The Travels of Marco Polo Volume II Part 4

NOTE 3.--Martini observes that the grapes in Shan-si were very abundant and the best in China. The Chinese used them only as raisins, but wine was made there for the use of the early Jesuit Missions, and their successors continue to make it. Klaproth, however, tells us that the wine of T'ai-yuan fu was celebrated in the days of the T'ang Dynasty, and used to be sent in tribute to the Emperors. Under the Mongols the use of this wine spread greatly. The founder of the Ming accepted the offering of wine of the vine from T'aiyuan in 1373, but prohibited its being presented again. The finest grapes are produced in the district of Yukau-hien, where hills s.h.i.+eld the plain from north winds, and convert it into a garden many square miles in extent. In the vintage season the best grapes sell for less than a farthing a pound. [Mr. Theos. Sampson, in an article on "Grapes in China," writes (_Notes and Queries on China and j.a.pan_, April, 1869, p. 50): "The earliest mention of the grape in Chinese literature appears to be contained in the chapter on the nations of Central Asia, ent.i.tled _Ta Yuan Chwan_, or description of Fergana, which forms part of the historical records (_Sze-Ki_) of Sze-ma Tsien, dating from B.C. 100. Writing of the political relations inst.i.tuted shortly before this date by the Emperor Wu Ti with the nations beyond the Western frontiers of China, the historian dwells at considerable length, but unluckily with much obscurity, on the various missions despatched westward under the leaders.h.i.+p of Chang K'ien and others, and mentions the grape vine in the following pa.s.sage:--'Throughout the country of Fergana, wine is made from grapes, and the wealthy lay up stores of wine, many tens of thousands of _s.h.i.+h_ in amount, which may be kept for scores of years without spoiling. Wine is the common beverage, and for horses the _mu-su_ is the ordinary pasture. The envoys from China brought back seeds with them, and hereupon the Emperor for the first time cultivated the grape and the mu-su in the most productive soils.' In the Description of Western regions, forming part of the History of the Han Dynasty, it is stated that grapes are abundantly produced in the country of K'i-pin (identified with Cophene, part of modern Afghanistan) and other adjacent countries, and referring, if I mistake not, to the journeys of Chang K'ien, the same work says, that the Emperor Wu-Ti despatched upwards of ten envoys to the various countries westward of Fergana, to search for novelties, and that they returned with grape and mu-su seeds. These references appear beyond question to determine the fact that grapes were introduced from Western- or, as we term it, Central-Asia, by Chang K'ien."

Dr. Bretschneider (_Botanicon Sinic.u.m_, I. p. 25), relating the mission of Chang K'ien (139 B.C. Emperor Wu-Ti), who died about B.C. 103, writes:--"He is said to have introduced many useful plants from Western Asia into China.

Ancient Chinese authors ascribe to him the introduction of the Vine, the Pomegranate, Safflower, the Common Bean, the Cuc.u.mber, Lucerne, Coriander, the Walnut-tree, and other plants."--H.C.] The river that flows down from Shan-si by Cheng-ting-fu is called "Putu-ho, or the Grape River." (_J. As._ u.s.; _Richthofen_, u.s.)

[Regarding the name of this river, the Rev. C. Holcombe (l.c. p. 56) writes: "Williamson states in his _Journeys in North China_ that the name of this stream is, properly _Poo-too Ho_--'Grape River,' but is sometimes written Hu-t'ou River incorrectly. The above named author, however, is himself in error, the name given above [_Hu-t'o_] being invariably found in all Chinese authorities, as well as being the name by which the stream is known all along its course."

West of the Fan River, along the western border of the Central Plain of Shan-si, in the extreme northern point of which lies T'a-yuan fu, the Rev.

C. Holcombe says (p. 61), "is a large area, close under the hills, almost exclusively given up to the cultivation of the grape. The grapes are unusually large, and of delicious flavour."--H.C.]

NOTE 4.--+In no part of China probably, says Richthofen, do the towns and villages consist of houses so substantial and costly as in this. Pianfu is undoubtedly, as Magaillans again notices, P'ING-YANG FU.[3] It is the _Bikan_ of Shah Rukh's amba.s.sadors. [Old P'ing yang, 5 _Lis_ to the south]

is said to have been the residence of the primitive and mythical Chinese Emperor Yao. A great college for the education of the Mongols was inst.i.tuted at P'ing-yang, by Yeliu Chutsai, the enlightened minister of Okkodai Khan. [Its dialect differs from the T'a-yuan dialect, and is more like Pekingese.] The city, lying in a broad valley covered with the yellow loss, was destroyed by the T'ai-P'ing rebels, but it is reviving. [It is known for its black pottery.] The vicinity is noted for large paper factories. ["From T'ai-yuan fu to P'ing-yang fu is a journey of 185 miles, down the valley of the Fuen-ho." (Colonel Bell, _Proc.R.G.S._ XII. 1890, p.

61.) By the way, Mr. Rockhill remarks (_Land of the Lamas_, p. 10): "Richthofen has transcribed the name of this river _Fuen_. This spelling has been adopted on most of the recent maps, both German and English, but _Fuen_ is an impossible sound in Chinese." (Read _Fen ho_.)--H.C.]

(_Cathay_, ccxi.; _Ritter_, IV. 516; _D'Ohsson_, II. 70; _Williamson_, I.

336.)

[1] And I see Ritter understood the pa.s.sage as I do (IV. 515).

[2] _Baligh_ is indeed properly Mongol.

[3] It seems to be called _Piyingfu_ (miswritten Piying_ku_) in Mr. Shaw's Itinerary from Yarkand (_Pr.R.G.S._ XVI. 253.) We often find the Western modifications of Chinese names very persistent.

CHAPTER x.x.xVIII.

CONCERNING THE CASTLE OF CAICHU.

On leaving Pianfu you ride two days westward, and come to the n.o.ble castle of CAICHU, which was built in time past by a king of that country, whom they used to call the GOLDEN KING, and who had there a great and beautiful palace. There is a great hall of this palace, in which are pourtrayed all the ancient kings of the country, done in gold and other beautiful colours, and a very fine sight they make. Each king in succession as he reigned added to those pictures.[NOTE 1]

[This Golden King was a great and potent Prince, and during his stay at this place there used to be in his service none but beautiful girls, of whom he had a great number in his Court. When he went to take the air about the fortress, these girls used to draw him about in a little carriage which they could easily move, and they would also be in attendance on the King for everything pertaining to his convenience or pleasure.[NOTE 2]]

Now I will tell you a pretty pa.s.sage that befell between the Golden King and Prester John, as it was related by the people of the Castle.

It came to pa.s.s, as they told the tale, that this Golden King was at war with Prester John. And the King held a position so strong that Prester John was not able to get at him or to do him any scathe; wherefore he was in great wrath. So seventeen gallants belonging to Prester John's Court came to him in a body, and said that, an he would, they were ready to bring him the Golden King alive. His answer was, that he desired nothing better, and would be much bounden to them if they would do so.

So when they had taken leave of their Lord and Master Prester John, they set off together, this goodly company of gallants, and went to the Golden King, and presented themselves before him, saying that they had come from foreign parts to enter his service. And he answered by telling them that they were right welcome, and that he was glad to have their service, never imagining that they had any ill intent. And so these mischievous squires took service with the Golden King; and served him so well that he grew to love them dearly.

And when they had abode with that King nearly two years, conducting themselves like persons who thought of anything but treason, they one day accompanied the King on a pleasure party when he had very few else along with him: for in those gallants the King had perfect trust, and thus kept them immediately about his person. So after they had crossed a certain river that is about a mile from the castle, and saw that they were alone with the King, they said one to another that now was the time to achieve that they had come for. Then they all incontinently drew, and told the King that he must go with them and make no resistance, or they would slay him.

The King at this was in alarm and great astonishment, and said: "How then, good my sons, what thing is this ye say? and whither would ye have me go?"

They answered, and said: "You shall come with us, will ye: nill ye, to Prester John our Lord."

[Ill.u.s.tration: The "Roi d'Or." (From a MS. in the Royal Asiatic Society's Collection.)

"Et en ceste chastians ha un mout bians paleis en quel a une grandisme sale la ou il sunt portrait a mont belles pointures tout les rois de celes provences que furent ansienemant, et ce est mout belle viste a voir."]

NOTE 1.--The name of the castle is very doubtful. But of that and the geography, which in this part is tangled, we shall speak further on.

Whilst the original French texts were unknown, the king here spoken of figured in the old Latin versions as King _Darius_, and in Ramusio as _Re Dor_. It was a most happy suggestion of Marsden's, in absence of all knowledge of the fact that the original narrative was _French_, that this Dor represented the Emperor of the _Kin_ or Golden Dynasty, called by the Mongols _Altun Khan_, of which _Roi D'Or_ is a literal translation.

Of the legend itself I can find no trace. Ras.h.i.+duddin relates a story of the grandfather of Aung Khan (Polo's Prester John), Merghuz Boiruk Khan, being treacherously made over to the King of the Churche (the Kin sovereign), and put to death by being nailed to a wooden a.s.s. But the same author tells us that Aung Khan got his t.i.tle of Aung (Ch. _w.a.n.g_) or king from the Kin Emperor of his day, so that no hereditary feud seems deducible.

Mr. Wylie, who is of opinion, like Baron Richthofen, that the _Caichu_ which Polo makes the scene of that story, is Kiai-chau (or Hiai-chau as it seems to be p.r.o.nounced), north of the Yellow River, has been good enough to search the histories of the Liao and Kin Dynasties,[1] but without finding any trace of such a story, or of the Kin Emperors having resided in that neighbourhood.

On the other hand, he points out that the story has a strong resemblance to a real event which occurred in Central Asia in the beginning of Polo's century.

The Persian historians of the Mongols relate that when Chinghiz defeated and slew Taiyang Khan, the king of the Naimans, Kushluk, the son of Taiyang, fled to the Gur-Khan of Karakhitai and received both his protection and the hand of his daughter (see i. 237); but afterwards rose against his benefactor and usurped his throne. "In the Liao history I read," Mr. Wylie says, "that Chih-lu-ku, the last monarch of the Karakhitai line, ascended the throne in 1168, and in the 34th year of his reign, when out hunting one day in autumn, Kushluk, who had 8000 troops in ambush, made him prisoner, seized his throne and adopted the customs of the Liao, while he conferred on Chih-lu-ku the honourable t.i.tle of _Tai-shang-hw.a.n.g_ 'the old emperor.'"[2]

It is this Kushluk, to whom Rubruquis a.s.signs the role of King (or Prester) John, the subject of so many wonderful stories. And Mr. Wylie points out that not only was his father Taiyang Khan, according to the Chinese histories, a much more important prince than Aung Khan or w.a.n.g Khan the Kerait, but his name _Tai-Yang-Khan_ is precisely "Great King John" as near as John (or Yohana) can be expressed in Chinese. He thinks therefore that Taiyang and his son Kushluk, the Naimans, and not Aung Khan and his descendants, the Keraits, were the parties to whom the character of Prester John properly belonged, and that it was probably this story of Kushluk's capture of the Karakhitai monarch (_Roi de Fer_) which got converted into the form in which he relates it of the _Roi d'Or_.

The suggestion seems to me, as regards the story, interesting and probable; though I do not admit that the character of Prester John properly belonged to any real person.

I may best explain my view of the matter by a geographical a.n.a.logy.

Pre-Columbian maps of the Atlantic showed an Island of Brazil, an Island of Antillia, founded--who knows on what?--whether on the real adventure of a vessel driven in sight of the Azores or Bermudas, or on mere fancy and fogbank. But when discovery really came to be undertaken, men looked for such lands and found them accordingly. And there they are in our geographies, Brazil and the Antilles!

The cut which we give is curious in connection with our traveller's notice of the portrait-gallery of the Golden Kings. For it is taken from the fragmentary MS. of Ras.h.i.+duddin's History in the library of the Royal Asiatic Society, a MS. believed to be one of those executed under the great Vazir's own supervision, and is presented there as the portrait of the last sovereign of the Dynasty in question, being one of a whole series of similar figures. There can be little doubt, I think, that these were taken from Chinese originals, though, it may be, not very exactly.

NOTE 2.--The history of the Tartar conquerors of China, whether Khitan, Churche, Mongol, or Manchu, has always been the same. For one or two generations the warlike character and manly habits were maintained; and then the intruders, having adopted Chinese manners, ceremonies, literature, and civilization, sank into more than Chinese effeminacy and degradation.

We see the custom of employing only female attendants ascribed in a later chapter (lxxvii.) to the Sung Emperors at Kinsay; and the same was the custom of the later Ming emperors, in whose time the imperial palace was said to contain 5000 women. Indeed, the precise custom which this pa.s.sage describes was in our own day habitually reported of the T'ai-P'ing sovereign during his reign at Nanking: "None but women are allowed in the interior of the Palace, and _he is drawn to the audience-chamber in a gilded sacred dragon-car by the ladies_" (_Blakiston_, p. 42; see also _Wilson's Ever-Victorious Army_, p. 41.)

[1] [There is no trace of it in Harlez's French translation from the Manchu of the History of the Kin Empire, 1887.--H.C.]

[2] See also Oppert (p. 157), who cites this story from Visdelou, but does not notice its a.n.a.logy to Polo's.

CHAPTER x.x.xIX.

HOW PRESTER JOHN TREATED THE GOLDEN KING HIS PRISONER.

And on this the Golden King was so sorely grieved that he was like to die.

And he said to them: "Good, my sons, for G.o.d's sake have pity and compa.s.sion upon me. Ye wot well what honourable and kindly entertainment ye have had in my house; and now ye would deliver me into the hands of mine enemy! In sooth, if ye do what ye say, ye will do a very naughty and disloyal deed, and a right villainous." But they answered only that so it must be, and away they had him to Prester John their Lord.

And when Prester John beheld the King he was right glad, and greeted him with something like a malison.[1] The King answered not a word, as if he wist not what it behoved him to say. So Prester John ordered him to be taken forth straightway, and to be put to look after cattle, but to be well looked after himself also. So they took him and set him to keep cattle.

This did Prester John of the grudge he bore the King, to heap contumely on him, and to show what a nothing he was, compared to himself.

And when the King had thus kept cattle for two years, Prester John sent for him, and treated him with honour, and clothed him in rich robes, and said to him: "Now Sir King, art thou satisfied that thou wast in no way a man to stand against me?" "Truly, my good Lord, I know well and always did know that I was in no way a man to stand against thee." And when he had said this Prester John replied: "I ask no more; but henceforth thou shalt be waited on and honourably treated." So he caused horses and harness of war to be given him, with a goodly train, and sent him back to his own country.

And after that he remained ever friendly to Prester John, and held fast by him.

So now I will say no more of this adventure of the Golden King, but I will proceed with our subject.