The Travels of Marco Polo Volume I Part 85

I may notice that the structure of the name Ergui-ul or Ergiu-ul, has a look of a.n.a.logy to that of _Tang-keu-ul_, named in the next note.

["Erguiul is Erichew of the Mongol text of the _Yuen ch'ao pi s.h.i.+_, Si-liang in the Chinese history, the modern _Liang chow fu_. Klaproth, on the authority of Ras.h.i.+d-eddin, has already identified this name with that of Si-liang." (_Palladius_, p. 18.) M. Bonin left Ning-h'ia at the end of July, 1899, and he crossed the desert to Liangchau in fifteen days from east to west; he is the first traveller who took this route: Prjevalsky went westward, pa.s.sing by the residence of the Prince of Alashan, and Obrutchev followed the route south of Bonin's.--H. C.]

NOTE 2.--No doubt Marsden is right in identifying this with SINING-CHAU, now Sining-fu, the Chinese city nearest to Tibet and the Kokonor frontier.

Grueber and Dorville, who pa.s.sed it on their way to Lhasa, in 1661, call it _urbs ingens_. Sining was visited also by Huc and Gabet, who are unsatisfactory, as usually on geographical matters. They also call it "an immense town," but thinly peopled, its commerce having been in part transferred to Tang-keu-ul, a small town closer to the frontier.

[Sining belonged to the country called Hw.a.n.g chung; in 1198, under the Sung Dynasty, it was subjugated by the Chinese, and was named Si-ning chau; at the beginning of the Ming Dynasty (from 1368), it was named Si-ning wei, and since 1726 Si-ning fu. (Cf. Gueluy, _Chine_, p. 62.) From Liangchau, M. Bonin went to Sining through the Lao kou kau pa.s.s and the Ta-Tung ho. Obrutchev and Grum Grijmalo took the usual route from Kanchau to Sining. After the murder of Dutreuil de Rhins at Tung bu _m_do, his companion, Grenard, arrived at Sining, and left it on the 29th July, 1894.

Dr. Sven Hedin gives in his book his own drawing of a gate of Sining-fu, where he arrived on the 25th November, 1896.--H. C.]

Sining is called by the Tibetans _Ziling_ or Jiling, by the Mongols _Seling Khoto_. A shawl wool texture, apparently made in this quarter, is imported into Kashmir and Ladak, under the name of _S'ling_. I have supposed Sining to be also the _Zilm_ of which Mr. Shaw heard at Yarkand, and am answerable for a note to that effect on p. 38 of his _High Tartary_. But Mr. Shaw, on his return to Europe, gave some rather strong reasons against this. (See _Proc. R. G. S._ XVI. 245; _Kircher_, pp. 64, 66; _Della Penna_, 27; _Davies's Report_, App. p. ccxxix.; _Vigne_, II.

110, 129.) [At present Sining is called by the Tibetans Seling K'ar or Kuar, and by the Mongols, Seling K'utun, _K'ar_ and _K'utun_ meaning "fortified city." (_Rockhill, Land of the Lamas_, 49, note.)--H. C.]

[Mr. Rockhill (_Diary of a Journey_, 65) writes: "There must be some Scotch blood in the Hsi-ningites, for I find they are very fond of oatmeal and of cracked wheat. The first is called _yen-mei ch'en_, and is eaten boiled with the water in which mutton has been cooked, or with neat's-foot oil (_yang-t'i yu_). The cracked wheat (_mei-tzu fan_) is eaten prepared in the same way, and is a very good dish."--H. C.]

NOTE 3.--The _Dong_, or Wild Yak, has till late years only been known by vague rumour. It has always been famed in native reports for its great fierceness. The _Haft Iklim_ says that "it kills with its horns, by its kicks, by treading under foot, and by tearing with its teeth," whilst the Emperor Humayun himself told Sidi 'Ali, the Turkish admiral, that when it had knocked a man down it skinned him from head to heels by licking him with its tongue! Dr. Campbell states, in the _Journal of the As. Soc. of Bengal_, that it was said to be four times the size of the domestic Yak.

The horns are alleged to be sometimes three feet long, and of immense girth; they are handed round full of strong drink at the festivals of Tibetan grandees, as the Urus horns were in Germany, according to Caesar.

A note, with which I have been favoured by Dr. Campbell (long the respected Superintendent of British Sikkim) says: "Captain Smith, of the Bengal Army, who had travelled in Western Tibet, told me that he had shot many wild Yaks in the neighbourhood of the Mansarawar Lake, and that he measured a bull which was 18 hands high, i.e. 6 feet. All that he saw were _black_ all over. He also spoke to the fierceness of the animal. He was once charged by a bull that he had wounded, and narrowly escaped being killed. Perhaps my statement (above referred to) in regard to the relative size of the Wild and Tame Yak, may require modification if applied to all the countries in which the Yak is found. At all events, the finest specimen of the tame Yak I ever saw, was not in Nepal, Sikkim, Tibet, or Bootan, but in the _Jardin des Plantes_ at _Paris_; and that one, a male, was brought from Shanghai. The best drawing of a Yak I know is that in Turner's _Tibet_."

[Lieutenant Samuel Turner gave a very good description of the Yak of Tartary, which he calls _Soora-Goy_ or the Bushy-tailed Bull of Tibet.

(_Asiat. Researches_, No. XXIII, pp. 351-353, with a plate.) He says with regard to the colour: "There is a great variety of colours amongst them, but black or white are the most prevalent. It is not uncommon to see the long hair upon the ridge of the back, the tail, tuft upon the chest, and the legs below the knee white, when all the rest of the animal is jet black." A good drawing of "an enormous" Yak is to be found on p. 183 of Captain Wellby's _Unknown Tibet_. (See also Captain Deasy's work on _Tibet_, p. 363.) Prince Henri d'Orleans brought home a fine specimen, which he shot during his journey with Bonvalot; it is now exhibited in the galleries of the Museum d'Histoire Naturelle. Some Yaks were brought to Paris on the 1st April, 1854, and the celebrated artist, Mme. Rosa Bonheur, made sketches after them. (See _Jour. Soc. Acclimatation_, June, 1900, 39-40.)--H. C.]

Captain Prjevalsky, in his recent journey (1872-1873), shot twenty wild Yaks south of the Koko Nor. He specifies one as 11 feet in length exclusive of the tail, which was 3 feet more; the height 6 feet. He speaks of the Yak as less formidable than it looks, from apathy and stupidity, but very hard to kill; one having taken eighteen bullets before it succ.u.mbed.

[Mr. Rockhill (_Rubruck_, 151, note) writes: "The average load carried by a Yak is about 250 lbs. The wild Yak bull is an enormous animal, and the people of Turkestan and North Tibet credit him with extraordinary strength. Mirza Haidar, in the _Tarikhi Ras.h.i.+di_, says of the wild Yak or _kutas_: 'This is a very wild and ferocious beast. In whatever manner it attacks one it proves fatal. Whether it strikes with its horns, or kicks, or overthrows its victim. If it has no opportunity of doing any of these things, it tosses its enemy with its tongue twenty _gaz_ into the air, and he is dead before reaching the ground. One male _kutas_ is a load for twelve horses. One man cannot possibly raise a shoulder of the animal.'"

--Captain Deasy (_In Tibet_, 363) says: "In a few places on lofty ground in Tibet we found Yaks in herds numbering from ten to thirty, and sometimes more. Most of the animals are black, brown specimens being very rare. Their roving herds move with great agility over the steep and stony ground, apparently enjoying the snow and frost and wind, which seldom fail.... Yaks are capable of offering formidable resistance to the sportsman....'"--H.

C.]

The tame Yaks are never, I imagine, "caught young," as Marco says; it is a domesticated _breed_, though possibly, as with buffaloes in Bengal, the breed may occasionally be refreshed by a cross of wild blood. They are employed for riding, as beasts of burden, and in the plough. [Lieutenant S. Turner, l.c., says, on the other hand: "They are never employed in agriculture, but are extremely useful as beasts of burthen."--H. C.] In the higher parts of our Himalayan provinces, and in Tibet, the Yak itself is most in use; but in the less elevated tracts several breeds crossed with the common Indian cattle are more used. They have a variety of names according to their precise origin. The inferior Yaks used in the plough are ugly enough, and "have more the appearance of large s.h.a.ggy bears than of oxen," but the Yak used for riding, says Hoffmeister, "is an infinitely handsomer animal. It has a stately hump, a rich silky hanging tail nearly reaching the ground, twisted horns, a n.o.ble bearing, and an erect head."

Cunningham, too, says that the _Dso_, one of the mixed breeds, is "a very handsome animal, with long s.h.a.ggy hair, generally black and white." Many of the various tame breeds appear to have the tail and back white, and also the fringe under the body, but black and red are the prevailing colours. Some of the crossbred cows are excellent milkers, better than either parent stock.

Notice in this pa.s.sage the additional and interesting particulars given by Ramusio, e.g. the use of the mixed breeds. "Finer than silk," is an exaggeration, or say an _hyberbole_, as is the following expression, "As big as elephants," even with Ramusio's apologetic _quasi_. Caesar says the Hercynian Urus was _magnitudine paullo infra elephantos_.

The tame Yak is used across the breadth of Mongolia. Rubruquis saw them at Karakorum, and describes them well. Mr. Ney Elias tells me he found Yaks common everywhere along his route in Mongolia, between the Tui river (long. circa 101) and the upper valleys of the Kobdo near the Siberian frontier. At Uliasut'ai they were used occasionally by Chinese settlers for drawing carts, but he never saw them used for loads or for riding, as in Tibet. He has also seen Yaks in the neighbourhood of Kwei-hwa-ch'eng.

(_Tenduc_, see ch. lix. note 1.) This may be taken as the eastern limit of the employment of the Yak; the western limit is in the highlands of Khokand.

These animals had been noticed by Cosmas [who calls them _agriobous_] in the 6th century, and by Aelian in the 3rd. The latter speaks of them as black cattle with white tails, from which fly-flappers were made for Indian kings. And the great Kalidasa thus sang of the Yak, according to a learned (if somewhat rugged) version ascribed to Dr. Mill. The poet personifies the Himalaya:--

"For Him the large Yaks in his cold plains that bide Whisk here and there, playful, their tails' bushy pride, And evermore flapping those fans of long hair Which borrowed moonbeams have made splendid and fair, Proclaim at each stroke (what our flapping men sing) His t.i.tle of Honour, 'The Dread Mountain King.'"

Who can forget Pere Huc's inimitable picture of the hairy Yaks of their caravan, after pa.s.sing a river in the depth of winter, "walking with their legs wide apart, and bearing an enormous load of stalact.i.tes, which hung beneath their bellies quite to the ground. The monstrous beasts _looked exactly as if they were preserved in sugar-candy_." Or that other, even more striking, of a great troop of wild Yaks, caught in the upper waters of the Kin-sha Kiang, as they swam, in the moment of congelation, and thus preserved throughout the winter, gigantic "flies in amber."

(_N. et E._ XIV. 478; _J. As._ IX. 199; _J. A. S. B._ IX. 566, XXIV. 235; _Shaw_, p. 91; _Ladak_, p. 210; _Geog. Magazine_, April, 1874; _Hoffmeister's Travels_, p. 441; _Rubr._ 288; _Ael. de Nat. An._ XV. 14; _J. A. S. B._ I. 342; _Mrs. Sinnett's Huc_, pp. 228, 235.)

NOTE 4.--Ramusio adds that the hunters seek the animal at New Moon, at which time the musk is secreted.

The description is good except as to the _four_ tusks, for the musk deer has canine teeth only in the upper jaw, slender and prominent as he describes them. The flesh of the animal is eaten by the Chinese, and in Siberia by both Tartars and Russians, but that of the males has a strong musk flavour.

The "immense number" of these animals that existed in the Himalayan countries may be conceived from Tavernier's statement, that on one visit to Patna, then the great Indian mart for this article, he purchased 7673 pods of musk. These presumably came by way of Nepal; but musk pods of the highest cla.s.s were also imported from Khotan via Yarkand and Leh, and the lowest price such a pod fetched at Yarkand was 250 tankas, or upwards of 4_l._ This import has long been extinct, and indeed the trade in the article, except towards China, has altogether greatly declined, probably (says Mr. Hodgson) because its repute as a medicine is becoming fast exploded. In Sicily it is still so used, but apparently only as a sort of decent medical _viatic.u.m_, for when it is said "the Doctors have given him musk," it is as much as to say that they have given up the patient.

["Here Marco Polo speaks of musk; musk and rhubarb (which he mentions before, Sukchur, ch. xliii.) are the most renowned and valuable of the products of the province of Kansu, which comparatively produces very little; the industry in both these articles is at present in the hands of the Tanguts of that province [_Su chow chi_]." (_Palladius_, p. 18.)

Writing under date 15th February, 1892, from Lusar (coming from Sining), Mr. Rockhill says: "The musk trade here is increasing, Cantonese and Ssu-ch'uanese traders now come here to buy it, paying for good musk four times its weight in silver (_ssu huan_, as they say). The best test of its purity is an examination of the colour. The Tibetans adulterate it by mixing tsamba and blood with it. The best time to buy it is from the seventh to the ninth moon (latter part of August to middle of November)."

Mr. Rockhill adds in a note: "Mongols call musk _owo_; Tibetans call it _latse_. The best musk they say is 'white musk,' _tsahan owo_ in Mongol, in Tibetan _latse karpo_. I do not know whether white refers to the colour of the musk itself or to that of the hair on the skin covering the musk pouch." (_Diary of a Journey_, p. 71.)--H. C.]

Three species of the _Moschus_ are found in the Mountains of Tibet, and _M. Chrysogaster_ which Mr. Hodgson calls "the loveliest," and which chiefly supplies the highly-prized pod called _Kaghazi_, or "Thin-as-paper," is almost exclusively confined to the Chinese frontier.

Like the Yak, the _Moschus_ is mentioned by Cosmas (circa A.D. 545), and _musk_ appears in a Greek prescription by Aetius of Amida, a physician practising at Constantinople about the same date.

(_Martini_, p. 39; _Tav., Des Indes_, Bk. II. ch. xxiv.; _J. A. S. B._ XI.

285; _Davies's Rep._ App. p. ccx.x.xvii.; _Dr. Fluckiger in Schweiz.

Wochenschr. fur Pharmacie_, 1867; _Heyd, Commerce du Levant_, II.

636-640.)

NOTE 5.--The China pheasant answering best to the indications in the text, appears to be _Reeves's Pheasant_. Mr. Gould has identified this bird with Marco's in his magnificent _Birds of Asia_, and has been kind enough to show me a specimen which, with the body, measured 6 feet 8 inches. The tail feathers alone, however, are said to reach to 6 and 7 feet, so that Marco's ten palms was scarcely an exaggeration. These tail-feathers are often seen on the Chinese stage in the cap of the hero of the drama, and also decorate the hats of certain civil functionaries.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Reeves's Pheasant]

_Size_ is the point in which the bird fails to meet Marco's description.

In that respect the latter would rather apply to the _Crossoptilon auritum_, which is nearly as big as a turkey, or to the glorious _Munal (Lopophorus impeya.n.u.s)_, but then that has no length of tail. The latter seems to be the bird described by Aelian: "Magnificent c.o.c.ks which have the crest variegated and ornate like a crown of flowers, and the tail feathers not curved like a c.o.c.k's, but broad and carried in a train like a peac.o.c.k's; the feathers are partly golden, and partly azure or emerald-coloured." (_Wood's Birds_, 610, from which I have copied the ill.u.s.tration; _Williams, M. K._ I. 261; _Ael. De Nat. An._ XVI. 2.) A species of _Crossoptilon_ has recently been found by Captain Prjevalsky in Alashan, the Egrigaia (as I believe) of next chapter, and one also by Abbe Armand David at the Koko Nor.

[See on the Phasianidae family in Central and Western Asia, _David et Oustalet, Oiseaux de la Chine_, 401-421; the _Phasia.n.u.s Reevesii_ or _veneratus_ is called by the Chinese of Tung-lin, near Peking, _Djeu-ky_ (hen-arrow); the _Crossoptilon auritum_ is named _Ma-ky_.--H. C.]

CHAPTER LVIII.

OF THE KINGDOM OF EGRIGAIA.

Starting again from Erguiul you ride eastward for eight days, and then come to a province called EGRIGAIA, containing numerous cities and villages, and belonging to Tangut.[NOTE 1] The capital city is called CALACHAN.[NOTE 2] The people are chiefly Idolaters, but there are fine churches belonging to the Nestorian Christians. They are all subjects of the Great Kaan. They make in this city great quant.i.ties of camlets of camel's wool, the finest in the world; and some of the camlets that they make are white, for they have white camels, and these are the best of all.

Merchants purchase these stuffs here, and carry them over the world for sale.[NOTE 3]

We shall now proceed eastward from this place and enter the territory that was formerly Prester John's.

NOTE 1.--Chinghiz invaded Tangut in all five times, viz. in 1205, 1207, 1209 (or according to Erdmann, 1210-1211), 1218, and 1226-1227, on which last expedition he died.

A. In the third invasion, according to D'Ohsson's Chinese guide (Father Hyacinth), he took the town of _Uiraca_, and the fortress of Imen, and laid siege to the capital, then called Chung-sing or Chung-hing, now Ning-hsia.

Ras.h.i.+d, in a short notice of this campaign, calls the first city _Erica_, _Erlaca_, or, as Erdmann has it, _Artacki_. In De Mailla it is _Ulahai_.

B. On the last invasion (1226), D'Ohsson's Chinese authority says that Chinghiz took Kanchau and Suhchau, Cholo and Khola in the province of Liangcheu, and then proceeded to the Yellow River, and invested Lingchau, south of Ning-hsia.

Erdmann, following his reading of Ras.h.i.+duddin, says Chinghiz took the cities of Tangut, called _Arucki_, _Kachu_, _Sichu_, and _Kamichu_, and besieged Deresgai (D'Ohsson, _Derssekai_), whilst s.h.i.+dergu, the King of Tangut, betook himself to his capital _Artackin_.

D'Ohsson, also professing to follow Ras.h.i.+d, calls this "his capital _Irghai_, which the Mongols call _Ircaya_." Klaproth, ill.u.s.trating Polo, reads "Eyircai, which the Mongols call _Eyircaya_."

Petis de la Croix, relating the same campaign and professing to follow Fadlallah, i.e. Ras.h.i.+duddin, says the king "retired to his fortress of _Arbaca_."