedans at the Kaan's Court, and doubted if 'twere good manners to mention it. It is perhaps a relic of the same feeling, gendered by Saracen rule, that in Sicily pigs are called _i neri_.

"The larger game, red-deer and fallow-deer, is now never seen for sale.

Hog-deer, wild-swine, pheasants, water-fowl, and every description of 'vermin' and small birds, are exposed for sale, not now in markets, but at the retail wine shops. Wild-cats, rac.o.o.ns, otters, badgers, kites, owls, etc., etc., festoon the shop fronts along with game." (_Moule_.)

NOTE 5.--Van Braam, in pa.s.sing through Shan-tung Province, speaks of very large pears. "The colour is a beautiful golden yellow. Before it is pared the pear is somewhat hard, but in eating it the juice flows, the pulp melts, and the taste is pleasant enough." Williams says these Shan-tung pears are largely exported, but he is not so complimentary to them as Polo: "The pears are large and juicy, sometimes weighing 8 or 10 pounds, but remarkably tasteless and coa.r.s.e." (_V. Braam_, II. 33-34; _Mid.

Kingd._, I. 78 and II. 44). In the beginning of 1867 I saw pears in Covent Garden Market which I should guess to have weighed 7 or 8 lbs. each. They were priced at 18 guineas a dozen!

["Large pears are nowadays produced in Shan-tung and Manchuria, but they are rather tasteless and coa.r.s.e. I am inclined to suppose that Polo's large pears were Chinese quinces, _Cydonia chinensis_, Thouin, this fruit being of enormous size, sometimes one foot long, and very fragrant. The Chinese use it for sweet-meats." (_Bretschneider, Hist. of Bot. Disc._ I.

p. 2.)--H.C.]

As regards the "yellow and white" peaches, Marsden supposes the former to be apricots. Two kinds of peach, correctly so described, are indeed common in Sicily, where I write;--and both are, in their raw state, equally good food for _i neri_! But I see Mr. Moule also identifies the yellow peach with "the _hw.a.n.g-mei_ or clingstone apricot," as he knows no yellow peach in China.

NOTE 6.--"_E non veggono mai l'ora che di nuovo possano ritornarvi;_" a curious Italian idiom. (See _Vocab. It. Univ._ sub. v. "_vedere_".)

NOTE 7.--It would seem that the habits of the Chinese in reference to the use of pepper and such spices have changed. Besides this pa.s.sage, implying that their consumption of pepper was large, Marco tells us below (ch.

lx.x.xii.) that for one shipload of pepper carried to Alexandria for the consumption of Christendom, a hundred went to Zayton in Manzi. At the present day, according to Williams, the Chinese use little spice; pepper chiefly as a febrifuge in the shape of _pepper-tea_, and that even less than they did some years ago. (See p. 239, infra, and _Mid. Kingd._, II.

46, 408.) On this, however, Mr. Moule observes: "Pepper is not so completely relegated to the doctors. A month or two ago, pa.s.sing a portable cookshop in the city, I heard a girl-purchaser cry to the cook, 'Be sure you put in _pepper and leeks!_'"

NOTE 8.--Marsden, after referring to the ingenious frauds commonly related of Chinese traders, observes: "In the long continued intercourse that has subsisted between the agents of the European companies and the more eminent of the Chinese merchants ... complaints on the ground of commercial unfairness have been extremely rare, and on the contrary, their transactions have been marked with the most perfect good faith and mutual confidence." Mr. Consul Medhurst bears similar strong testimony to the upright dealings of Chinese merchants. His remark that, as a rule, he has found that the Chinese deteriorate by intimacy with foreigners is worthy of notice;[3] it is a remark capable of application wherever the East and West come into habitual contact. Favourable opinions among the nations on their frontiers of Chinese dealing, as expressed to Wood and Burnes in Turkestan, and to Macleod and Richardson in Laos, have been quoted by me elsewhere in reference to the old cla.s.sical reputation of the Seres for integrity. Indeed, Marco's whole account of the people here might pa.s.s for an expanded paraphrase of the Latin commonplaces regarding the Seres. Mr.

Milne, a missionary for many years in China, stands up manfully against the wholesale disparagement or Chinese character (p. 401).

NOTE 9.--Semedo and Martini, in the 17th century, give a very similar account of the Lake Si-hu, the parties of pleasure frequenting it, and their gay barges. (_Semedo_, pp. 20-21; _Mart._ p. 9.) But here is a Chinese picture of the very thing described by Marco, under the Sung Dynasty: "When Yaou Shunming was Prefect of Hangchow, there was an old woman, who said she was formerly a singing-girl, and in the service of Tung-p'o Seen-sheng.[4] She related that her master, whenever he found a leisure day in spring, would invite friends to take their pleasure on the lake. They used to take an early meal on some agreeable spot, and, the repast over, a chief was chosen for the company of each barge, who called a number of dancing-girls to follow them to any place they chose. As the day waned a gong sounded to a.s.semble all once more at 'Lake Prospect Chambers,' or at the 'Bamboo Pavilion,' or some place of the kind, where they amused themselves to the top of their bent, and then, at the first or second drum, before the evening market dispersed, returned home by candle-light. In the city, gentlemen and ladies a.s.sembled in crowds, lining the way to see the return of the thousand Knights. It must have been a brave spectacle of that time." (_Moule_, from the _Si-hu-Chi_, or "Topography of the West Lake.") It is evident, from what Mr. Moule says, that this book abounds in interesting ill.u.s.tration of these two chapters of Polo. Barges with paddle-wheels are alluded to.

NOTE 10.--Public carriages are still used in the great cities of the north, such as Peking. Possibly this is a revival. At one time carriages appear to have been much more general in China than they were afterwards, or are now. Semedo says they were abandoned in China just about the time that they were adopted in Europe, viz. in the 16th century. And this disuse seems to have been either cause or effect of the neglect of the roads, of which so high an account is given in old times. (_Semedo; N. and Q. Ch. and j.a.p._ I. 94.)

Deguignes describes the public carriages of Peking, as "shaped like a palankin, but of a longer form, with a rounded top, lined outside and in with coa.r.s.e blue cloth, and provided with black cushions" (I. 372). This corresponds with our author's description, and with a drawing by Alexander among his published sketches. The present Peking cab is evidently the same vehicle, but smaller.

NOTE 11.--The character of the King of Manzi here given corresponds to that which the Chinese histories a.s.sign to the Emperor Tu-Tsong, in whose time Kublai commenced his enterprise against Southern China, but who died two years before the fall of the capital. He is described as given up to wine and women, and indifferent to all public business, which he committed to unworthy ministers. The following words, quoted by Mr. Moule from the _Hang-Chau Fu-Chi_, are like an echo of Marco's: "In those days the dynasty was holding on to a mere corner of the realm, hardly able to defend even that; and nevertheless all, high and low, devoted themselves to dress and ornament, to music and dancing on the lake and amongst the hills, with no idea of sympathy for the country." A garden called Tseu-king ("of many prospects") near the Tsing-po Gate, and a monastery west of the lake, near the Lingin, are mentioned as pleasure haunts of the Sung Kings.

NOTE 12.--The statement that the palace of Kingsze was occupied by the Great Kaan's lieutenant seems to be inconsistent with the notice in De Mailla that Kublai made it over to the Buddhist priests. Perhaps _Kublai's_ name is a mistake; for one of Mr. Moule's books (_Jin-ho-hien-chi_) says that under _the last_ Mongol Emperor five convents were built on the area of the palace.

Mr. H. Murray argues, from this closing pa.s.sage especially, that Marco never could have been the author of the Ramusian interpolations; but with this I cannot agree. Did this pa.s.sage stand alone we might doubt if it were Marco's; but the interpolations must be considered as a whole. Many of them bear to my mind clear evidence of being his own, and I do not see that the present one _may_ not be his. The picture conveyed of the ruined walls and half-obliterated buildings does, it is true, give the impression of a long interval between their abandonment and the traveller's visit, whilst the whole interval between the capture of the city and Polo's departure from China was not more than fifteen or sixteen years. But this is too vague a basis for theorising.

Mr. Moule has ascertained by maps of the Sung period, and by a variety of notices in the Topographies, that the palace lay to the south and south-east of the present city, and included a large part of the fine hills called _Fung-hw.a.n.g Shan_ or Phoenix Mount,[5] and other names, whilst its southern gate opened near the Ts'ien-T'ang River. Its north gate is supposed to have been the Fung Shan Gate of the present city, and the chief street thus formed the avenue to the palace.

By the kindness of Messrs. Moule and Wylie, I am able to give a copy of the Sung Map of the Palace (for origin of which see list of ill.u.s.trations). I should note that the orientation is different from that of the map of the city already given. This map elucidates Polo's account of the palace in a highly interesting manner.

[Father H. Havret has given in p. 21 of _Varietes Sinologiques_, No. 19, a complete study of the inscription of a _chw.a.n.g_, nearly similar to the one given here, which is erected near Ch'eng-tu.--H.C.]

Before quitting KINSAY, the description of which forms the most striking feature in Polo's account of China, it is worth while to quote other notices from authors of nearly the same age. However exaggerated some of these may be, there can be little doubt that it was the greatest city then existing in the world.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Stone _Chw.a.n.g_, or Umbrella Column, on site of "Brahma's Temple," Hang-chau.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: South Part of KING-SZe, with the SUNG PALACE, from a Chinese reprint of a Plan dated circa A.D. 1270]

_Friar Odoric_ (in China about 1324-1327):--"Departing thence I came unto the city of CANSAY, a name which signifieth the 'City of Heaven.' And 'tis the greatest city in the whole world, so great indeed that I should scarcely venture to tell of it, but that I have met at Venice people in plenty who have been there. It is a good hundred miles in compa.s.s, and there is not in it a span of ground which is not well peopled. And many a tenement is there which shall have 10 or 12 households comprised in it.

And there be also great suburbs which contain a greater population than even the city itself.... This city is situated upon lagoons of standing water, with ca.n.a.ls like the city of Venice. And it hath more than 12,000 bridges, on each of which are stationed guards, guarding the city on behalf of the Great Kaan. And at the side of this city there flows a river near which it is built, like Ferrara by the Po, for it is longer than it is broad," and so on, relating how his host took him to see a great monastery of the idolaters, where there was a garden full of grottoes, and therein many animals of divers kinds, which they believed to be inhabited by the souls of gentlemen. "But if any one should desire to tell all the vastness and great marvels of this city, a good quire of stationery would not hold the matter, I trow. For 'tis the greatest and n.o.blest city, and the finest for merchandize that the whole world containeth." (_Cathay_, 113 seqq.)

_The Archbishop of Soltania_ (circa 1330):--"And so vast is the number of people that the soldiers alone who are posted to keep ward in the city of Cambalec are 40,000 men by sure tale. And in the city of Ca.s.sAY there be yet more, for its people is greater in number, seeing that it is a city of very great trade. And to this city all the traders of the country come to trade; and greatly it aboundeth in all manner of merchandize." (Ib.

244-245.)

_John Marignolli_ (in China 1342-1347):--"Now Manzi is a country which has countless cities and nations included in it, past all belief to one who has not seen them.... And among the rest is that most famous city of CAMPSAY, the finest, the biggest, the richest, the most populous, and altogether the most marvellous city, the city of the greatest wealth and luxury, of the most splendid buildings (especially idol-temples, in some of which there are 1000 and 2000 monks dwelling together), that exists now upon the face of the earth, or mayhap that ever did exist." (Ib. p.

354.) He also speaks, like Odoric, of the "cloister at Campsay, in that most famous monastery where they keep so many monstrous animals, which they believe to be the souls of the departed" (384). Perhaps this monastery may yet be identified. Odoric calls it _Thebe_. [See _A.

Vissiere, Bul. Soc. Geog. Com._, 1901, pp. 112-113.--H.C.]

Turning now to Asiatic writers, we begin with _Wa.s.saf_ (A.D. 1300):--

"KHANZAI is the greatest city of the cities of Chin,

"'_Stretching like Paradise through the breadth of Heaven._'

"Its shape is oblong, and the measurement of its perimeter is about 24 parasangs. Its streets are paved with burnt brick and with stone. The public edifices and the houses are built of wood, and adorned with a profusion of paintings of exquisite elegance. Between one end of the city and the other there are three _Yams_ (post-stations) established. The length of the chief streets is three parasangs, and the city contains 64 quadrangles corresponding to one another in structure, and with parallel ranges of columns. The salt excise brings in daily 700 _balish_ in paper-money. The number of craftsmen is so great that 32,000 are employed at the dyer's art alone; from that fact you may estimate the rest. There are in the city 70 _tomans_ of soldiers and 70 _tomans_ of _rayats_, whose number is registered in the books of the Dewan. There are 700 churches (_Kalisia_) resembling fortresses, and every one of them overflowing with presbyters without faith, and monks without religion, besides other officials, wardens, servants of the idols, and this, that, and the other, to tell the names of which would surpa.s.s number and s.p.a.ce. All these are exempt from taxes of every kind. Four _tomans_ of the garrison const.i.tute the night patrol.... Amid the city there are 360 bridges erected over ca.n.a.ls ample as the Tigris, which are ramifications of the great river of Chin; and different kinds of vessels and ferry-boats, adapted to every cla.s.s, ply upon the waters in such numbers as to pa.s.s all powers of enumeration.... The concourse of all kinds of foreigners from the four quarters of the world, such as the calls of trade and travel bring together in a kingdom like this, may easily be conceived." (_Revised on Hammer's Translation_, pp. 42-43.)

The Persian work _Nuzhat-al-Kulub_:--"KHINZAI is the capital of the country of Machin. If one may believe what some travellers say, there exists no greater city on the face of the earth; but anyhow, all agree that it is the greatest in all the countries in the East. Inside the place is a lake which has a circuit of six parasangs, and all round which houses are built.... The population is so numerous that the watchmen are some 10,000 in number." (_Quat. Rash._ p. lx.x.xviii.)

The Arabic work _Masalak-al-Absar_:--"Two routes lead from Khanbalik to KHINSa, one by land, the other by water; and either way takes 40 days. The city of Khinsa extends a whole day's journey in length and half a day's journey in breadth. In the middle of it is a street which runs right from one end to the other. The streets and squares are all paved; the houses are five-storied (?), and are built with planks nailed together," etc.

(Ibid.)

_Ibn Batuta_:--"We arrived at the city of KHANSa.... This city is the greatest I have ever seen on the surface of the earth. It is three days'

journey in length, so that a traveller pa.s.sing through the city has to make his marches and his halts!.. It is subdivided into six towns, each of which has a separate enclosure, while one great wall surrounds the whole," etc. (_Cathay_, p. 496 seqq.)

Let us conclude with a writer of a later age, the worthy Jesuit Martin Martini, the author of the admirable _Atlas Sinensis_, one whose honourable zeal to maintain Polo's veracity, of which he was one of the first intelligent advocates, is apt, it must be confessed, a little to colour his own spectacles:--"That the cosmographers of Europe may no longer make such ridiculous errors as to the QUINSAI of Marco Polo, I will here give you the very place. [He then explains the name.] ... And to come to the point; this is the very city that hath those bridges so lofty and so numberless, both within the walls and in the suburbs; nor will they fall much short of the 10,000 which the Venetian alleges, if you count also the triumphal arches among the bridges, as he might easily do because of their a.n.a.logous structure, just as he calls tigers _lions_;.. or if you will, he may have meant to include not merely the bridges in the city and suburbs, but in the whole of the dependent territory. In that case indeed the number which Europeans find it so hard to believe might well be set still higher, so vast is everywhere the number of bridges and of triumphal arches. Another point in confirmation is that lake which he mentions of 40 Italian miles in circuit. This exists under the name of _Si-hu_; it is not, indeed, as the book says, inside the walls, but lies in contact with them for a long distance on the west and south-west, and a number of ca.n.a.ls drawn from it _do_ enter the city. Moreover, the sh.o.r.es of the lake on every side are so thickly studded with temples, monasteries, palaces, museums, and private houses, that you would suppose yourself to be pa.s.sing through the midst of a great city rather than a country scene. Quays of cut stone are built along the banks, affording a s.p.a.cious promenade; and causeways cross the lake itself, furnished with lofty bridges, to allow of the pa.s.sage of boats; and thus you can readily walk all about the lake on this side and on that. 'Tis no wonder that Polo considered it to be part of the city. This, too, is the very city that hath within the walls, near the south side, a hill called _Ching-hoang_ [6] on which stands that tower with the watchmen, on which there is a clepsydra to measure the hours, and where each hour is announced by the exhibition of a placard, with gilt letters of a foot and a half in height.

This is the very city the streets of which are paved with squared stones: the city which lies in a swampy situation, and is intersected by a number of navigable ca.n.a.ls; this, in short, is the city from which the emperor escaped to seaward by the great river Ts'ien-T'ang, the breadth of which exceeds a German mile, flowing on the south of the city, exactly corresponding to the river described by the Venetian at Quinsai, and flowing eastward to the sea, which it enters precisely at the distance which he mentions. I will add that the compa.s.s of the city will be 100 Italian miles and more, if you include its vast suburbs, which run out on every side an enormous distance; insomuch that you may walk for 50 Chinese _li_ in a straight line from north to south, the whole way through crowded blocks of houses, and without encountering a spot that is not full of dwellings and full of people; whilst from east to west you can do very nearly the same thing." (_Atlas Sinensis_, p. 99.)

And so we quit what Mr. Moule appropriately calls "Marco's famous rhapsody of the Manzi capital"; perhaps the most striking section of the whole book, as manifestly the subject was that which had made the strongest impression on the narrator.

[1] _Fanfur_, in Ramusio.

[2] See the mention of the _I-ning Fang_ at Si-ngan fu, supra, p. 28. Mr. Wylie writes that in a work on the latter city, published during the Yuen time, of which he has met with a reprint, there are figures to ill.u.s.trate the division of the city into _Fang_, a word "which appears to indicate a certain s.p.a.ce of ground, not an open square ... but a block of buildings crossed by streets, and at the end of each street an open gateway." In one of the figures a first reference indicates "the market place," a second "the official establishment," a third "the office for regulating weights." These indications seem to explain Polo's squares. (See Note 3, above.)