The Travels of Marco Polo Volume I Part 84

NOTE 3.--This is a Chinese custom, though no doubt we may trust Marco for its being a Tartar one also. "In the province of Shansi they have a ridiculous custom, which is to marry dead folks to each other. F. Michael Trigault, a Jesuit, who lived several years in that province, told it us whilst we were in confinement. It falls out that one man's son and another man's daughter die. Whilst the coffins are in the house (and they used to keep them two or three years, or longer) the parents agree to marry them; they send the usual presents, as if the pair were alive, with much ceremony and music. After this they put the two coffins together, hold the wedding dinner in their presence, and, lastly, lay them together in one tomb. The parents, from this time forth, are looked on not merely as friends but as relatives--just as they would have been had their children been married when in life." (_Navarrete_, quoted by _Marsden._) Kidd likewise, speaking of the Chinese custom of worshipping at the tombs of progenitors, says: "So strongly does veneration for this tribute after death prevail that parents, in order to secure the memorial of the sepulchre for a daughter who has died during her betrothal, give her in marriage after her decease to her intended husband, who receives with nuptial ceremonies at his own house a paper effigy made by her parents, and after he has burnt it, erects a tablet to her memory--an honour which usage forbids to be rendered to the memory of unmarried persons. The law seeks without effect to abolish this absurd custom." (_China_, etc., pp.

179-180.)

[Professor J. J. M. de Groot (_Religious System of China_) gives several instances of marriages after death; the following example (II. 804-805) will ill.u.s.trate the custom: "An interesting account of the manner in which such _post-mortem_ marriages were concluded at the period when the Sung Dynasty governed the Empire, is given by a contemporary work in the following words: 'In the northern parts of the Realm it is customary, when an unmarried youth and an unmarried girl breathe their last, that the two families each charge a match-maker to demand the other party in marriage.

Such go-betweens are called match-makers for disembodied souls. They acquaint the two families with each other's circ.u.mstances, and then cast lots for the marriage by order of the parents on both sides. If they augur that the union will be a happy one, (wedding) garments for the next world are cut out, and the match-makers repair to the grave of the lad, there to set out wine and fruit for the consummation of the marriage. Two seats are placed side by side, and a small streamer is set up near each seat. If these streamers move a little after the libation has been performed, the souls are believed to approach each other; but if one of them does not move, the party represented thereby is considered to disapprove of the marriage. Each family has to reward its match-maker with a present of woven stuffs. Such go-betweens make a regular livelihood out of these proceedings.'"--H. C.]

The Ingushes of the Caucasus, according to Klaproth, have the same custom: "If a man's son dies, another who has lost his daughter goes to the father and says, 'Thy son will want a wife in the other world; I will give him my daughter; pay me the price of the bride.' Such a demand is never refused, even though the purchase of the bride amount to thirty cows." (_Travels, Eng. Trans._ 345.)

NOTE 4.--There is a little doubt about the reading of this last paragraph.

The G. T. has--"_Mes desormes volun retorner a nostre conte en_ la grant plaingne _ou nos estion quant nos comechames des fais des Tartars_,"

whilst Pauthier's text has "_Mais desormais vueil retourner a mon conte que Je lessai_ d'or plain _quant nous commencames des faiz des Tatars."_ The former reading looks very like a misunderstanding of one similar to the latter, where _d'or plain_ seems to be an adverbial expression, with some such meaning as "just now," "a while ago." I have not, however, been able to trace the expression elsewhere. Cotgrave has _or primes_, "but even now," etc.; and has also _de plain_, "presently, immediately, out of hand." It seems quite possible that _d'or plain_ should have had the meaning suggested.

CHAPTER LVI.

SUNDRY PARTICULARS OF THE PLAIN BEYOND CARACORON.

And when you leave Caracoron and the Altay, in which they bury the bodies of the Tartar Sovereigns, as I told you, you go north for forty days till you reach a country called the PLAIN OF BARGU.[NOTE 1] The people there are called MESCRIPT; they are a very wild race, and live by their cattle, the most of which are stags, and these stags, I a.s.sure you, they used to ride upon. Their customs are like those of the Tartars, and they are subject to the Great Kaan. They have neither corn nor wine.[They get birds for food, for the country is full of lakes and pools and marshes, which are much frequented by the birds when they are moulting, and when they have quite cast their feathers and can't fly, those people catch them.

They also live partly on fish.[NOTE 2]]

And when you have travelled forty days over this great plain you come to the ocean, at the place where the mountains are in which the Peregrine falcons have their nests. And in those mountains it is so cold that you find neither man or woman, nor beast nor bird, except one kind of bird called _Barguerlac_, on which the falcons feed. They are as big as partridges, and have feet like those of parrots and a tail like a swallow's, and are very strong in flight. And when the Grand Kaan wants Peregrines from the nest, he sends thither to procure them.[NOTE 3] It is also on islands in that sea that the Gerfalcons are bred. You must know that the place is so far to the north that you leave the North Star somewhat behind you towards the south! The gerfalcons are so abundant there that the Emperor can have as many as he likes to send for. And you must not suppose that those gerfalcons which the Christians carry into the Tartar dominions go to the Great Kaan; they are carried only to the Prince of the Levant.[NOTE 4]

Now I have told you all about the provinces northward as far as the Ocean Sea, beyond which there is no more land at all; so I shall proceed to tell you of the other provinces on the way to the Great Kaan. Let us, then, return to that province of which I spoke before, called Campichu.

NOTE 1.--The readings differ as to the length of the journey. In Pauthier's text we seem to have first a journey of forty days from near Karakorum to the Plain of Bargu, and then a journey of forty days more across the plain to the Northern Ocean. The G. T. seems to present only _one_ journey of forty days (Ramusio, of sixty days), but leaves the interval from Karakorum undefined. I have followed the former, though with some doubt.

NOTE 2.--This paragraph from Ramusio replaces the following in Pauthier's text: "In the summer they got abundance of game, both beasts and birds, but in winter, there is none to be had because of the great cold."

Marco is here dealing, I apprehend, with hearsay geography, and, as is common in like cases, there is great compression of circ.u.mstances and characteristics, a.n.a.logous to the like compression of little-known regions in mediaeval maps.

The name _Bargu_ appears to be the same with that often mentioned in Mongol history as BARGUCHIN TUGRUM or BARGUTI, and which Rashiduddin calls the northern limit of the inhabited earth. This commenced about Lake Baikal, where the name still survives in that of a river (_Barguzin_) falling into the Lake on the east side, and of a town on its banks (_Barguzinsk_). Indeed, according to Rashid himself, BARGU was the name of one of the tribes occupying the plain; and a quotation from Father Hyacinth would seem to show that the country is still called _Barakhu_.

[The Archimandrite Palladius (_Elucidations_, 16-17) writes:--"In the Mongol text of Chingis Khan's biography, this country is called Barhu and Barhuchin; it is to be supposed, according to Colonel Yule's identification of this name with the modern Barguzin, that this country was near Lake Baikal. The fact that Merkits were in Bargu is confirmed by the following statement in Chingis Khan's biography: 'When Chingis Khan defeated his enemies, the Merkits, they fled to Barhuchin tok.u.m.' _Tok.u.m_ signifies 'a hollow, a low place,' according to the Chinese translation of the above-mentioned biography, made in 1381; thus Barhuchin tok.u.m undoubtedly corresponds to M. Polo's Plain of Bargu. As to M. Polo's statement that the inhabitants of Bargu were Merkits, it cannot be accepted unconditionally. The Merkits were not indigenous to the country near Baikal, but belonged originally,--according to a division set forth in the Mongol text of the _Yuan ch'ao pi shi_,--to the category of tribes _living in yurts_, i.e. nomad tribes, or tribes of the desert. Meanwhile we find in the same biography of Chingis Khan, mention of a people called Barhun, which belonged to the category of tribes _living in the forests_; and we have therefore reason to suppose that the Barhuns were the aborigines of Barhu. After the time of Chingis Khan, this ethnographic name disappears from Chinese history; it appears again in the middle of the 16th century. The author of the _Yyu_ (1543-1544), in enumerating the tribes inhabiting Mongolia and the adjacent countries, mentions the Barhu, as a strong tribe, able to supply up to several tens of thousands (?) of warriors, armed with steel swords; but the country inhabited by them is not indicated. The Mongols, it is added, call them Black Ta-tze (Khara Mongols, i.e. 'Lower Mongols').

"At the close of the 17th century, the Barhus are found inhabiting the western slopes of the interior Hing'an, as well as between Lake Kulon and River Khalkha, and dependent on a prince of eastern Khalkhas, Doro beile.

(Manchu t.i.tle.)

"At the time of Galdan Khan's invasion, a part of them fled to Siberia with the eastern Khalkhas, but afterwards they returned. [_Mung ku yew mu ki_ and _Lung sha ki lio_.] After their rebellion in 1696, quelled by a Manchu General, they were included with other petty tribes (regarding which few researches have been made) in the category _butkha_, or hunters, and received a military organisation. They are divided into Old and New Barhu, according to the time when they were brought under Manchu rule. The Barhus belong to the Mongolian, not to the Tungusian race; they are sometimes considered even to have been in relationship with the Khalkhas.

(_He lung kiang wai ki_ and _Lung sha ki lio_.)

"This is all the substantial information we possess on the Barhu. Is there an affinity to be found between the modern Barhus and the Barhuns of Chingis Khan's biography?--and is it to be supposed, that in the course of time, they spread from Lake Baikal to the Hing'an range? Or is it more correct to consider them a branch of the Mongol race indigenous to the Hing'an Mountains, and which received the general archaic name of Bargu, which might have pointed out the physical character of the country they inhabited [_Kin Shi_], just as we find in history the Urianhai of Altai and the Urianhai of Western Manchuria? It is difficult to solve this question for want of historical data."--H. C.]

_Mescript_, or _Mecri_, as in G. T. The _Merkit_, a great tribe to the south-east of the Baikal, were also called _Mekrit_ and sometimes _Megrin_. The Mekrit are spoken of also by Carpini and Rubruquis. D'Avezac thinks that the _Kerait_, and not the _Merkit_, are intended by all three travellers. As regards Polo, I see no reason for this view. The name he uses is _Mekrit_, and the position which he a.s.signs to them agrees fairly with that a.s.signed on good authority to the Merkit or Mekrit. Only, as in other cases, where he is rehearsing hearsay information, it does not follow that the identification of the name involves the correctness of all the circ.u.mstances that he connects with that name. We saw in ch. x.x.x. that under _Pashai_ he seemed to lump circ.u.mstances belonging to various parts of the region from Badakhshan to the Indus; so here under _Mekrit_ he embraces characteristics belonging to tribes extending far beyond the Mekrit, and which in fact are appropriate to the Tunguses. Rashiduddin seems to describe the latter under the name of _Uriangkut_ of the Woods, a people dwelling beyond the frontier of Barguchin, and in connection with whom he speaks of their Reindeer obscurely, as well as of their tents of birch bark, and their hunting on snow-shoes.

The mention of the Reindeer by Polo in this pa.s.sage is one of the interesting points which Pauthier's text omits. Marsden objects to the statement that the stags are ridden upon, and from this motive mis-renders "_li qual' anche_ cavalcano," as, "which they make use of for the purpose of travelling." Yet he might have found in Witsen that the Reindeer are _ridden_ by various Siberian Tribes, but especially by the Tunguses. Erman is very full on the reindeer-riding of the latter people, having himself travelled far in that way in going to Okhotsk, and gives a very detailed description of the saddle, etc., employed. The reindeer of the Tunguses are stated by the same traveller to be much larger and finer animals than those of Lapland. They are also used for pack-carriage and draught. Old Richard Eden says that the "olde wryters" relate that "certayne Scythians doe ryde on Hartes." I have not traced to what he refers, but if the statement be in any ancient author it is very remarkable. Some old editions of Olaus Magnus have curious cuts of Laplanders and others riding on reindeer, but I find nothing in the text appropriate. We hear from travellers of the Lapland deer being occasionally mounted, but only it would seem in sport, not as a practice. (_Erdmann_, 189, 191; _D'Ohsson_, I. 103; _D'Avezac_, 534 seqq.; _J. As._ ser. II. tom. xi.; ser. IV. tom.

xvii. 107; _N. et E._ XIII. i. 274-276; _Witsen_, II. 670, 671, 680; _Erman_, II. 321, 374, 429, 449 seqq., and original German, II. 347 seqq.; _Notes on Russia_, Hac. Soc. II. 224; _J. A. S. B._ XXIX. 379.)

The numerous lakes and marshes swarming with water-fowl are very characteristic of the country between Yakutsk and the Kolyma. It is evident that Marco had his information from an eye-witness, though the whole picture is compressed. Wrangell, speaking of Nijni Kolyma, says: "It is at the moulting season that the great bird-hunts take place. The sportsmen surround the nests, and slip their dogs, which drive the birds to the water, on which they are easily knocked over with a gun or arrow, or even with a stick.... This chase is divided into several periods. They begin with the ducks, which moult first; then come the geese; then the swans.... In each case the people take care to choose the time when the birds have lost their feathers." The whole calendar with the Yakuts and Russian settlers on the Kolyma is a succession of fishing and hunting seasons which the same author details. (I. 149, 150; 119-121.)

NOTE 3.--What little is said of the _Barguerlac_ points to some bird of the genus _Pterocles_, or Sand Grouse (to which belong the so-called Rock Pigeons of India), or to the allied _Tetrao paradoxus_ of Pallas, now known as _Syrrhaptes Pallasii_. Indeed, we find in Zenker's Dictionary that _Boghurtlak_ (or _Baghirtlak_, as it is in Pavet de Courteille's) in Oriental Turkish is the _Kata_, i.e. I presume, the _Pterocles alchata_ of Linnaeus, or Large Pin-tailed Sand Grouse. Mr. Gould, to whom I referred the point, is clear that the _Syrrhaptes_ is Marco's bird, and I believe there can be no question of it.

[Pa.s.sing through Ch'ang-k'ou, Mr. Rockhill found the people praying for rain. "The people told me," he says, in his Journey (p. 9), "that they knew long ago the year would be disastrous, for the sand grouse had been more numerous of late than for years, and the saying goes _Sha-ch'i kuo, mai lao-po_, 'when the sand grouse fly by, wives will be for sale.'"--H.

C.]

The chief difficulty in identification with the Syrrhaptes or any known bird, would be "the feet like a parrot's." The feet of the Syrrhaptes are not indeed like a parrot's, though its awkward, slow, and waddling gait on the ground, may have suggested the comparison; and though it has very odd and anomalous feet, a circ.u.mstance which the Chinese indicate in another way by calling the bird (according to Hue) _Lung Kio_, or "Dragon-foot."

[Mr. Rockhill (_Journey_) writes in a note (p. 9): "I, for my part, never heard any other name than _sha-ch'i_, 'sand-fowl,' given them. This name is used, however, for a variety of birds, among others the partridge."--H.

C.] The hind-toe is absent, the toes are unseparated, recognisable only by the broad flat nails, and fitted below with a callous couch, whilst the whole foot is covered with short dense feathers like hair, and is more like a quadruped's paw than a bird's foot.

The home of the Syrrhaptes is in the Altai, the Kirghiz Steppes, and the country round Lake Baikal, though it also visits the North of China in great flights. "On plains of gra.s.s and sandy deserts," says Gould (_Birds of Great Britain_, Part IV.), "at one season covered with snow, and at another sun-burnt and parched by drought, it finds a congenial home; in these inhospitable and little-known regions it breeds, and when necessity compels it to do so, wings its way ... over incredible distances to obtain water or food." Hue says, speaking of the bird on the northern frontier of China: "They generally arrive in great flights from the north, especially when much snow has fallen, flying with astonishing rapidity, so that the movement of their wings produces a noise like hail." It is said to be very delicate eating. The bird owes its place in Gould's _Birds of Great Britain_ to the fact--strongly ill.u.s.trative of its being _moult volant_, as Polo says it is--that it appeared in England in 1859, and since then, at least up to 1863, continued to arrive annually in pairs or companies in nearly all parts of our island, from Penzance to Caithness. And Gould states that it was breeding in the Danish islands. A full account by Mr.

A. Newton of this remarkable immigration is contained in the _Ibis_ for April, 1864, and many details in _Stevenson's Birds of Norfolk_, I. 376 seqq. There are plates of _Syrrhaptes_ in _Radde's Reisen im Suden von Ost-Sibirien_, Bd. II.; in vol. v. of _Temminck_, Planches Coloriees, Pl.

95; in _Gould_, as above; in _Gray, Genera of Birds_, vol. iii. p. 517 (life size); and in the _Ibis_ for April, 1860. From the last our cut is taken.

[See _A. David et Oustalet_, _Oiseaux de la Chine_, 389, on _Syrrhaptes Pallasii_ or _Syrrhaptes Paradoxus_.--H. C.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Syrrhaptes Pallasii.]

NOTE 4.--Gerfalcons (_Shonkar_) were objects of high estimation in the Middle Ages, and were frequent presents to and from royal personages. Thus among the presents sent with an emba.s.sy from King James II. of Aragon to the Sultan of Egypt, in 1314, we find three white gerfalcons. They were sent in homage to Chinghiz and to Kublai, by the Kirghiz, but I cannot identify the mountains where they or the Peregrines were found. The Peregrine falcon was in Europe sometimes termed _Faucon Tartare_. (See _Menage_ s. v. _Sahin_.) The Peregrine of Northern j.a.pan, and probably therefore that of Siberia, is identical with that of Europe. Witsen speaks of an island in the Sea of Tartary, from which falcons were got, apparently referring to a Chinese map as his authority; but I know nothing more of it. (_Capmany_, IV. 64-65; _Ibis_, 1862, p. 314; _Witsen_, II.

656.)

[On the _Falco peregrinus_, Lin., and other Falcons, see Ed. Blanc's paper mentioned on p. 162. The _Falco Saker_ is to be found all over Central Asia; it is called by the Pekingese _Hw.a.n.g-yng_ (yellow falcon), (_David et Oustalet_, _Oiseaux de la Chine_, 31-32.)--H. C.]

CHAPTER LVII.

OF THE KINGDOM OF ERGUIUL, AND PROVINCE OF SINJU.

On leaving Campichu, then, you travel five days across a tract in which many spirits are heard speaking in the night season; and at the end of those five marches, towards the east, you come to a kingdom called ERGUIUL, belonging to the Great Kaan. It is one of the several kingdoms which make up the great Province of Tangut. The people consist of Nestorian Christians, Idolaters, and worshippers of Mahommet.[NOTE 1]

There are plenty of cities in this kingdom, but the capital is ERGUIUL.

You can travel in a south-easterly direction from this place into the province of Cathay. Should you follow that road to the south-east, you come to a city called SINJU, belonging also to Tangut, and subject to the Great Kaan, which has under it many towns and villages.[NOTE 2] The population is composed of Idolaters, and worshippers of Mahommet, but there are some Christians also. There are wild cattle in that country [almost] as big as elephants, splendid creatures, covered everywhere but on the back with s.h.a.ggy hair a good four palms long. They are partly black, partly white, and really wonderfully fine creatures [and the hair or wool is extremely fine and white, finer and whiter than silk. Messer Marco brought some to Venice as a great curiosity, and so it was reckoned by those who saw it]. There are also plenty of them tame, which have been caught young. [They also cross these with the common cow, and the cattle from this cross are wonderful beasts, and better for work than other animals.] These the people use commonly for burden and general work, and in the plough as well; and at the latter they will do full twice as much work as any other cattle, being such very strong beasts.[NOTE 3]

In this country too is found the best musk in the world; and I will tell you how 'tis produced. There exists in that region a kind of wild animal like a gazelle. It has feet and tail like the gazelle's, and stag's hair of a very coa.r.s.e kind, but no horns. It has four tusks, two below and two above, about three inches long, and slender in form, one pair growing upwards, and the other downwards. It is a very pretty creature. The musk is found in this way. When the creature has been taken, they find at the navel between the flesh and the skin something like an impostume full of blood, which they cut out and remove with all the skin attached to it. And the blood inside this impostume is the musk that produces that powerful perfume. There is an immense number of these beasts in the country we are speaking of. [The flesh is very good to eat. Messer Marco brought the dried head and feet of one of these animals to Venice with him.[NOTE 4]]

The people are traders and artizans, and also grow abundance of corn. The province has an extent of 26 days' journey. Pheasants are found there twice as big as ours, indeed nearly as big as a peac.o.c.k, and having tails of 7 to 10 palms in length; and besides them other pheasants in aspect like our own, and birds of many other kinds, and of beautiful variegated plumage.[NOTE 5] The people, who are Idolaters, are fat folks with little noses and black hair, and no beard, except a few hairs on the upper lip.

The women too have very smooth and white skins, and in every respect are pretty creatures. The men are very sensual, and marry many wives, which is not forbidden by their religion. No matter how base a woman's descent may be, if she have beauty she may find a husband among the greatest men in the land, the man paying the girl's father and mother a great sum of money, according to the bargain that may be made.

NOTE 1.--No approximation to the name of Erguiul in an appropriate position has yet been elicited from Chinese or other Oriental sources. We cannot go widely astray as to its position, five days east of Kanchau.

Klaproth identifies it with Liangchau-fu; Pauthier with the neighbouring city of Yungchang, on the ground that the latter was, in the time of Kublai, the head of one of the _Lus_, or Circles, of Kansuh or Tangut, which he has shown some reason for believing to be the "kingdoms" of Marco.

It is probable, however, that the _town_ called by Polo Erguiul lay north of both the cities named, and more in line with the position a.s.signed below to _Egrigaya_. (See note 1, ch. lviii.)