The Travels of Marco Polo Volume I Part 86

C. Sanang Setzen several times mentions a city called _Irghai_, _apparently_ in Tangut; but all we can gather as to his position is that it seems to have lain east of Kanchau.

We perceive that the _Arbaca_ of P. de la Croix, the _Eyircai_ of Klaproth, the _Uiraca_ of D'Ohsson, the _Artacki_ or _Artackin_ of Erdmann, are all various readings or forms of the same name, and are the same with the Chinese form _Ulahai_ of De Mailla, and most probably the place is the _Egrigaia_ of Polo.

We see also that Erdmann mentions another place _Aruki_ ([Arabic]) in connection with Kanchau and Suhchau. This is, I suspect, the _Erguiul_ of Polo, and perhaps the Irghai of Sanang Setzen.

Ras.h.i.+duddin seems wrong in calling Ircaya the capital of the king, a circ.u.mstance which leads Klaproth to identify it with Ning-hsia. Pauthier, identifying Ulahai with Egrigaya, shows that the former was one of the circles of Tangut, but _not_ that of Ning-hsia. Its position, he says, is uncertain. Klaproth, however, inserts it in his map of Asia, in the era of Kublai (_Tabl. Hist._ pl. 22), as _Ulakhai_ to the north of Ning-hsia, near the great bend eastward of the Hw.a.n.g-Ho. Though it may have extended in this direction, it is probable, from the name referred to in next note, that Egrigaia or Ulahai is represented by the modern princ.i.p.ality of ALASHAN, visited by Prjevalsky in 1871 and 1872.

[New travels and researches enable me to say that there can be no doubt that _Egrigaia = Ning-hsia_. Palladius (l.c. 18) says: "_Egrigaia_ is Erigaia of the Mongol text. Klaproth was correct in his supposition that it is modern Ning-h'ia. Even now the Eleuths of Alashan call Ning-h'ia, _Yargai_. In M. Polo's time this department was famous for the cultivation of the Safflower (_carthamus tinctorius_). [_Siu t'ung kien_, A.D. 1292.]"

Mr. Rockhill (cf. his _Diary of a Journey_) writes to me that Ning-hsia is still called _Irge Khotun_ by Mongols at the present day. M. Bonin (_J.

As._, 1900. I. 585) mentions the same fact.

Palladius (19) adds: "_Erigaia_ is not to be confounded with _Urahai_, often mentioned in the history of Chingis Khan's wars with the Tangut kingdom. Urahai was a fortress in a pa.s.s of the same name in the Alashan Mountains. Chingis Khan spent five months there (an. 1208), during which he invaded and plundered the country in the neighbourhood. [_Si hia shu s.h.i.+._] The Alashan Mountains form a semicircle 500 _li_ in extent, and have over forty narrow pa.s.ses leading to the department of Ning-hia; the broadest and most practicable of these is now called Ch'i-mu-K'ow; it is not more than 80 feet broad. [_Ning hia ju chi._] It may be that the Urahai fortress existed near this pa.s.s."

"From Liang-chow fu, M. Polo follows a special route, leaving the modern postal route on his right; the road he took has, since the time of the Emperor K'ang-hi, been called the courier's route." (Palladius, 18.)--H.

C.]

NOTE 2.--_Calachan_, the chief town of Egrigaia, is mentioned, according to Klaproth, by Ras.h.i.+duddin, among the cities of Tangut, as KALAJaN. The name and approximate position suggest, as just noticed, ident.i.ty with Alashan, the modern capital of which, called by Prjevalsky Dyn-yuan-yin, stands some distance west of the Hw.a.n.g-Ho, in about lat. 39. Polo gives no data for the interval between this and his next stage.

[The _Dyn-yuan-yin_ of Prjevalsky is the camp of _Ting-yuan-yng_ or Fu-ma- fu of M. Bonin, the residence of the Si-w.a.n.g (western prince), of Alashan, an abbreviation of Alade-shan (_shan_, mountain in Chinese), Alade = Eleuth or Oelot; the sister of this prince married a son of Prince Tuan, the chief of the _Boxers_. (_La Geographie_, 1901. I. 118.) Palladius (l.c. 19) says: "Under the name of Calachan, Polo probably means the summer residence of the Tangut kings, which was 60 _li_ from Ning-hia, at the foot of the Alashan Mountains. It was built by the famous Tangut king Yuen-hao, on a large scale, in the shape of a castle, in which were high terraces and magnificent buildings. Traces of these buildings are visible to this day. There are often found coloured tiles and iron nails 1 foot, and even 2 feet long. The last Tangut kings made this place their permanent residence, and led there an indolent and sensual life. The Chinese name of this residence was Ho-lan shan _Li-Kung_. There is sufficient reason to suppose that this very residence is named (under the year 1226) in the Mongol text _Alashai nuntuh_; and in the chronicles of the Tangut Kingdom, _Halahachar_, otherwise _Halachar_ apparently in the Tangut language. Thus M. Polo's Calachan can be identified with the Halachar of the _Si hia shu s.h.i.+_, and can be taken to designate the Alashan residence of the Tangut kings."--H. C.]

NOTE 3.--Among the Buraets and Chinese at Kiakhta snow-white camels, without albino character, are often seen, and probably in other parts of Mongolia. (See _Erdmann_, II. 261.) Philostratus tells us that the King of Taxila furnished white camels to Apollonius. I doubt if the present King of Taxila, whom Anglo-Indians call the Commissioner of Rawal Pindi, could do the like.

_Cammellotti_ appear to have been fine woollen textures, by no means what are now called camlets, nor were they necessarily of camel's wool, for those of Angora goat's wool were much valued. M. Douet d'Arcq calls it "a fine stuff of wool approaching to our Cashmere, and sometimes of silk."

Indeed, as Mr. Marsh points out, the word is Arabic, and has nothing to do with _Camel_ in its origin; though it evidently came to be a.s.sociated therewith. _Khamlat_ is defined in F. Johnson's Dict.: "Camelot, silk and camel's hair; also all silk or velvet, especially pily and plushy," and _Khaml_ is "pile or plush." _Camelin_ was a different and inferior material. There was till recently a considerable import of different kinds of woollen goods from this part of China into Ladakh, Kashmir, and the northern Panjab. [Leaving Ning-hsia, Mr. Rockhill writes (_Diary_, 1892, 44): "We pa.s.sed on the road a cart with Jardine and Matheson's flag, coming probably from Chung-Wei Hsien, where camel's wool is sold in considerable quant.i.ties to foreigners. This trade has fallen off very much in the last three or four years on account of the Chinese middlemen rolling the wool in the dirt so as to add to its weight, and practising other tricks on buyers."--H. C.] Among the names of these were _Sling_, _s.h.i.+rum_, _Gurun_, and _Khoza_, said to be the names of the towns in China where the goods were made. We have supposed _Sling_ to be Sining (note 2, ch. lvii.), but I can make nothing of the others. Cunningham also mentions "camlets of camel's hair," under the name of _Suklat_, among imports from the same quarter. The term _Suklat_ is, however, applied in the _Panjab_ trade returns to _broadcloth_. Does not this point to the real nature of the _siclatoun_ of the Middle Ages? It is, indeed, often spoken of as used for banners, which implies that it was not a _heavy_ woollen:

"There was mony gonfanoun Of gold, sendel, and siclatoun."

(_King Alisaundre_, in Weber, I. 85.)

But it was also a material for ladies' robes, for quilts, leggings, housings, pavilions. Franc. Michel does not decide what it was, only that it was generally _red_ and wrought with gold. Dozy renders it "silk stuff brocaded with gold"; but this seems conjectural. Dr. Rock says it was a thin glossy silken stuff, often with a woof of gold thread, and seems to derive it from the Arabic sakl, "polis.h.i.+ng" (a sword), which is improbable. Perhaps the name is connected with _Sikiliyat_, "Sicily."

(_Marsh on Wedgwood_, and _on Webster_ in _N. Y. Nation_, 1867; _Douet D'Arcq_, p. 355; _Punjab Trade Rep._, App. ccxix.-xx.; _Ladak_, 242; _Fr.-Michel Rech._ I. 221 seqq.; _Dozy_, _Dict. des Vetements_, etc.; _Dr. Rock's Ken. Catal._ x.x.xix.-xl.)

CHAPTER LIX.

CONCERNING THE PROVINCE OF TENDUC, AND THE DESCENDANTS OF PRESTER JOHN.

Tenduc is a province which lies towards the east, and contains numerous towns and villages; among which is the chief city, also called TENDUC. The king of the province is of the lineage of Prester John, George by name, and he holds the land under the Great Kaan; not that he holds anything like the whole of what Prester John possessed.[NOTE 1] It is a custom, I may tell you, that these kings of the lineage of Prester John always obtain to wife either daughters of the Great Kaan or other princesses of his family.[NOTE 2]

In this province is found the stone from which Azure is made. It is obtained from a kind of vein in the earth, and is of very fine quality.[NOTE 3] There is also a great manufacture of fine camlets of different colours from camel's hair. The people get their living by their cattle and tillage, as well as by trade and handicraft.

The rule of the province is in the hands of the Christians, as I have told you; but there are also plenty of Idolaters and wors.h.i.+ppers of Mahommet.

And there is also here a cla.s.s of people called _Argons_, which is as much as to say in French _Guasmul_, or, in other words, sprung from two different races: to wit, of the race of the Idolaters of Tenduc and of that of the wors.h.i.+ppers of Mahommet. They are handsomer men than the other natives of the country, and having more ability, they come to have authority; and they are also capital merchants.[NOTE 4]

You must know that it was in this same capital city of Tenduc that Prester John had the seat of his government when he ruled over the Tartars, and his heirs still abide there; for, as I have told you, this King George is of his line, in fact, he is the sixth in descent from Prester John.

Here also is what _we_ call the country of GOG and MAGOG; _they_, however, call it UNG and MUNGUL, after the names of two races of people that existed in that Province before the migration of the Tartars. _Ung_ was the t.i.tle of the people of the country, and _Mungul_ a name sometimes applied to the Tartars.[NOTE 5]

And when you have ridden seven days eastward through this province you get near the provinces of Cathay. You find throughout those seven days'

journey plenty of towns and villages, the inhabitants of which are Mahommetans, but with a mixture also of Idolaters and Nestorian Christians. They get their living by trade and manufactures; weaving those fine cloths of gold which are called _Nasich_ and _Naques_, besides silk stuffs of many other kinds. For just as we have cloths of wool in our country, manufactured in a great variety of kinds, so in those regions they have stuffs of silk and gold in like variety.[NOTE 6]

All this region is subject to the Great Kaan. There is a city you come to called SINDACHU, where they carry on a great many crafts such as provide for the equipment of the Emperor's troops. In a mountain of the province there is a very good silver mine, from which much silver is got: the place is called YDIFU. The country is well stocked with game, both beast and bird.[NOTE 7]

Now we will quit that province and go three days' journey forward.

NOTE 1.--Marco's own errors led commentators much astray about Tanduc or Tenduc, till Klaproth put the matter in its true light.

Our traveller says that Tenduc had been the seat of Aung Khan's sovereignty; he has already said that it had been the scene of his final defeat, and he tells us that it was still the residence of his descendants in their reduced state. To the last piece of information he can speak as a witness, and he is corroborated by other evidence; but the second statement we have seen to be almost certainly erroneous; about the first we cannot speak positively.

Klaproth pointed out the true position of Tenduc in the vicinity of the great northern bend of the Hw.a.n.g-Ho, quoting Chinese authorities to show that _Thiante_ or _Thiante-Kiun_ was the name of a district or group of towns to the north of that bend, a name which he supposes to be the original of Polo's _Tenduc_. The general position entirely agrees with Marco's indications; it lies on his way eastward from Tangut towards Chagannor, and Shangtu (see ch. lx., lxi.), whilst in a later pa.s.sage (Bk.

II. ch. lxiv.), he speaks of the Caramoran or Hw.a.n.g-Ho in its lower course, as "coming from the lands of Prester John."

M. Pauthier finds severe fault with Klaproth's identification of the _name_ Tenduc with the Thiante of the Chinese, belonging to a city which had been destroyed 300 years before, whilst he himself will have that name to be a corruption of _Tathung_. The latter is still the name of a city and Fu of northern Shansi, but in Mongol time its circle of administration extended beyond the Chinese wall, and embraced territory on the left of the Hw.a.n.g-Ho, being in fact the first _Lu_, or circle, entered on leaving Tangut, and therefore, Pauthier urges, the "Kingdom of Tanduc" of our text.

I find it hard to believe that Marco could get no nearer TATHUNG than in the form of _Tanduc_ or _Tenduc_. The origin of the last may have been some Mongol name, not recovered. But it is at least conceivable that a name based on the old _Thiante-Kiun_ might have been retained among the Tartars, from whom, and not from the Chinese, Polo took his nomenclature.

Thiante had been, according to Pauthier's own quotations, the _military post of Tathung_; Klaproth cites a Chinese author of the Mongol era, who describes the Hw.a.n.g-Ho as pa.s.sing through _the territory of the ancient Chinese city of Thiante_; and Pauthier's own quotation from the Modern Imperial Geography seems to imply that a place in that territory was recently known as Fung-chau-_Thiante-Kiun_.

In the absence of preciser indications, it is reasonable to suppose that the Plain of Tenduc, with its numerous towns and villages, was the extensive and well-cultivated plain which stretches from the Hw.a.n.g-Ho, past the city of Kuku-Khotan, or "Blue Town." This tract abounds in the remains of cities attributed to the Mongol era. And it is not improbable that the city of Tenduc was Kuku-Khotan itself, now called by the Chinese Kwei-hwa Ch'eng, but which was known to them in the Middle Ages as _Tsing-chau_, and to which we find the Kin Emperor of Northern China sending an envoy in 1210 to demand tribute from Chinghiz. The city is still an important mart and a centre of Lamaitic Buddhism, being the residence of a _Khutukhtu_, or personage combining the characters of cardinal and voluntarily re-incarnate saint, as well as the site of five great convents and fifteen smaller ones. Gerbillon notes that Kuku Khotan had been a place of great trade and population during the Mongol Dynasty.

[The following evidence shows, I think, that we must look for the city of Tenduc to _Tou Ch'eng_ or _Toto Ch'eng_, called _Togto_ or _Tokto_ by the Mongols. Mr. Rockhill (_Diary_, 18) pa.s.sed through this place, and 5 _li_ south of it, reached on the Yellow River, Ho-k'ou (in Chinese) or Dugus or Dugei (in Mongol). Gerbillon speaks of Toto in his sixth voyage in Tartary. (_Du Halde_, IV. 345.) Mr. Rockhill adds that he cannot but think that Yule overlooked the existence of Togto when he identified Kwei-hwa Ch'eng with Tenduc. Tou Ch'eng is two days' march west of Kwei-hwa Ch'eng, "On the loess hill behind this place are the ruins of a large camp, Orch'eng, in all likelihood the site of the old town" (l.c. 18). M. Bonin (_J. As._ XV. 1900, 589) shares Mr. Rockhill's opinion. From Kwei-hwa Ch'eng, M. Bonin went by the valley of the Hei Shui River to the Hw.a.n.g Ho; at the junction of the two rivers stands the village of Ho-k'au (Ho-k'ou) south of the small town To Ch'eng, surmounted by the ruins of the old square Mongol stronghold of Tokto, the walls of which are still in a good state of preservation.--(_La Geographie_, I. 1901, p. 116.)

On the other hand, it is but fair to state that Palladius (21) says: "The name of Tenduc obviously corresponds to T'ien-te Kiun, a military post, the position of which Chinese geographers identify correctly with that of the modern Kuku-hoton (_Ta tsing y t'ung chi_, ch. on the Tumots of Kuku-hoton). The T'ien-te Kiun post existed under this name during the K'itan (Liao) and Kin Dynasties up to Khubilai's time (1267); when under the name of Fung-chow it was left only a district town in the department of Ta-t'ung fu. The Kin kept in T'ien-te Kiun a military chief, _Chao-t'ao- s.h.i.+_, whose duty it was to keep an eye on the neighbouring tribes, and to use, if needed, military force against them. The T'ien-te Kiun district was hardly greater in extent than the modern amak of Tumot, into which Kuku-hoton was included since the 16th century, i.e. 370 _li_ from north to south, and 400 _li_ from east to west; during the Kin it had a settled population, numbering 22,600 families."

In a footnote, Palladius refers to the geographical parts of the _Liao s.h.i.+, Kin s.h.i.+_, and _Yuen s.h.i.+_, and adds: "M. Polo's commentators are wrong in suspecting an anachronism in his statement, or trying to find Tenduc elsewhere."

We find in the _North-China Herald_ (29th April, 1887, p. 474) the following note from the _Chinese Times_: "There are records that the position of this city [Kwei-hwa Ch'eng] was known to the builder of the Great Wall. From very remote times, it appears to have been a settlement of nomadic tribes. During the last 1000 years it has been alternately possessed by the Mongols and Chinese. About A.D. 1573, Emperor Wan-Li reclaimed it, enclosed a s.p.a.ce within walls, and called it Kwei-hwa Ch'eng."

Potanin left Peking on the 13th May, 1884, for Kuku-khoto (or Kwei-hwa-Ch'eng), pa.s.sing over the triple chain of mountains dividing the Plain of Peking from that on which Kuku-khoto is situate. The southernmost of these three ridges bears the Chinese name of Wu-tai-shan, "the mountain of five sacrificial altars," after the group of five peaks, the highest of which is 10,000 feet above the sea, a height not exceeded by any mountain in Northern China. At its southern foot lies a valley remarkable for its Buddhist monasteries and shrines, one of which, "s.h.i.+ng-tung-tze," is entirely made of bra.s.s, whence its name.

"Kuku-Khoto is the depot for the Mongolian trade with China. It contains two hundred tea-shops, five theatres, fifteen temples, and six Mongol monasteries. Among its sights are the Buddhist convent of Uta.s.sa, with its five pinnacles and has-reliefs, the convent of Fing-sung-si, and a temple containing a statue erected in honour of the Chinese general, Pai-jin- jung, who avenged an insult offered to the Emperor of China." (_Proc. R.

G. S._ IX. 1887, p. 233.)--H. C.]

A pa.s.sage in Ras.h.i.+duddin does seem to intimate that the Kerait, the tribe of Aung Khan, _alias_ Prester John, did occupy territory close to the borders of Cathay or Northern China; but neither from Chinese nor from other Oriental sources has any ill.u.s.tration yet been produced of the existence of Aung Khan's descendants as rulers in this territory under the Mongol emperors. There is, however, very positive evidence to that effect supplied by other European travellers, to whom the fables prevalent in the West had made the supposed traces of Prester John a subject of strong interest.

Thus John of Monte Corvino, afterwards Archbishop of Cambaluc or Peking, in his letter of January, 1305, from that city, speaks of Polo's King George in these terms: "A certain king of this part of the world, by name George, belonging to the sect of the Nestorian Christians, and of the ill.u.s.trious lineage of that great king who was called Prester John of India, in the first year of my arrival here [circa 1295-1296] attached himself to me, and, after he had been converted by me to the verity of the Catholic faith, took the Lesser Orders, and when I celebrated ma.s.s used to attend me wearing his royal robes. Certain others of the Nestorians on this account accused him of apostacy, but he brought over a great part of his people with him to the true Catholic faith, and built a church of royal magnificence in honour of our G.o.d, of the Holy Trinity, and of our Lord, the Pope, giving it the name of _the Roman Church_. This King George, six years ago, departed to the Lord, a true Christian, leaving as his heir a son scarcely out of the cradle, and who is now nine years old.

And after King George's death, his brothers, perfidious followers of the errors of Nestorius, perverted again all those whom he had brought over to the Church, and carried them back to their original schismatical creed.

And being all alone, and not able to leave His Majesty the Cham, I could not go to visit the church above-mentioned, which is twenty days' journey distant.... I had been in treaty with the late King George, if he had lived, to translate the whole Latin ritual, that it might be sung throughout the extent of his territory; and whilst he was alive I used to celebrate ma.s.s in his church according to the Latin rite." The distance mentioned, twenty days' journey from Peking, suits quite well with the position a.s.signed to Tenduc, and no doubt the Roman Church was in the city to which Polo gives that name.

Friar Odoric, travelling from Peking towards Shensi, about 1326-1327, also visits the country of Prester John, and gives to its chief city the name of _Tozan_, in which perhaps we may trace _Tathung_. He speaks as if the family still existed in authority.

King George appears again in Marco's own book (Bk. IV. ch. ii.) as one of Kublai's generals against Kaidu, in a battle fought near Karakorum.

(_Journ. As._ IX. 299 seqq.; _D'Ohsson_, I. 123; _Huc's Tartary_, etc.

I. 55 seqq.; _Koeppen_, II. 381; _Erdmann's Temudschin_; _Gerbillon_ in _Astley_, IV. 670; _Cathay_, pp. 146 and 199 seqq.)