Chapter XII…

Chapter XII

HOW THE GREAT KAAN MAINTAINS A GUARD OF TWELVE THOUSAND HORSE, WHICH ARE CALLED KESHICAN.

You must know that the Great Kaan, to maintain his state, hath a guard of twelve thousand horsemen, who are styled KESHICAN, which is as much as to say “Knights devoted to their Lord.” Not that he keeps these for fear of any man whatever, but merely because of his own exalted dignity. These 12,000 men have four captains, each of whom is in command of 3000; and each body of 3000 takes a turn of three days and nights to guard the palace, where they also take their meals. After the expiration of three days and nights they are relieved by another 3000, who mount guard for the same space of time, and then another body takes its turn, so that there are always 3000 on guard. Thus it goes until the whole 12,000, who are styled (as I said) Keshican, have been on duty; and then the tour begins again, and so runs on from year’s end to year’s end.{1}

NOTE 1.—I have deduced a reading for the word Quescican (Keshican), which is not found precisely in any text. Pauthier reads Questiau and Quesitau; the G. Text has Quesitam and Quecitain; the Crusca Questi Tan; Ramusio, Casitan; the Riccardiana, Quescitam. Recollecting the constant clerical confusion between c and t, what follows will leave no doubt I think that the true reading to which all these variations point is Quescican.[1]

In the Institutes of Ghazan Khan, we find established among other formalities for the authentication of the royal orders, that they should be stamped on the back, in black ink, with the seals of the Four Commanders of the Four Kiziks, or Corps of the Life Guard.

Wassáf also, in detailing the different classes of the great dignitaries of the Mongol monarchy, names (1) the Noyáns of the Ulus, or princes of the blood; (2) the great chiefs of the tribes; (3) the Amírs of the four Keshik, or Corps of the Body Guard; (4) the officers of the army, commanding ten thousands, thousands, and so on.

Moreover, in Rashiduddin, we find the identical plural form used by our author. He says that, after the sack of Baghdad, Hulaku, who had escaped from the polluted atmosphere of the city, sent “Ilká Noyán and Ḳarábúgá, with 3000 Moghul horse into Baghdad, in order to have the buildings repaired, and to put things generally in order. These chiefs posted sentries from the KISHÍKÁN (كشي كان), and from their own followings in the different quarters of the town, had the carcases of beasts removed from the streets, and caused the bazaars to be rebuilt.”

We find Kishik still used at the court of Hindustan, under the great kings of Timur’s House, for the corps on tour of duty at the palace; and even for the sets of matchlocks and sabres, which were changed weekly from Akbar’s armoury for the royal use. The royal guards in Persia, who watch the king’s person at night, are termed Keshikchi, and their captain Keshikchi Bashi. [“On the night of the 11th of Jemady ul Sany, A.H. 1160 (or 8th June, 1747), near the city of Khojoon, three days’ journey from Meshed, Mohammed Kuly Khan Ardemee, who was of the same tribe with Nadir Shah, his relation, and Kushukchee Bashee, with seventy of the Kukshek or guard, ... bound themselves by an oath to assassinate Nadir Shah.” (Memoirs of Khojeh Abdulkurreem ... transl. by F. Gladwin, Calcutta, 1788, pp. 166–167).]

Friar Odoric speaks of the four barons who kept watch by the Great Kaan’s side as the Cuthé, which probably represents the Chinese form Kiesie (as in De Mailla), or Kuesie (as in Gaubil). The latter applies the term to four devoted champions of Chinghiz, and their descendants, who were always attached to the Kaan’s body-guard, and he identifies them with the Quesitan of Polo, or rather with the captains of the latter; adding expressly that the word Kuesie is Mongol.

I see Kishik is a proper name among the Kalmak chiefs; and Keshikten also is the name of a Mongol tribe, whose territory lies due north of Peking, near the old site of Shangtu. (Bk. I. ch. lxi.) [Keshikhteng, a tribe (pu; mong. aimak) of the Chao Uda League (mêng; mong. chogolgân) among the twenty-four tribes of the Nei Mung-ku (Inner Mongols). (See Mayers’ Chinese Government, p. 81.)—H. C.] In Kovalevsky, I find the following:—

(No. 2459) “Keshik, grace, favour, bounty, benefit, good fortune, charity.”

(No. 2461) “Keshikten, fortunate, happy, blessed.”

(No. 2541) “Kichyeku, to be zealous, assiduous, devoted.”

(No. 2588) “Kushiku, to hinder, to bar the way to,” etc.

The third of these corresponds closely with Polo’s etymology of “knights devoted to their lord,” but perhaps either the first or the last may afford the real derivation.

In spite of the different initials (ق instead of ک), it can scarcely be doubted that the Ḳalchi and Ḳalaḳchi of Timur’s Institutes are mere mistranscriptions of the same word, e.g.: “I ordered that 12,000 Ḳalchi, men of the sword completely armed, should be cantoned in the Palace; to the right and to the left, to the front, and in the rear of the imperial diwán; thus, that 1000 of those 12,000 should be every night upon guard,” etc. The translator’s note says of Ḳalchi, “A Mogul word supposed to mean guards.” We see that even the traditional number of 12,000, and its division into four brigades, are maintained. (See Timour’s Inst., pp. 299 and 235, 237.)

I must add that Professor Vámbéry does not assent to the form Keshikán, on the ground that this Persian plural is impossible in an old Tartar dialect, and he supposes the true word to be Kechilan or Kechiklen, “the night-watchers,” from Kiche or Kichek (Chag. and Uighúr), = “night.”

I believe, however, that Persian was the colloquial language of foreigners at the Kaan’s court, who would not scruple to make a Persian plural when wanted; whilst Rashid has exemplified the actual use of this one.

(D’Ohsson, IV. 410; Gold. Horde, 228, 238; Ilch. II. 184; Q. R. pp. 308–309; Ayeen Aḳb. I. 270, and Blochmann’s, p. 115; J. As. sér. IV. tom. xix. 276; Olearius, ed. 1659, I. 656; Cathay, 135; De Mailla, ix. 106; Gaubil, p. 6; Pallas, Samml. I. 35.)

[“By Keshican in Colonel Yule’s Marco Polo, Keshikten is evidently meant. This is a general Mongol term to designate the Khan’s lifeguard. It is derived from the word Keshik, meaning a guard by turns; a corps on tour of duty. Keshik is one of the archaisms of the Mongol language, for now this word has another meaning in Mongol. Colonel Yule has brought together several explanations of the term. It seems to me that among his suppositions the following is the most consistent with the ancient meaning of the word:—

“We find Kishik still used at the court of Hindustan, under the great kings of Timur’s House, for the corps on tour of duty at the palace.... The royal guards in Persia, who watch the King’s person at night, are termed Keshikchi.”

“The Keshikten was divided into a day-watch called Turgaut and a night-watch Kebteul. The Kebte-ul consisted of pure Mongols, whilst the Turgaut was composed of the sons of the vassal princes and governors of the provinces, and of hostages. The watch of the Khan was changed every three days, and contained 400 men. In 1330 it was reduced to 100 men.” (Palladius, 42–43.) Mr. E. H. Parker writes in the China Review, XVIII. p. 262, that they “are evidently the ‘body guards’ of the modern viceroys, now pronounced Kashïha, but, evidently, originally Kêshigha.” —H. C.]

---------------------------------------------------------------------- [1] One of the nearest readings is that of the Brandenburg Latin collated by Müller, which has Quaesicam.

Chapter XIII

THE FASHION OF THE GREAT KAAN’S TABLE AT HIS HIGH FEASTS.

And when the Great Kaan sits at table on any great court occasion, it is in this fashion. His table is elevated a good deal above the others, and he sits at the north end of the hall, looking towards the south, with his chief wife beside him on the left. On his right sit his sons and his nephews, and other kinsmen of the Blood Imperial, but lower, so that their heads are on a level with the Emperor’s feet. And then the other Barons sit at other tables lower still. So also with the women; for all the wives of the Lord’s sons, and of his nephews and other kinsmen, sit at the lower table to his right; and below them again the ladies of the other Barons and Knights, each in the place assigned by the Lord’s orders. The tables are so disposed that the Emperor can see the whole of them from end to end, many as they are.{1} [Further, you are not to suppose that everybody sits at table; on the contrary, the greater part of the soldiers and their officers sit at their meal in the hall on the carpets.] Outside the hall will be found more than 40,000 people; for there is a great concourse of folk bringing presents to the Lord, or come from foreign countries with curiosities.

In a certain part of the hall near where the Great Kaan holds his table, there [is set a large and very beautiful piece of workmanship in the form of a square coffer, or buffet, about three paces each way, exquisitely wrought with figures of animals, finely carved and gilt. The middle is hollow, and in it] stands a great vessel of pure gold, holding as much as an ordinary butt; and at each corner of the great vessel is one of smaller size [of the capacity of a firkin], and from the former the wine or beverage flavoured with fine and costly spices is drawn off into the latter. [And on the buffet aforesaid are set all the Lord’s drinking vessels, among which are certain pitchers of the finest gold,] which are called verniques,{2} and are big enough to hold drink for eight or ten persons. And one of these is put between every two persons, besides a couple of golden cups with handles, so that every man helps himself from the pitcher that stands between him and his neighbour. And the ladies are supplied in the same way. The value of these pitchers and cups is something immense; in fact, the Great Kaan has such a quantity of this kind of plate, and of gold and silver in other shapes, as no one ever before saw or heard tell of, or could believe.{3}

[There are certain Barons specially deputed to see that foreigners, who do not know the customs of the Court, are provided with places suited to their rank; and these Barons are continually moving to and fro in the hall, looking to the wants of the guests at table, and causing the servants to supply them promptly with wine, milk, meat, or whatever they lack. At every door of the hall (or, indeed, wherever the Emperor may be) there stand a couple of big men like giants, one on each side, armed with staves. Their business is to see that no one steps upon the threshold in entering, and if this does happen, they strip the offender of his clothes, and he must pay a forfeit to have them back again; or in lieu of taking his clothes, they give him a certain number of blows. If they are foreigners ignorant of the order, then there are Barons appointed to introduce them, and explain it to them. They think, in fact, that it brings bad luck if any one touches the threshold. Howbeit, they are not expected to stick at this in going forth again, for at that time some are like to be the worse for liquor, and incapable of looking to their steps.{4}]

And you must know that those who wait upon the Great Kaan with his dishes and his drink are some of the great Barons. They have the mouth and nose muffled with fine napkins of silk and gold, so that no breath nor odour from their persons should taint the dish or the goblet presented to the Lord. And when the Emperor is going to drink, all the musical instruments, of which he has vast store of every kind, begin to play. And when he takes the cup all the Barons and the rest of the company drop on their knees and make the deepest obeisance before him, and then the Emperor doth drink. But each time that he does so the whole ceremony is repeated.{5}

I will say nought about the dishes, as you may easily conceive that there is a great plenty of every possible kind. But you should know that in every case where a Baron or Knight dines at those tables, their wives also dine there with the other ladies. And when all have dined and the tables have been removed, then come in a great number of players and jugglers, adepts at all sorts of wonderful feats,{6} and perform before the Emperor and the rest of the company, creating great diversion and mirth, so that everybody is full of laughter and enjoyment. And when the performance is over, the company breaks up and every one goes to his quarters.

NOTE 1.—We are to conceive of rows of small tables, at each of which were set probably but two guests. This seems to be the modern Chinese practice, and to go back to some very old accounts of the Tartar nations. Such tables we find in use in the tenth century, at the court of the King of Bolghar (see Prologue, note 2, ch. ii.), and at the Chinese entertainments to Shah Rukh’s embassy in the fifteenth century. Megasthenes described the guests at an Indian banquet as having a table set before each individual. (Athenaeus, IV. 39, Yonge’s Transl.)

[Compare Rubruck’s account, Rockhill’s ed., p. 210: “The Chan sits in a high place to the north, so that he can be seen by all....” (See also Friar Odoric, Cathay, p. 141.)—H. C.]

NOTE 2.—This word (G. T. and Ram.) is in the Crusca Italian transformed into an adjective, “vaselle vernicate d’oro,” and both Marsden and Pauthier have substantially adopted the same interpretation, which seems to me in contradiction with the text. In Pauthier’s text the word is vernigal, pl. vernigaux, which he explains, I know not on what authority, as “coupes sans anses vernies ou laquées d’or.” There is, indeed, a Venetian sea-term, Vernegal, applied to a wooden bowl in which the food of a mess is put, and it seems possible that this word may have been substituted for the unknown Vernique. I suspect the latter was some Oriental term, but I can find nothing nearer than the Persian Bărni, Ar. Al-Bărníya, “vas fictile in quo quid recondunt,” whence the Spanish word Albornia, “a great glazed vessel in the shape of a bowl, with handles.” So far as regards the form, the change of Barniya into Vernique would be quite analogous to that change of Hundwáníy into Ondanique, which we have already met with. (See Dozy et Engelmann, Glos. des Mots Espagnols, etc., 2nd ed., 1867, p. 73; and Boerio, Diz. del. Dial. Venez.)

[F. Godefroy, Dict., s.v. Vernigal, writes: “Coupe sans anse, vernie ou laquée d’or,” and quotes, besides Marco Polo, the Regle du Temple, p. 214, éd. Soc. Hist. de France:

“Les vernigaus et les escuelles.”

About vernegal, cf. Rockhill, Rubruck, p. 86, note. Rubruck says (Soc. de Géog. p. 241): “Implevimus unum veringal de biscocto et platellum unum de pomis et aliis fructibus.” Mr. Rockhill translates veringal by basket.

Dr. Bretschneider (Peking, 28) mentions “a large jar made of wood and varnished, the inside lined with silver,” and he adds in a note “perhaps this statement may serve to explain Marco Polo’s verniques or vaselle vernicate d’oro, big enough to hold drink for eight or ten persons.”—H. C.]

A few lines above we have “of the capacity of a firkin.” The word is bigoncio, which is explained in the Vocab. Univ. Ital. as a kind of tub used in the vintage, and containing 3 mine, each of half a stajo. This seems to point to the Tuscan mina, or half stajo, which is = ⅓ of a bushel. Hence the bigoncio would = a bushel, or, in old liquid measure, about a firkin.

NOTE 3.—A buffet, with flagons of liquor and goblets, was an essential feature in the public halls or tents of the Mongols and other Asiatic races of kindred manners. The ambassadors of the Emperor Justin relate that in the middle of the pavilion of Dizabulus, the Khan of the Turks, there were set out drinking-vessels, and flagons and great jars, all of gold; corresponding to the coupes (or hanas à mances), the verniques, and the grant peitere and petietes peiteres of Polo’s account. Rubruquis describes in Batu Khan’s tent a buffet near the entrance, where Kumiz was set forth, with great goblets of gold and silver, etc., and the like at the tent of the Great Kaan. At a festival at the court of Oljaitu, we are told, “Before the throne stood golden buffets ... set out with full flagons and goblets.” Even in the private huts of the Mongols there was a buffet of a humbler kind exhibiting a skin of Kumiz, with other kinds of drink, and cups standing ready; and in a later age at the banquets of Sháh Abbás we find the great buffet in a slightly different form, and the golden flagon still set to every two persons, though it no longer contained the liquor, which was handed round. (Cathay, clxiv., cci.; Rubr. 224, 268, 305; Ilch. II. 183; Della Valle, I. 654 and 750–751.)

[Referring to the “large and very beautiful piece of workmanship,” Mr. Rockhill, Rubruck, 208–209, writes: “Similar works of art and mechanical contrivances were often seen in Eastern courts. The earliest I know of is the golden plane-tree and grape vine with bunches of grapes in precious stones, which was given to Darius by Pythius the Lydian, and which shaded the king’s couch. (Herodotus, IV. 24.) The most celebrated, however, and that which may have inspired Mangu with the desire to have something like it at his court, was the famous Throne of Solomon (Σολομώντεος Θρóνος) of the Emperor of Constantinople, Theophilus (A.D. 829–842).... Abulfeda states that in A.D. 917 the envoys of Constantine Porphyrogenitus to the Caliph el Moktader saw in the palace of Bagdad a tree with eighteen branches, some of gold, some of silver, and on them were gold and silver birds, and the leaves of the tree were of gold and silver. By means of machinery, the leaves were made to rustle and the birds to sing. Mirkhond speaks also of a tree of gold and precious stones in the city of Sultanieh, in the interior of which were conduits through which flowed drinks of different kinds. Clavijo describes a somewhat similar tree at the court of Timur.”

Dr. Bretschneider (Peking, 28, 29) mentions a clepsydra with a lantern. By means of machinery put in motion by water, at fixed times a little man comes forward exhibiting a tablet, which announces the hours. He speaks also of a musical instrument which is connected, by means of a tube, with two peacocks sitting on a cross-bar, and when it plays, the mechanism causes the peacocks to dance.—H. C.]

Odoric describes the great jar of liquor in the middle of the palace hall, but in his time it was made of a great mass of jade (p. 130).

NOTE 4.—This etiquette is specially noticed also by Odoric, as well as by Makrizi, by Rubruquis, and by Plano Carpini. According to the latter the breach of it was liable to be punished with death. The prohibition to tread on the threshold is also specially mentioned in a Mahomedan account of an embassy to the court of Barka Khan. And in regard to the tents, Rubruquis says he was warned not to touch the ropes, for these were regarded as representing the threshold. A Russo-Mongol author of our day says that the memory of this etiquette or superstition is still preserved by a Mongol proverb: “Step not on the threshold; it is a sin!” But among some of the Mongols more than this survives, as is evident from a passage in Mr. Michie’s narrative: “There is a right and a wrong way of approaching a yourt also. Outside the door there are generally ropes lying on the ground, held down by stakes, for the purpose of tying up the animals when they want to keep them together. There is a way of getting over or round these ropes that I never learned, but on one occasion the ignorant breach of the rule on our part excluded us from the hospitality of the family.” The feeling or superstition was in full force in Persia in the 17th century, at least in regard to the threshold of the king’s palace. It was held a sin to tread upon it in entering. (Cathay, 132; Rubr. 255, 268, 319; Plan. Carp. 625, 741; Makrizi, I. 214; Mél. Asiat. Ac. St. Petersb. II. 660; The Siberian Overland Route, p. 97; P. Della Valle, II. 171.)

[Mr. Rockhill writes (Rubruck, p. 104): “The same custom existed among the Fijians, I believe. I may note that it also prevailed in ancient China. It is said of Confucius ‘when he was standing he did not occupy the middle of the gate-way; when he passed in or out, he did not tread on the threshold.’ (Lun-yü, Bk. X. ch. iv. 2.) In China, the bride’s feet must not touch the threshold of the bridegroom’s house. (Cf. Dennys’ Folk-lore in China, p. 18.)

“The author of the Ch’ue keng lu mentions also the athletes with clubs standing at the door, at the time of the khan’s presence in the hall. He adds, that next to the Khan, two other life-guards used to stand, who held in their hands ‘natural’ axes of jade (axes found fortuitously in the ground, probably primitive weapons).” (Palladius, p. 43.)—H. C.]

NOTE 5.—Some of these etiquettes were probably rather Chinese than Mongol, for the regulations of the court of Kúblái apparently combined the two. In the visit of Shah Rukh’s ambassadors to the court of the Emperor Ch’êng Tsu of the Ming Dynasty in 1421, we are told that by the side of the throne, at an imperial banquet, “there stood two eunuchs, each having a band of thick paper over his mouth, and extending to the tips of his ears.... Every time that a dish, or a cup of darassun (rice-wine) was brought to the emperor, all the music sounded.” (N. et Ext. XIV. 408, 409.) In one of the Persepolitan sculptures, there stands behind the King an eunuch bearing a fan, and with his mouth covered; at least so says Heeren. (Asia, I. 178.)

NOTE 6.—“Jongleours et entregetours de maintes plusieurs manieres de granz experimenz” (P.); “de Giuculer et de Tregiteor” (G. T.). Ital. Tragettatore, a juggler; Romance, Trasjitar, Tragitar, to juggle. Thus Chaucer:—

“There saw I playing Jogelours, Magiciens, and Tragetours, And Phetonisses, Charmeresses, Old Witches, Sorceresses,” etc. —House of Fame, III. 169.

And again:—

“For oft at festes have I wel herd say, That Tregetoures, within an halle large, Have made come in a water and a barge, And in the halle rowen up and doun. Somtime hath semed come a grim leoun; • • • • • Somtime a Castel al of lime and ston, And whan hem liketh, voideth it anon.” —The Franklin’s Tale, II. 454.

Performances of this kind at Chinese festivities have already been spoken of in note 9 to ch. lxi. of Book I. Shah Rukh’s people, Odoric, Ysbrandt Ides, etc., describe them also. The practice of introducing such artistes into the dining-hall after dinner seems in that age to have been usual also in Europe. See, for example, Wright’s Domestic Manners, pp. 165–166, and the Court of the Emperor Frederic II., in Kington’s Life of that prince, I. 470. (See also N. et E. XIV. 410; Cathay, 143; Ysb. Ides, p. 95.)

Chapter XIV

CONCERNING THE GREAT FEAST HELD BY THE GRAND KAAN EVERY YEAR ON HIS BIRTHDAY.

You must know that the Tartars keep high festival yearly on their birthdays. And the Great Kaan was born on the 28th day of the September moon, so on that day is held the greatest feast of the year at the Kaan’s Court, always excepting that which he holds on New Year’s Day, of which I shall tell you afterwards.{1}

Now, on his birthday, the Great Kaan dresses in the best of his robes, all wrought with beaten gold;{2} and full 12,000 Barons and Knights on that day come forth dressed in robes of the same colour, and precisely like those of the Great Kaan, except that they are not so costly; but still they are all of the same colour as his, and are also of silk and gold. Every man so clothed has also a girdle of gold; and this as well as the dress is given him by the Sovereign. And I will aver that there are some of these suits decked with so many pearls and precious stones that a single suit shall be worth full 10,000 golden bezants.

And of such raiment there are several sets. For you must know that the Great Kaan, thirteen times in the year, presents to his Barons and Knights such suits of raiment as I am speaking of.{3} And on each occasion they wear the same colour that he does, a different colour being assigned to each festival. Hence you may see what a huge business it is, and that there is no prince in the world but he alone who could keep up such customs as these.

On his birthday also, all the Tartars in the world, and all the countries and governments that owe allegiance to the Kaan, offer him great presents according to their several ability, and as prescription or orders have fixed the amount. And many other persons also come with great presents to the Kaan, in order to beg for some employment from him. And the Great Kaan has chosen twelve Barons on whom is laid the charge of assigning to each of these supplicants a suitable answer.

On this day likewise all the Idolaters, all the Saracens, and all the Christians and other descriptions of people make great and solemn devotions, with much chaunting and lighting of lamps and burning of incense, each to the God whom he doth worship, praying that He would save the Emperor, and grant him long life and health and happiness.

And thus, as I have related, is celebrated the joyous feast of the Kaan’s birthday.{4}

Now I will tell you of another festival which the Kaan holds at the New Year, and which is called the White Feast.

NOTE 1.—The Chinese Year commences, according to Duhalde, with the New Moon nearest to the Sun’s Passage of the middle point of Aquarius; according to Pauthier, with the New Moon immediately preceding the Sun’s entry into Pisces. (These would almost always be identical, but not always.) Generally speaking, the first month will include part of February and part of March. The eighth month will then be September–October (v. ante, ch. ii. note 2).

[According to Dr. S. W. Williams (Middle Kingdom, II. p. 70): “The year is lunar, but its commencement is regulated by the sun. New Year falls on the first new moon after the sun enters Aquarius, which makes it come not before January 21st nor after February 19th.” “The beginning of the civil year, writes Peter Hoang (Chinese Calendar, p. 13), depends upon the good pleasure of the Emperors. Under the Emperor Hwang-ti (2697 B.C.) and under the Hsia Dynasty (2205 B.C.), it was made to commence with the 3rd month yin-yüeh [Pisces]; under the Shang Dynasty (1766 B.C.) with the 2nd month ch’ou-yüeh [Aquarius], and under the Chou Dynasty (1122 B.C.) with the 1st month tzu-yüeh [Capricorn].”—H. C.]

NOTE 2.—The expression “à or batuz” as here applied to robes, is common among the mediæval poets and romance-writers, e.g. Chaucer:—

“Full yong he was and merry of thought, And in samette with birdes wrought And with gold beaten full fetously, His bodie was clad full richely.” —Rom. of the Rose, 836–839.

M. Michel thinks that in a stuff so termed the gold wire was beaten out after the execution of the embroidery, a process which widened the metallic surface and gave great richness of appearance. The fact was rather, however, according to Dr. Rock, that the gold used in weaving such tissues was not wire but beaten sheets of gold cut into narrow strips. This would seem sufficient to explain the term “beaten gold,” though Dr. Rock in another passage refers it to a custom which he alleges of sewing goldsmith’s work upon robes. (Fr. Michel, Recherches, II. 389, also I. 371; Rock’s Catalogue, pp. xxv. xxix. xxxviii. cvi.)

NOTE 3.—The number of these festivals and distributions of dresses is thirteen in all the old texts, except the Latin of the Geog. Soc., which has twelve. Thirteen would seem therefore to have been in the original copy. And the Ramusian version expands this by saying, “Thirteen great feasts that the Tartars keep with much solemnity to each of the thirteen moons of the year.”[1] It is possible, however, that this latter sentence is an interpolated gloss; for, besides the improbability of munificence so frequent, Pauthier has shown some good reasons why thirteen should be regarded as an error for three. The official History of the Mongol Dynasty, which he quotes, gives a detail of raiment distributed in presents on great state occasions three times a year. Such a mistake might easily have originated in the first dictation, treize substituted for trois, or rather for the old form tres; but we must note that the number 13 is repeated and corroborated in ch. xvi. Odoric speaks of four great yearly festivals, but there are obvious errors in what he says on this subject. Hammer says the great Mongol Feasts were three, viz. New Year’s Day, the Kaan’s Birthday, and the Feast of the Herds.

Something like the changes of costume here spoken of is mentioned by Rubruquis at a great festival of four days’ duration at the court of Mangku Kaan: “Each day of the four they appeared in different raiment, suits of which were given them for each day of a different colour, but everything on the same day of one colour, from the boots to the turban.” So also Carpini says regarding the assemblies of the Mongol nobles at the inauguration of Kuyuk Kaan: “The first day they were all clad in white pourpre (? albis purpuris, see Bk. I. ch. vi. note 4), the second day in ruby pourpre, the third day in blue pourpre, the fourth day in the finest baudekins.” (Cathay, 141; Rubr. 368; Pl. Car. 755.)

[Mr. Rockhill (Rubruck, p. 247, note) makes the following remarks: “Odoric, however, says that the colours differed according to the rank. The custom of presenting khilats is still observed in Central Asia and Persia. I cannot learn from any other authority that the Mongols ever wore turbans. Odoric says the Mongols of the imperial feasts wore ‘coronets’ (in capite coronati).”—H. C.]

NOTE 4.—[“The accounts given by Marco Polo regarding the feasts of the Khan and the festival dresses at his Court, agree perfectly with the statements on the same subject of contemporary Chinese writers. Banquets were called in the common Mongol language chama, and festival dresses chisun. General festivals used to be held at the New Year and at the Birthday of the Khan. In the Mongol-Chinese Code, the ceremonies performed in the provinces on the Khan’s Birthday are described. One month before that day the civil and military officers repaired to a temple, where a service was performed to the Khan’s health. On the morning of the Birthday a sumptuously adorned table was placed in the open air, and the representatives of all classes and all confessions were obliged to approach the table, to prostrate themselves and exclaim three times: Wan-sui (i.e. ‘Ten thousand years’ life to the Khan). After that the banquet took place. In the same code (in the article on the Ye li ke un [Christians, Erke-un]) it is stated, that in the year 1304,—owing to a dispute, which had arisen in the province of Kiang-nan between the ho-shang (Buddhist priests) and the Christian missionaries, as to precedence in the above-mentioned ceremony,—a special edict was published, in which it was decided that in the rite of supplication, Christians should follow the Buddhist and Taouist priests.” (Palladius, pp. 44–45.)—H. C.]

---------------------------------------------------------------------- [1] There are thirteen months to the Chinese year in seven out of every nineteen.

[“This interval of 10 years comprises 235 lunar months, generally 125 long months of 30 days, 110 short months of 29 days, (but sometimes 124 long and 111 short months), and 7 intercalary months. The year of twelve months is called a common year, that of thirteen months, an intercalary year.” (P. Hoang, Chinese Calendar, p. 12. —H. C.)]

Chapter XV

OF THE GREAT FESTIVAL WHICH THE KAAN HOLDS ON NEW YEAR’S DAY.

The beginning of their New Year is the month of February, and on that occasion the Great Kaan and all his subjects made such a Feast as I now shall describe.

It is the custom that on this occasion the Kaan and all his subjects should be clothed entirely in white; so, that day, everybody is in white, men and women, great and small. And this is done in order that they may thrive all through the year, for they deem that white clothing is lucky.{1} On that day also all the people of all the provinces and governments and kingdoms and countries that own allegiance to the Kaan bring him great presents of gold and silver, and pearls and gems, and rich textures of divers kinds. And this they do that the Emperor throughout the year may have abundance of treasure and enjoyment without care. And the people also make presents to each other of white things, and embrace and kiss and make merry, and wish each other happiness and good luck for the coming year. On that day, I can assure you, among the customary presents there shall be offered to the Kaan from various quarters more than 100,000 white horses, beautiful animals, and richly caparisoned. [And you must know ’tis their custom in offering presents to the Great Kaan (at least when the province making the present is able to do so), to present nine times nine articles. For instance, if a province sends horses, it sends nine times nine or 81 horses; of gold, nine times nine pieces of gold, and so with stuffs or whatever else the present may consist of.]{2}

On that day also, the whole of the Kaan’s elephants, amounting fully to 5000 in number, are exhibited, all covered with rich and gay housings of inlaid cloth representing beasts and birds, whilst each of them carries on his back two splendid coffers; all of these being filled with the Emperor’s plate and other costly furniture required for the Court on the occasion of the White Feast.{3} And these are followed by a vast number of camels which are likewise covered with rich housings and laden with things needful for the Feast. All these are paraded before the Emperor, and it makes the finest sight in the world.

Moreover, on the morning of the Feast, before the tables are set, all the Kings, and all the Dukes, Marquesses, Counts, Barons, Knights, and Astrologers, and Philosophers, and Leeches, and Falconers, and other officials of sundry kinds from all the places round about, present themselves in the Great Hall before the Emperor; whilst those who can find no room to enter stand outside in such a position that the Emperor can see them all well. And the whole company is marshalled in this wise. First are the Kaan’s sons, and his nephews, and the other Princes of the Blood Imperial; next to them all Kings; then Dukes, and then all others in succession according to the degree of each. And when they are all seated, each in his proper place, then a great prelate rises and says with a loud voice: “Bow and adore!” And as soon as he has said this, the company bow down until their foreheads touch the earth in adoration towards the Emperor as if he were a god. And this adoration they repeat four times, and then go to a highly decorated altar, on which is a vermilion tablet with the name of the Grand Kaan inscribed thereon, and a beautiful censer of gold. So they incense the tablet and the altar with great reverence, and then return each man to his seat.{4}

When all have performed this, then the presents are offered, of which I have spoken as being so rich and costly. And after all have been offered and been seen by the Emperor, the tables are set, and all take their places at them with perfect order as I have already told you. And after dinner the jugglers come in and amuse the Court as you have heard before; and when that is over, every man goes to his quarters.

NOTE 1.—The first month of the year is still called by the Mongols Chaghan or Chaghan Sara, “the White” or the “White Month”; and the wearing of white clothing on this festive occasion must have been purely a Mongol custom. For when Shah Rukh’s ambassadors were present at the New Year’s Feast at the Court of the succeeding Chinese Dynasty (2nd February, 1421) they were warned that no one must wear white, as that among the Chinese was the colour of mourning. (Koeppen, I. 574, II. 309; Cathay, p. ccvii.)

NOTE 2.—On the mystic importance attached to the number 9 on all such occasions among the Mongols, see Hammer’s Golden Horde, p. 208; Hayton, ch. iii. in Ramusio II.; Not. et Ext. XIV. Pt. I. 32; and Strahlenberg (II. 210 of Amsterd. ed. 1757). Vámbéry, speaking of the Ḳálín or marriage price among the Uzbegs, says: “The question is always how many times nine sheep, cows, camels, or horses, or how many times nine ducats (as is the custom in a town), the father is to receive for giving up his daughter.” (Sketches of Cent. Asia, p. 103.) Sheikh Ibrahim of Darband, making offerings to Timur, presented nines of everything else, but of slaves eight only. “Where is the ninth?” enquired the court official. “Who but I myself?” said the Sheikh, and so won the heart of Timur. (A. Arabsiadis ... Timuri Hist. p. 357.)

NOTE 3.—The elephant stud of the Son of Heaven had dwindled till in 1862 Dr. Rennie found but one animal; now none remain. [Dr. S. W. Williams writes (Middle Kingdom, I. pp. 323–324): “Elephants are kept at Peking for show, and are used to draw the state chariot when the Emperor goes to worship at the Altars of Heaven and Earth, but the sixty animals seen in the days of Kienlung, by Bell, have since dwindled to one or two. Van Braam met six going into Peking, sent thither from Yun-Nan.” These were no doubt carrying tribute from Burmah.—H. C.] It is worth noticing that the housings of cut cloth or appliqué work (“draps entaillez”) are still in fashion in India for the caparison of elephants.

NOTE 4.—In 1263 Kúblái adopted the Chinese fashion of worshipping the tablets of his own ancestors, and probably at the same time the adoration of his own tablet by his subjects was introduced. Van Braam ingenuously relates how he and the rest of the Dutch Legation of 1794 performed the adoration of the Emperor’s Tablet on first entering China, much in the way described in the text.

There is a remarkable amplification in the last paragraph of the chapter as given by Ramusio: “When all are in their proper places, a certain great personage, or high prelate as it were, gets up and says with a loud voice: ‘Bow yourselves and adore!’ On this immediately all bend and bow the forehead to the ground. Then the prelate says again: ‘God save and keep our Lord the Emperor, with length of years and with mirth and happiness.’ And all answer: ‘So may it be!’ And then again the prelate says: ‘May God increase and augment his Empire and its prosperity more and more, and keep all his subjects in peace and goodwill, and may all things go well throughout his Dominion!’ And all again respond: ‘So may it be!’ And this adoration is repeated four times.”

One of Pauthier’s most interesting notes is a long extract from the official Directory of Ceremonial under the Mongol Dynasty, which admirably illustrates the chapters we have last read. I borrow a passage regarding this adoration: “The Musician’s Song having ceased, the Ministers shall recite with a loud voice the following Prayer: ‘Great Heaven, that extendest over all! Earth which art under the guidance of Heaven! We invoke You and beseech You to heap blessings upon the Emperor and the Empress! Grant that they may live ten thousand, a hundred thousand years!’

“Then the first Chamberlain shall respond: ‘May it be as the prayer hath said!’ The Ministers shall then prostrate themselves, and when they rise return to their places, and take a cup or two of wine.”

The K’o-tow (Khéu-théu) which appears repeatedly in this ceremonial and which in our text is indicated by the four prostrations, was, Pauthier alleges, not properly a Chinese form, but only introduced by the Mongols. Baber indeed speaks of it as the Ḳornish, a Moghul ceremony, in which originally “the person who performed it kneeled nine times and touched the earth with his brow each time.” He describes it as performed very elaborately (nine times twice) by his younger uncle in visiting the elder. But in its essentials the ceremony must have been of old date at the Chinese Court; for the Annals of the Thang Dynasty, in a passage cited by M. Pauthier himself,[1] mention that ambassadors from the famous Hárún ar Rashíd in 798 had to perform the “ceremony of kneeling and striking the forehead against the ground.” And M. Pauthier can scarcely be right in saying that the practice was disused by the Ming Dynasty and only reintroduced by the Manchus; for in the story of Shah Rukh’s embassy the performance of the K’o-tow occurs repeatedly.

[“It is interesting to note,” writes Mr. Rockhill (Rubruck, p. 22), “that in A.D. 981 the Chinese Envoy, Wang Yen-tê, sent to the Uigur Prince of Kao-chang, refused to make genuflexions (pai) to him, as being contrary to the established usages as regards envoys. The prince and his family, however, on receiving the envoy, all faced eastward (towards Peking) and made an obeisance (pai) on receiving the imperial presents (shou-tzŭ).” (Ma Twan-lin, Bk. 336, 13.)—H. C.]

(Gaubil, 142; Van Braam, I. 20–21; Baber, 106; N. et E. XIV. Pt. I. 405, 407, 418.)

The enumeration of four prostrations in the text is, I fancy, quite correct. There are several indications that this number was used instead of the three times three of later days. Thus Carpini, when introduced to the Great Kaan, “bent the left knee four times.” And in the Chinese bridal ceremony of “Worshipping the Tablets,” the genuflexion is made four times. At the court of Sháh Abbás an obeisance evidently identical was repeated four times. (Carp. 759; Doolittle, p. 60; P. Della Valle, I. 646.)

---------------------------------------------------------------------- [1] Gaubil, cited in Pauthier’s Hist. des Relations Politiques de la Chine, etc., p. 226.

Chapter XVI

CONCERNING THE TWELVE THOUSAND BARONS WHO RECEIVE ROBES OF CLOTH OF GOLD FROM THE EMPEROR ON THE GREAT FESTIVALS, THIRTEEN CHANGES A-PIECE.

Now you must know that the Great Kaan hath set apart 12,000 of his men who are distinguished by the name of Keshican, as I have told you before; and on each of these 12,000 Barons he bestows thirteen changes of raiment, which are all different from one another: I mean that in one set the 12,000 are all of one colour; the next 12,000 of another colour, and so on; so that they are of thirteen different colours. These robes are garnished with gems and pearls and other precious things in a very rich and costly manner.{1} And along with each of these changes of raiment, i.e. 13 times in the year, he bestows on each of those 12,000 Barons a fine golden girdle of great richness and value, and likewise a pair of boots of Camut, that is to say of Borgal, curiously wrought with silver thread; insomuch that when they are clothed in these dresses every man of them looks like a king!{2} And there is an established order as to which dress is to be worn at each of those thirteen feasts. The Emperor himself also has his thirteen suits corresponding to those of his Barons; in colour, I mean (though his are grander, richer, and costlier), so that he is always arrayed in the same colour as his Barons, who are, as it were, his comrades. And you may see that all this costs an amount which it is scarcely possible to calculate.

Now I have told you of the thirteen changes of raiment received from the Prince by those 12,000 Barons, amounting in all to 156,000 suits of so great cost and value, to say nothing of the girdles and the boots which are also worth a great sum of money. All this the Great Lord hath ordered, that he may attach the more of grandeur and dignity to his festivals.

And now I must mention another thing that I had forgotten, but which you will be astonished to learn from this Book. You must know that on the Feast Day a great Lion is led to the Emperor’s presence, and as soon as it sees him it lies down before him with every sign of the greatest veneration, as if it acknowledged him for its lord; and it remains there lying before him, and entirely unchained. Truly this must seem a strange story to those who have not seen the thing!{3}

NOTE 1.—On the Keshican, see note 1 to chap. xii., and on the changes of raiment note 3 to chap. xiv., and the remarks there as to the number of distributions. I confess that the stress laid upon the number 13 in this chapter makes the supposition of error more difficult. But there is something odd and unintelligible about the whole of the chapter except the last paragraph. For the 12,000 Keshican are here all elevated to Barons; and at the same time the statement about their changes of raiment seems to be merely that already made in chapter xiv. This repetition occurs only in the French MSS., but as it is in all these we cannot reject it.

NOTE 2.—The words Camut and Borgal appear both to be used here for what we call Russia-Leather. The latter word in one form or another, Bolghár, Borgháli, or Bulkál, is the term applied to that material to this day nearly all over Asia. Ibn Batuta says that in travelling during winter from Constantinople to the Wolga he had to put on three pairs of boots, one of wool (which we should call stockings), a second of wadded linen, and a third of Borgháli, “i.e. of horse-leather lined with wolf-skin.” Horse-leather seems to be still the favourite material for boots among all the Tartar nations. The name was undoubtedly taken from Bolghar on the Wolga, the people of which are traditionally said to have invented the art of preparing skins in that manner. This manufacture is still one of the staple trades of Kazan, the city which in position and importance is the nearest representative of Bolghar now.

Camut is explained by Klaproth to be “leather made from the back-skin of a camel.” It appears in Johnson’s Persian Dictionary as Kámú, but I do not know from what language it originally comes. The word is in the Latin column of the Petrarchian Vocabulary with the Persian rendering Sagri. This shows us what is meant, for Saghrí is just our word Shagreen, and is applied to a fine leather granulated in that way, which is much used for boots and the like by the people of Central Asia. [In Turkish ṣāghri or saghri is the name both for the buttocks of a horse and the leather called shagreen prepared with them. (See Devic, Dict. Étym.)—H. C.] In the commercial lists of our Indian north-west frontier we find as synonymous Saghri or Kímukht, “Horse or Ass-hide.” No doubt this latter word is a form of Kámú or Camut. It appears (as Keimukht, “a sort of leather”) in a detail of imports to Aden given by Ibn al Wardi, a geographer of the 13th century.

Instead of Camut, Ramusio has Camoscia, i.e. Chamois, and the same seems to be in all the editions based on Fra Pipino’s version. It may be a misrendering of camutum or camutium; or is there any real connexion between the Oriental Kámú Kímukht, and the Italian camoscia? (I. B. II. 445; Klapr. Mém. vol. III.; Davies’s Trade Report, App. p. ccxx.; Vámbéry’s Travels, 423; Not. et Ext. II. 43.)

Fraehn (writing in 1832) observes that he knew no use of the word Bolghár, in the sense of Russian leather, older than the 17th century. But we see that both Marco and Ibn Batuta use it. (F. on the Wolga Bulghars, pp. 8–9.)

Pauthier in a note (p. 285) gives a list of the garments issued to certain officials on these ceremonial occasions under the Mongols, and sure enough this list includes “pairs of boots in red leather.” Odoric particularly mentions the broad golden girdles worn at the Kaan’s court.

[La Curne, Dict., has Bulga, leather bag; old Gallic word from which are derived bouge et bougete, bourse; he adds in a note, “Festus writes: ‘Bulgas galli sacculos scorteos vocant.’”—H. C.]

NOTE 3.—“Then come mummers leading lions, which they cause to salute the Lord with reverence.” (Odoric, p. 143.) A lion sent by Mirza Baisangar, one of the Princes of Timur’s House, accompanied Shah Rukh’s embassy as a present to the Emperor; and like presents were frequently repeated. (See Amyot, XIV. 37, 38.)

Chapter XVII

HOW THE GREAT KAAN ENJOINETH HIS PEOPLE TO SUPPLY HIM WITH GAME.

The three months of December, January, and February, during which the Emperor resides at his Capital City, are assigned for hunting and fowling, to the extent of some 40 days’ journey round the city; and it is ordained that the larger game taken be sent to the Court. To be more particular: of all the larger beasts of the chase, such as boars, roebucks, bucks, stags, lions, bears, etc., the greater part of what is taken has to be sent, and feathered game likewise. The animals are gutted and despatched to the Court on carts. This is done by all the people within 20 or 30 days’ journey, and the quantity so despatched is immense. Those at a greater distance cannot send the game, but they have to send the skins after tanning them, and these are employed in the making of equipments for the Emperor’s army.{1}

NOTE 1.—So Magaillans: “Game is so abundant, especially at the capital, that every year during the three winter months you see at different places, intended for despatch thither, besides great piles of every sort of wildfowl, rows of four-footed game of a gunshot or two in length: the animals being all frozen and standing on their feet. Among other species you see three sundry kinds of bears ... and great abundance of other animals, as stags and deer of different sorts, boars, elks, hares, rabbits, squirrels, wild-cats, rats, geese, ducks, very fine jungle-fowl, etc., and all so cheap that I never could have believed it” (pp. 177–178). As this writer mentions wild-cats, we may presume that the “lions” of Polo also were destined to be eaten.

[“Kubilai Khan kept a whole army, 14,000 men, huntsmen, distributed in Peking and other cities in the present province of Chili (Yuen-shi). The Khan used to hunt in the Peking plain from the beginning of spring, until his departure to Shang-tu. There are in the Peking department many low and marshy places, stretching often to a considerable extent and abounding in game. In the biography of Ai-sie (Yuen shi, chap. cxxxiv.), who was a Christian, it is mentioned that Kubilai was hunting also in the department of Pao-ting fu.” (Palladius, p. 45.)—H. C.]

Chapter XVIII

OF THE LIONS AND LEOPARDS AND WOLVES THAT THE KAAN KEEPS FOR THE CHASE.

The Emperor hath numbers of leopards{1} trained to the chase, and hath also a great many lynxes taught in like manner to catch game, and which afford excellent sport.{2} He hath also several great Lions, bigger than those of Babylonia, beasts whose skins are coloured in the most beautiful way, being striped all along the sides with black, red, and white. These are trained to catch boars and wild cattle, bears, wild asses, stags, and other great or fierce beasts. And ’tis a rare sight, I can tell you, to see those lions giving chase to such beasts as I have mentioned! When they are to be so employed the Lions are taken out in a covered cart, and every Lion has a little doggie with him. [They are obliged to approach the game against the wind, otherwise the animals would scent the approach of the Lion and be off.]{3}

There are also a great number of eagles, all broken to catch wolves, foxes, deer, and wild goats, and they do catch them in great numbers. But those especially that are trained to wolf-catching are very large and powerful birds, and no wolf is able to get away from them.{4}

NOTE 1.—The Cheeta or Hunting-Leopard, still kept for the chase by native noblemen in India, is an animal very distinct from the true leopard. It is much more lanky and long-legged than the pure felines, is unable to climb trees, and has claws only partially retractile. Wood calls it a link between the feline and canine races. One thousand Cheetas were attached to Akbar’s hunting establishment; and the chief one, called Semend-Manik, was carried to the field in a palankin with a kettledrum beaten before him. Boldensel in the first half of the 14th century speaks of the Cheeta as habitually used in Cyprus; but, indeed, a hundred years before, these animals had been constantly employed by the Emperor Frederic II. in Italy, and accompanied him on all his marches. They were introduced into France in the latter part of the 15th century, and frequently employed by Lewis XI., Charles VIII., and Lewis XII. The leopards were kept in a ditch of the Castle of Amboise, and the name still borne by a gate hard by, Porte des Lions, is supposed to be due to that circumstance. The Mœurs et Usages du Moyen Age (Lacroix), from which I take the last facts, gives copy of a print by John Stradanus representing a huntsman with the leopard on his horse’s crupper, like Kúblái’s (supra, Bk. I. ch. lxi.); Frederic II. used to say of his Cheetas, “they knew how to ride.” This way of taking the Cheeta to the field had been first employed by the Khalif Yazid, son of Moáwiyah. The Cheeta often appears in the pattern of silk damasks of the 13th and 14th centuries, both Asiatic and Italian. (Ayeen Akbery, I. 304, etc.; Boldensel, in Canisii Thesaurus, by Basnage, vol. IV. p. 339; Kington’s Fred. II. I. 472, II. 156; Bochart, Hierozoica, 797; Rock’s Catalogue, passim.)

[The hunting equipment of the Sultan consisted of about thirty falconers on horseback who carried each a bird on his fist. These falconers were in front of seven horsemen, who had behind a kind of tamed tiger at times employed by His Highness for hare-hunting, notwithstanding what may be said to the contrary by those who are inclined not to believe the fact. It is a thing known by everybody here, and cannot be doubted except by those who admit that they believe nothing of foreign customs. These tigers were each covered with a brocade cloth—and their peaceful attitude, added to their ferocious and savage looks, caused at the same time astonishment and fear in the soul of those whom they looked upon. (Journal d’Antoine Galland, trad. par Ch. Schefer, I. p. 135.) The Cheeta (Gueparda jubata) was, according to Sir W. Jones, first employed in hunting antelopes by Hushing, King of Persia, 865 B.C.—H. C.]

NOTE 2.—The word rendered Lynxes is Leu cervers (G. Text), Louz serviers of Pauthier’s MS. C, though he has adopted from another Loups simply, which is certainly wrong. The Geog. Latin has “Linceos i.e. lupos cerverios.” There is no doubt that the Loup-cervier is the Lynx. Thus Brunetto Latini, describing the Loup-cervier, speaks of its remarkable powers of vision, and refers to its agency in the production of the precious stone called Liguire (i.e. Ligurium), which the ancients fancied to come from Lync-urium; the tale is in Theophrastus. Yet the quaint Bestiary of Philip de Thaun, published by Mr. Wright, identifies it with the Greek Hyena:—

“Hyena e Griu num, que nus beste apellum, Ceo est Lucervere, oler fait et mult est fere.”

[The Abbé Armand David writes (Missions Cathol. XXI. 1889, p. 227) that there is in China, from the mountains of Manchuria to the mountains of Tibet, a lynx called by the Chinese T’u-pao (earth-coloured panther); a lynx somewhat similar to the loup-cervier is found on the western border of China, and has been named Lyncus Desgodinsi.—H. C.]

Hunting Lynxes were used at the Court of Akbar. They are also mentioned by A. Hamilton as so used in Sind at the end of the 17th century. This author calls the animal a Shoe-goose! i.e. Siya-gosh (Black-ear), the Persian name of the Lynx. It is still occasionally used in the chase by natives of rank in India. (Brunetto Lat. Tresor, p. 248; Popular Treatises on Science written during Mid. Ages, 94; Ayeen Akbery, u.s.; Hamilt. E. Indies, I. 125; Vigne, I. 42.)

NOTE 3.—The conception of a Tiger seems almost to have dropped out of the European mind during the Middle Ages. Thus in a mediæval Bestiary, a chapter on the Tiger begins: “Une Beste est qui est apelée Tigre c’est une manière de Serpent.” Hence Polo can only call the Tigers, whose portrait he draws here not incorrectly, Lions. So also nearly 200 years later Barbaro gives a like portrait, and calls the animal Leonza. Marsden supposes judiciously that the confusion may have been promoted by the ambiguity of the Persian Sher.

The Chinese pilgrim, Sung-Yun (A.D. 518), saw two young lions at the Court of Gandhára. He remarks that the pictures of these animals common in China, were not at all good likenesses. (Beal, p. 200.)

We do not hear in modern times of Tigers trained to the chase, but Chardin says of Persia: “In hunting the larger animals they make use of beasts of prey trained for the purpose, lions, leopards, tigers, panthers, ounces.”

NOTE 4.—This is perfectly correct. In Eastern Turkestan, and among the Kirghiz to this day, eagles termed Búrgút (now well known to be the Golden Eagle) are tamed and trained to fly at wolves, foxes, deer, wild goats, etc. A Kirghiz will give a good horse for an eagle in which he recognises capacity for training. Mr. Atkinson gives vivid descriptions and illustrations of this eagle (which he calls “Bear coote”), attacking both deer and wolves. He represents the bird as striking one claw into the neck, and the other into the back of its large prey, and then tearing out the liver with its beak. In justice both to Marco Polo and to Mr. Atkinson, I have pleasure in adding a vivid account of the exploits of this bird, as witnessed by one of my kind correspondents, the Governor-General’s late envoy to Kashgar. And I trust Sir Douglas Forsyth will pardon my quoting his own letter just as it stands[1]:—“Now for a story of the Burgoot—Atkinson’s ‘Bearcoote.’ I think I told you it was the Golden Eagle and supposed to attack wolves and even bears. One day we came across a wild hog of enormous size, far bigger than any that gave sport to the Tent Club in Bengal. The Burgoot was immediately let loose, and went straight at the hog, which it kicked, and flapped with its wings, and utterly flabbergasted, whilst our Kashgaree companions attacked him with sticks and brought him to the ground. As Friar Odoric would say, I, T. D. F., have seen this with mine own eyes.”—Shaw describes the rough treatment with which the Búrgút is tamed. Baber, when in the Bajaur Hills, notices in his memoirs: “This day Búrgút took a deer.” (Timkowski, I. 414; Levchine, p. 77; Pallas, Voyages, I. 421; J. R. A. S. VII. 305; Atkinson’s Siberia, 493; and Amoor, 146–147; Shaw, p. 157; Baber, p. 249.)

[The Golden Eagle (Aquila chrysaetus) is called at Peking Hoy tiao (black eagle). (David et Oustalet, Oiseaux de la Chine, p. 8.)—H. C.]

---------------------------------------------------------------------- [1] Dated Yangi Hissar, 10th April, 1874.

Chapter XIX

CONCERNING THE TWO BROTHERS WHO HAVE CHARGE OF THE KAAN’S HOUNDS.

The Emperor hath two Barons who are own brothers, one called Baian and the other Mingan; and these two are styled Chinuchi (or Cunichi), which is as much as to say, “The Keepers of the Mastiff Dogs.”{1} Each of these brothers hath 10,000 men under his orders; each body of 10,000 being dressed alike, the one in red and the other in blue, and whenever they accompany the Lord to the chase, they wear this livery, in order to be recognized. Out of each body of 10,000 there are 2000 men who are each in charge of one or more great mastiffs, so that the whole number of these is very large. And when the Prince goes a-hunting, one of those Barons, with his 10,000 men and something like 5000 dogs, goes towards the right, whilst the other goes towards the left with his party in like manner. They move along, all abreast of one another, so that the whole line extends over a full day’s journey, and no animal can escape them. Truly it is a glorious sight to see the working of the dogs and the huntsmen on such an occasion! And as the Lord rides a-fowling across the plains, you will see these big hounds coming tearing up, one pack after a bear, another pack after a stag, or some other beast, as it may hap, and running the game down now on this side and now on that, so that it is really a most delightful sport and spectacle.

[The Two Brothers I have mentioned are bound by the tenure of their office to supply the Kaan’s Court from October to the end of March with 1000 head of game daily, whether of beasts or birds, and not counting quails; and also with fish to the best of their ability, allowing fish enough for three persons to reckon as equal to one head of game.]

Now I have told you of the Masters of the Hounds and all about them, and next will I tell you how the Lord goes off on an expedition for the space of three months.

NOTE 1.—Though this particular Bayan and Mingan are not likely to be mentioned in history, the names are both good Mongol names; Bayan that of a great soldier under Kúblái, of whom we shall hear afterwards; and Mingan that of one of Chinghiz’s generals.

The title of “Master of the Mastiffs” belonged to a high Court official at Constantinople in former days, Sámsúnji Báshi, and I have no doubt Marco has given the exact interpretation of the title of the two Barons: though it is difficult to trace its elements. It is read variously Cunici (i.e. Kunichi) and Cinuci (i.e. Chinuchi). It is evidently a word of analogous structure to Kushchi, the Master of the Falcons; Parschi, the Master of the Leopards. Professor Schiefner thinks it is probably corrupted from Noghaichi, which appears in Kovalevski’s Mongol Dict. as “chasseur qui a soins des chiens courants.” This word occurs, he points out, in Sanang Setzen, where Schmidt translates it Aufseher über Hunde. (See S. S. p. 39.)

The metathesis of Noghai-chi into Kuni-chi is the only drawback to this otherwise apt solution. We generally shall find Polo’s Oriental words much more accurately expressed than this would imply—as in the next chapter. I have hazarded a suggestion of (Or. Turkish) Chong-It-chi, “Keeper of the Big Dogs,” which Professor Vámbéry thinks possible. (See “chong, big, strong,” in his Tschagataische Sprachstudien, p. 282, and note in Lord Strangford’s Selected Writings, II. 169.) In East Turkestan they call the Chinese Chong Káfir, “The Big Heathen.” This would exactly correspond to the rendering of Pipino’s Latin translation, “hoc est canum magnorum Praefecti.” Chinuchi again would be (in Mongol) “Wolf-keepers.” It is at least possible that the great dogs which Polo terms mastiffs may have been known by such a name. We apply the term Wolf-dog to several varieties, and in Macbeth’s enumeration we have—

————“Hounds, and greyhounds, mongrels, spaniels, curs, Shoughs, water rugs, and Demi-Wolves.”

Lastly the root-word may be the Chinese Kiuen, “dog,” as Pauthier says. The mastiffs were probably Tibetan, but may have come through China, and brought a name with them, like Boule-dogues in France.

[Palladius (p. 46) says that Chinuchi or Cunici “have no resemblance with any of the names found in the Yuen shi, ch. xcix., article Ping chi (military organisation), and relating to the hunting staff of the Khan, viz.: Si pao ch’i (falconers), Ho r ch’i (archers), and Ke lien ch’i (probably those who managed the hounds).”—H. C.]

XX. HOW THE EMPEROR GOES ON A HUNTING EXPEDITION

After he has stopped at his capital city those three months that I mentioned, to wit, December, January, February, he starts off on the 1st day of March, and travels southward towards the Ocean Sea, a journey of two days.{1} He takes with him full 10,000 falconers, and some 500 gerfalcons besides peregrines, sakers, and other hawks in great numbers; and goshawks also to fly at the water-fowl.{2} But do not suppose that he keeps all these together by him; they are distributed about, hither and thither, one hundred together, or two hundred at the utmost, as he thinks proper. But they are always fowling as they advance, and the most part of the quarry taken is carried to the Emperor. And let me tell you when he goes thus a-fowling with his gerfalcons and other hawks, he is attended by full 10,000 men who are disposed in couples; and these are called Toscaol, which is as much as to say, “Watchers.” And the name describes their business.{3} They are posted from spot to spot, always in couples, and thus they cover a great deal of ground! Every man of them is provided with a whistle and hood, so as to be able to call in a hawk and hold it in hand. And when the Emperor makes a cast, there is no need that he follow it up, for those men I speak of keep so good a look out that they never lose sight of the birds, and if these have need of help they are ready to render it.

All the Emperor’s hawks, and those of the Barons as well, have a little label attached to the leg to mark them, on which is written the names of the owner and the keeper of the bird. And in this way the hawk, when caught, is at once identified and handed over to its owner. But if not, the bird is carried to a certain Baron, who is styled the Bularguchi, which is as much as to say “The Keeper of Lost Property.” And I tell you that whatever may be found without a known owner, whether it be a horse, or a sword, or a hawk, or what not, it is carried to that Baron straightway, and he takes charge of it. And if the finder neglects to carry his trover to the Baron, the latter punishes him. Likewise the loser of any article goes to the Baron, and if the thing be in his hands it is immediately given up to the owner. Moreover, the said Baron always pitches on the highest spot of the camp, with his banner displayed, in order that those who have lost or found anything may have no difficulty in finding their way to him. Thus nothing can be lost but it shall be incontinently found and restored.{4}

And so the Emperor follows this road that I have mentioned, leading along in the vicinity of the Ocean Sea (which is within two days’ journey of his capital city, Cambaluc), and as he goes there is many a fine sight to be seen, and plenty of the very best entertainment in hawking; in fact, there is no sport in the world to equal it!

The Emperor himself is carried upon four elephants in a fine chamber made of timber, lined inside with plates of beaten gold, and outside with lions’ skins [for he always travels in this way on his fowling expeditions, because he is troubled with gout]. He always keeps beside him a dozen of his choicest gerfalcons, and is attended by several of his Barons, who ride on horseback alongside. And sometimes, as they may be going along, and the Emperor from his chamber is holding discourse with the Barons, one of the latter shall exclaim: “Sire! Look out for Cranes!” Then the Emperor instantly has the top of his chamber thrown open, and having marked the cranes he casts one of his gerfalcons, whichever he pleases; and often the quarry is struck within his view, so that he has the most exquisite sport and diversion, there as he sits in his chamber or lies on his bed; and all the Barons with him get the enjoyment of it likewise! So it is not without reason I tell you that I do not believe there ever existed in the world or ever will exist, a man with such sport and enjoyment as he has, or with such rare opportunities.{5}

And when he has travelled till he reaches a place called CACHAR MODUN,{6} there he finds his tents pitched, with the tents of his Sons, and his Barons, and those of his Ladies and theirs, so that there shall be full 10,000 tents in all, and all fine and rich ones. And I will tell you how his own quarters are disposed. The tent in which he holds his courts is large enough to give cover easily to a thousand souls. It is pitched with its door to the south, and the Barons and Knights remain in waiting in it, whilst the Lord abides in another close to it on the west side. When he wishes to speak with any one he causes the person to be summoned to that other tent. Immediately behind the great tent there is a fine large chamber where the Lord sleeps; and there are also many other tents and chambers, but they are not in contact with the Great Tent as these are. The two audience-tents and the sleeping-chamber are constructed in this way. Each of the audience-tents has three poles, which are of spice-wood, and are most artfully covered with lions’ skins, striped with black and white and red, so that they do not suffer from any weather. All three apartments are also covered outside with similar skins of striped lions, a substance that lasts for ever.{7} And inside they are all lined with ermine and sable, these two being the finest and most costly furs in existence. For a robe of sable, large enough to line a mantle, is worth 2000 bezants of gold, or 1000 at least, and this kind of skin is called by the Tartars “The King of Furs.” The beast itself is about the size of a marten.{8} These two furs of which I speak are applied and inlaid so exquisitely, that it is really something worth seeing. All the tent-ropes are of silk. And in short I may say that those tents, to wit the two audience-halls and the sleeping-chamber, are so costly that it is not every king could pay for them.

Round about these tents are others, also fine ones and beautifully pitched, in which are the Emperor’s ladies, and the ladies of the other princes and officers. And then there are the tents for the hawks and their keepers, so that altogether the number of tents there on the plain is something wonderful. To see the many people that are thronging to and fro on every side and every day there, you would take the camp for a good big city. For you must reckon the Leeches, and the Astrologers, and the Falconers, and all the other attendants on so great a company; and add that everybody there has his whole family with him, for such is their custom.

The Lord remains encamped there until the spring, and all that time he does nothing but go hawking round about among the canebrakes along the lakes and rivers that abound in that region, and across fine plains on which are plenty of cranes and swans, and all sorts of other fowl. The other gentry of the camp also are never done with hunting and hawking, and every day they bring home great store of venison and feathered game of all sorts. Indeed, without having witnessed it, you would never believe what quantities of game are taken, and what marvellous sport and diversion they all have whilst they are in camp there.

There is another thing I should mention; to wit, that for 20 days’ journey round the spot nobody is allowed, be he who he may, to keep hawks or hounds, though anywhere else whosoever list may keep them. And furthermore throughout all the Emperor’s territories, nobody however audacious dares to hunt any of these four animals, to wit, hare, stag, buck, and roe, from the month of March to the month of October. Anybody who should do so would rue it bitterly. But those people are so obedient to their Lord’s command, that even if a man were to find one of those animals asleep by the roadside he would not touch it for the world! And thus the game multiplies at such a rate that the whole country swarms with it, and the Emperor gets as much as he could desire. Beyond the term I have mentioned, however, to wit that from March to October, everybody may take these animals as he list.{9}

After the Emperor has tarried in that place, enjoying his sport as I have related, from March to the middle of May, he moves with all his people, and returns straight to his capital city of Cambaluc (which is also the capital of Cathay, as you have been told), but all the while continuing to take his diversion in hunting and hawking as he goes along.

NOTE 1.—“Vait vers midi jusques à la Mer Occeane, ou il y a deux journées.” It is not possible in any way to reconcile this description as it stands with truth, though I do not see much room for doubt as to the direction of the excursion. Peking is 100 miles as the crow flies from the nearest point of the coast, at least six or seven days’ march for such a camp, and the direction is south-east, or nearly so. The last circumstance would not be very material as Polo’s compass-bearings are not very accurate. We shall find that he makes the general line of bearing from Peking towards Kiangnan, Sciloc or S. East, hence his Midi ought in consistency to represent S. West, an impossible direction for the Ocean. It is remarkable that Ramusio has Greco or N. East, which would by the same relative correction represent East. And other circumstances point to the frontier of Liao-tong as the direction of this excursion. Leaving the two days out of question, therefore, I should suppose the “Ocean Sea” to be struck at Shan-hai-kwan near the terminus of the Great Wall, and that the site of the standing hunting-camp is in the country to the north of that point. The Jesuit Verbiest accompanied the Emperor Kanghi on a tour in this direction in 1682, and almost immediately after passing the Wall the Emperor and his party seem to have struck off to the left for sport. Kúblái started on the “1st of March,” probably however the 1st of the second Chinese month. Kanghi started from Peking on the 23rd of March, on the hunting-journey just referred to.

NOTE 2.—We are told that Bajazet had 7000 falconers and 6000 dog-keepers; whilst Sultan Mahomed Tughlak of India in the generation following Polo’s, is said to have had 10,000 falconers, and 3000 other attendants as beaters. (Not. et Ext. XIII. p. 185.)

The Oriental practice seems to have assigned one man to the attendance on every hawk. This Kaempfer says was the case at the Court of Persia at the beginning of last century. There were about 800 hawks, and each had a special keeper. The same was the case with the Emperor Kanghi’s hawking establishment, according to Gerbillon. (Am. Exot. p. 83; Gerb. 1st Journey, in Duhalde.)

NOTE 3.—The French MSS. read Toscaor; the reading in the text I take from Ramusio. It is Turki, Tosḳáúl, توسقاول, defined as “Gardien, surveillant de la route; Wächter, Wache, Wegehüter.” (See Zenker, and Pavet de Courteille.) The word is perhaps also Mongol, for Rémusat has Tosiyal = “Veille.” (Mél. As. I. 231.) Such an example of Polo’s correctness both in the form and meaning of a Turki word is worthy of especial note, and shows how little he merits the wild and random treatment which has been often applied to the solution of like phrases in his book.

[Palladius (p. 47) says that he has heard from men well acquainted with the customs of the Mongols, that at the present day in “battues,” the leaders of the two flanks which surround the game, are called toscaul in Mongol.—H. C.]

NOTE 4.—The remark in the previous note might be repeated here. The Bularguji was an officer of the Mongol camp, whose duties are thus described by Mahomed Hindú Shah in a work on the offices of the Perso-Mongol Court. “He is an officer appointed by the Council of State, who, at the time when the camp is struck, goes over the ground with his servants, and collects slaves of either sex, or cattle, such as horses, camels, oxen, and asses, that have been left behind, and retains them until the owners appear and prove their claim to the property, when he makes it over to them. The Bularguji sticks up a flag by his tent or hut to enable people to find him, and so recover their lost property.” (Golden Horde, p. 245.) And in the Appendix to that work (p. 476) there is a copy of a warrant to such a Bularguji or Provost Marshal. The derivation appears therein as from Bularghu, “Lost property.” Here again it was impossible to give both form and meaning of the word more exactly than Polo has done. Though Hammer writes these terminations in ji (dschi), I believe chi (tschi) is preferable. We have this same word Bularghu in a grant of privileges to the Venetians by the Ilkhan Abusaid, 22nd December, 1320, which has been published by M. Mas Latrie: “Item, se algun cavalo bolargo fosse trovado apreso de algun vostro veneciano,” etc.—“If any stray horse shall be found in the possession of a Venetian,” etc. (See Bibl. de l’École des Chartes, 1870—tirage à part, p. 26.)

[“There are two Mongol terms, which resemble this word Bularguchi, viz. Balagachi and Buluguchi. But the first was the name used for the door-keeper of the tent of the Khan. By Buluguchi the Mongols understood a hunter and especially sable hunters. No one of these terms can be made consistent with the accounts given by M. Polo regarding the Bularguchi. In the Kui sin tsa shi, written by Chow Mi, in the former part of the 14th century, interesting particulars regarding Mongol hunting are found.” (Palladius, 47.) In chapter 101, Djan-ch’i, of the Yuen-shi, Falconers are called Ying fang pu lie, and a certain class of the Falconers are termed Bo-lan-ghi. (Bretschneider, Med. Res. I. p. 188.)—H. C.]

NOTE 5.—A like description is given by Odoric of the mode in which a successor of Kúblái travelled between Cambaluc and Shangtu, with his falcons also in the chamber beside him. What Kúblái had adopted as an indulgence to his years and gout, his successors probably followed as a precedent without these excuses.

[With regard to the gout of Kúblái Khan, Palladius (p. 48) writes: “In the Corean history allusion is made twice to the Khan’s suffering from this disease. Under the year 1267, it is there recorded that in the 9th month, envoys of the Khan with a letter to the King arrived in Corea. Kubilai asked for the skin of the Akirho munho, a fish resembling a cow. The envoy was informed that, as the Khan suffered from swollen feet it would be useful for him to wear boots made of the skin of this animal, and in the 10th month, the king of Corea forwarded to the Khan seventeen skins of it. It is further recorded in the Corean history, that in the 8th month of 1292, sorcerers and Shaman women from Corea were sent at the request of the Khan to cure him of a disease of the feet and hands. At that time the king of Corea was also in Peking, and the sorcerers and Shaman women were admitted during an audience the King had of the Khan. They took the Khan’s hands and feet and began to recite exorcisms, whilst Kubilai was laughing.”—H. C.]

NOTE 6.—Marsden and Pauthier identify Cachar Modun with Tchakiri Mondou, or Moudon, which appears in D’Anville’s atlas as the title of a “Levée de terre naturelle,” in the extreme east of Manchuria, and in lat. 44°, between the Khinga Lake and the sea. This position is out of the question. It is more than 900 miles, in a straight line from Peking, and the mere journey thither and back would have taken Kúblái’s camp something like six months. The name Kachar Modun is probably Mongol, and as Katzar is = “land, region,” and Modun = “wood” or “tree,” a fair interpretation lies on the surface. Such a name indeed has little individuality. But the Jesuit maps have a Modun Khotan (“Wood-ville”) just about the locality supposed, viz. in the region north of the eastern extremity of the Great Wall.

[Captain Gill writes (River of Golden Sand, I. p. 111): “This country around Urh-Chuang is admirably described [in Marco Polo, pp. 403, 406], and I should almost imagine that the Kaan must have set off south-east from Peking, and enjoyed some of his hawking not far from here, before he travelled to Cachar Modun, wherever that may have been.”

“With respect to Cachar Modun, Marco Polo intends perhaps by this name Ho-si wu, which place, together with Yang-ts’un, were comprised in the general name Ma t’ou (perhaps the Modun of M. Polo). Ma-t’ou is even now a general term for a jetty in Chinese. Ho-si in the Mongol spelling was Ha-shin. D’Ohsson, in his translation of Rashid-eddin renders Ho-si by Co-shi (Hist. des Mongols, I. p. 95), but Rashid in that case speaks not of Ho-si wu, but of the Tangut Empire, which in Chinese was called Ho-si, meaning west of the (Yellow) River. (See supra, p. 205). Ho-si wu, as well as Yang-ts’un, both exist even now as villages on the Pei-ho River, and near the first ancient walls can be seen. Ho-si wu means: ‘Custom’s barrier west of the (Pei-ho) river.’” (Palladius, p. 45.) This identification cannot be accepted on account of the position of Ho-si wu. —H. C.]

NOTE 7.—I suppose the best accessible illustration of the Kaan’s great tent may be that in which the Emperor Kienlung received Lord Macartney in the same region in 1793, of which one view is given in Staunton’s plates. Another exists in the Staunton Collection in the B. M., of which I give a reduced sketch.

Kúblái’s great tent, after all, was but a fraction of the size of Akbar’s audience-tents, the largest of which held 10,000 people, and took 1000 farráshes a week’s work to pitch it, with machines. But perhaps the manner of holding people is differently estimated. (Aín Akb. 53.)

In the description of the tent-poles, Pauthier’s text has “trois coulombes de fust de pieces moult bien encuierées,” etc. The G. T. has “de leing d’especies mout bien curés,” etc. The Crusca, “di spezie molto belle,” and Ramusio going off at a tangent, “di legno intagliate con grandissimo artificio e indorate.” I believe the translation in the text to indicate the true reading. It might mean camphor-wood, or the like. The tent-covering of tiger-skins is illustrated by a passage in Sanang Setzen, which speaks of a tent covered with panther-skins, sent to Chinghiz by the Khan of the Solongos (p. 77).

[Grenard (pp. 160–162) gives us his experience of Tents in Central Asia (Khotan). “These Tents which we had purchased at Tashkent were the ‘tentes-abris’ which are used in campaign by Russian military workshops, only we made them larger by a third. They were made of grey Kirghiz felt, which cannot be procured at Khotan. The felt manufactured in this town not having enough consistency or solidity, we took Aksu felt, which is better than this of Khotan, though inferior to the felt of Russian Turkestan. These felt tents are extremely heavy, and, once damp, are dried with difficulty. These drawbacks are not compensated by any important advantage; it would be an illusion to believe that they preserve from the cold any better than other tents. In fact, I prefer the Manchu tent in use in the Chinese army, which is, perhaps, of all military tents the most practical and comfortable. It is made of a single piece of double cloth of cotton, very strong, waterproof for a long time, white inside, blue outside, and weighs with its three tipped sticks and its wooden poles, 25 kilog. Set up, it forms a ridge roof 7 feet high and shelters fully ten men. It suits servants perfectly well. For the master who wants to work, to write, to draw, occasionally to receive officials, the ideal tent would be one of the same material, but of larger proportions, and comprising two parallel vertical partitions and surmounted by a ridge roof. The round form of Kirghiz and Mongol tents is also very comfortable, but it requires a complicated and inconvenient wooden frame-work, owing to which it takes some considerable time to raise up the tent.”—H. C.]

NOTE 8.—The expressions about the sable run in the G. T., “et l’apellent les Tartarz les roi des pelaines,” etc. This has been curiously misunderstood both in versions based on Pipino, and in the Geog. Latin and Crusca Italian. The Geog. Latin gives us “vocant eas Tartari Lenoidae Pellonae”; the Crusca, “chiamanle li Tartari Leroide Pelame”; Ramusio in a very odd way combines both the genuine and the blundered interpretation: “E li Tartari la chiamano Regina delle Pelli; e gli animali si chiamano Rondes.” Fraehn ingeniously suggested that this Rondes (which proves to be merely a misunderstanding of the French words Roi des) was a mistake for Kunduz, usually meaning a “beaver,” but also a “sable.” (See Ibn Foszlan, p. 57.) Condux, no doubt with this meaning, appears coupled with vair, in a Venetian Treaty with Egypt (1344), quoted by Heyd. (II. 208.)

Ibn Batuta puts the ermine above the sable. An ermine pelisse, he says, was worth in India 1000 dinárs of that country, whilst a sable one was worth only 400 dinárs. As Ibn Batuta’s Indian dinárs are Rupees, the estimate of price is greatly lower than Polo’s. Some years ago I find the price of a Sack, as it is technically called by the Russian traders, or robe of fine sables, stated to be in the Siberian market about 7000 banco rubels, i.e. I believe about 350_l._ The same authority mentions that in 1591 the Tzar Theodore Ivanovich made a present of a pelisse valued at the equivalent of 5000 silver rubels of modern Russian money, or upwards of 750_l._ Atkinson speaks of a single sable skin of the highest quality, for which the trapper demanded 18_l._ The great mart for fine sables is at Olekma on the Lena. (See I. B. II. 401–402; Baer’s Beiträge, VII. 215 seqq.; Upper and Lower Amoor, 390.)

NOTE 9.—Hawking is still common in North China. Pétis de la Croix the elder, in his account of the Yasa, or institutes of Chinghiz, quotes one which lays down that between March and October “no one should take stags, deer, roebucks, hares, wild asses, nor some certain birds,” in order that there might be ample sport in winter for the court. This would be just the reverse of Polo’s statement, but I suspect it is merely a careless adoption of the latter. There are many such traps in Pétis de la Croix. (Engl. Vers. 1722, p. 82.)

Chapter XXI

REHEARSAL OF THE WAY THE YEAR OF THE GREAT KAAN IS DISTRIBUTED.

On arriving at his capital of Cambaluc,{1} he stays in his palace there three days and no more; during which time he has great court entertainments and rejoicings, and makes merry with his wives. He then quits his palace at Cambaluc, and proceeds to that city which he has built, as I told you before, and which is called Chandu, where he has that grand park and palace of cane, and where he keeps his gerfalcons in mew. There he spends the summer, to escape the heat, for the situation is a very cool one. After stopping there from the beginning of May to the 28th of August, he takes his departure (that is the time when they sprinkle the white mares’ milk as I told you), and returns to his capital Cambaluc. There he stops, as I have told you also, the month of September, to keep his Birthday Feast, and also throughout October, November, December, January, and February, in which last month he keeps the grand feast of the New Year, which they call the White Feast, as you have heard already with all particulars. He then sets out on his march towards the Ocean Sea, hunting and hawking, and continues out from the beginning of March to the middle of May; and then comes back for three days only to the capital, during which he makes merry with his wives, and holds a great court and grand entertainments. In truth, ’tis something astonishing, the magnificence displayed by the Emperor in those three days; and then he starts off again as you know.

Thus his whole year is distributed in the following manner: six months at his chief palace in the royal city of Cambaluc, to wit, September, October, November, December, January, February;

Then on the great hunting expedition towards the sea, March, April, May;

Then back to his palace at Cambaluc for three days;

Then off to the city of Chandu which he has built, and where the Cane Palace is, where he stays June, July, August;

Then back again to his capital city of Cambaluc.

So thus the whole year is spent; six months at the capital, three months in hunting, and three months at the Cane Palace to avoid the heat. And in this way he passes his time with the greatest enjoyment; not to mention occasional journeys in this or that direction at his own pleasure.

NOTE 1.—This chapter, with its wearisome and whimsical reiteration, reminding one of a game of forfeits, is peculiar to that class of MSS. which claims to represent the copy given to Thibault de Cepoy by Marco Polo.

Dr. Bushell has kindly sent me a notice of a Chinese document (his translation of which he had unfortunately mislaid), containing a minute contemporary account of the annual migration of the Mongol Court to Shangtu. Having traversed the Kiu Yung Kwan (or Nankau) Pass, where stands the great Mongol archway represented at the end of this volume, they left what is now the Kalgan post-road at Tumuyi, making straight for Chaghan-nor (supra, p. 304), and thence to Shangtu. The return journey in autumn followed the same route as far as Chaghan-nor, where some days were spent in fowling on the lakes, and thence by Siuen-hwa fu (“Sindachu,” supra, p. 295) and the present post-road to Cambaluc.

Chapter XXII

CONCERNING THE CITY OF CAMBALUC, AND ITS GREAT TRAFFIC AND POPULATION.

You must know that the city of Cambaluc hath such a multitude of houses, and such a vast population inside the walls and outside, that it seems quite past all possibility. There is a suburb outside each of the gates, which are twelve in number;{1} and these suburbs are so great that they contain more people than the city itself [for the suburb of one gate spreads in width till it meets the suburb of the next, whilst they extend in length some three or four miles]. In those suburbs lodge the foreign merchants and travellers, of whom there are always great numbers who have come to bring presents to the Emperor, or to sell articles at Court, or because the city affords so good a mart to attract traders. [There are in each of the suburbs, to a distance of a mile from the city, numerous fine hostelries{2} for the lodgment of merchants from different parts of the world, and a special hostelry is assigned to each description of people, as if we should say there is one for the Lombards, another for the Germans, and a third for the Frenchmen.] And thus there are as many good houses outside of the city as inside, without counting those that belong to the great lords and barons, which are very numerous.

You must know that it is forbidden to bury any dead body inside the city. If the body be that of an Idolater it is carried out beyond the city and suburbs to a remote place assigned for the purpose, to be burnt. And if it be of one belonging to a religion the custom of which is to bury, such as the Christian, the Saracen, or what not, it is also carried out beyond the suburbs to a distant place assigned for the purpose. And thus the city is preserved in a better and more healthy state.

Moreover, no public woman resides inside the city, but all such abide outside in the suburbs. And ’tis wonderful what a vast number of these there are for the foreigners; it is a certain fact that there are more than 20,000 of them living by prostitution. And that so many can live in this way will show you how vast is the population.

[Guards patrol the city every night in parties of 30 or 40, looking out for any persons who may be abroad at unseasonable hours, i.e. after the great bell hath stricken thrice. If they find any such person he is immediately taken to prison, and examined next morning by the proper officers. If these find him guilty of any misdemeanour they order him a proportionate beating with the stick. Under this punishment people sometimes die; but they adopt it in order to eschew bloodshed; for their Bacsis say that it is an evil thing to shed man’s blood.]

To this city also are brought articles of greater cost and rarity, and in greater abundance of all kinds, than to any other city in the world. For people of every description, and from every region, bring things (including all the costly wares of India, as well as the fine and precious goods of Cathay itself with its provinces), some for the sovereign, some for the court, some for the city which is so great, some for the crowds of Barons and Knights, some for the great hosts of the Emperor which are quartered round about; and thus between court and city the quantity brought in is endless.

As a sample, I tell you, no day in the year passes that there do not enter the city 1000 cart-loads of silk alone, from which are made quantities of cloth of silk and gold, and of other goods. And this is not to be wondered at; for in all the countries round about there is no flax, so that everything has to be made of silk. It is true, indeed, that in some parts of the country there is cotton and hemp, but not sufficient for their wants. This, however, is not of much consequence, because silk is so abundant and cheap, and is a more valuable substance than either flax or cotton.

Round about this great city of Cambaluc there are some 200 other cities at various distances, from which traders come to sell their goods and buy others for their lords; and all find means to make their sales and purchases, so that the traffic of the city is passing great.

NOTE 1.—It would seem to have been usual to reckon twelve suburbs to Peking down to modern times. (See Deguignes, III. 38.)

NOTE 2.—The word here used is Fondaco, often employed in mediæval Italian in the sense nearly of what we call a factory. The word is from the Greek πανδοκεῖον, but through the Arabic Fandúḳ. The latter word is used by Ibn Batuta in speaking of the hostelries at which the Mussulman merchants put up in China.

Chapter XXIII

[CONCERNING THE OPPRESSIONS OF ACHMATH THE BAILO, AND THE PLOT THAT WAS FORMED AGAINST HIM.{1}

You will hear further on how that there are twelve persons appointed who have authority to dispose of lands, offices, and everything else at their discretion. Now one of these was a certain Saracen named ACHMATH, a shrewd and able man, who had more power and influence with the Grand Kaan than any of the others; and the Kaan held him in such regard that he could do what he pleased. The fact was, as came out after his death, that Achmath had so wrought upon the Kaan with his sorcery, that the latter had the greatest faith and reliance on everything he said, and in this way did everything that Achmath wished him to do.

This person disposed of all governments and offices, and passed sentence on all malefactors; and whenever he desired to have any one whom he hated put to death, whether with justice or without it, he would go to the Emperor and say: “Such an one deserves death, for he hath done this or that against your imperial dignity.” Then the Lord would say: “Do as you think right,” and so he would have the man forthwith executed. Thus when people saw how unbounded were his powers, and how unbounded the reliance placed by the Emperor on everything that he said, they did not venture to oppose him in anything. No one was so high in rank or power as to be free from the dread of him. If any one was accused by him to the Emperor of a capital offence, and desired to defend himself, he was unable to bring proofs in his own exculpation, for no one would stand by him, as no one dared to oppose Achmath. And thus the latter caused many to perish unjustly.{2}

Moreover, there was no beautiful woman whom he might desire, but he got hold of her; if she were unmarried, forcing her to be his wife, if otherwise, compelling her to consent to his desires. Whenever he knew of any one who had a pretty daughter, certain ruffians of his would go to the father, and say: “What say you? Here is this pretty daughter of yours; give her in marriage to the Bailo Achmath (for they called him ‘the Bailo,’ or, as we should say, ‘the Vicegerent’),{3} and we will arrange for his giving you such a government or such an office for three years.” And so the man would surrender his daughter. And Achmath would go to the Emperor, and say: “Such a government is vacant, or will be vacant on such a day. So-and-So is a proper man for the post.” And the Emperor would reply: “Do as you think best;” and the father of the girl was immediately appointed to the government. Thus either through the ambition of the parents, or through fear of the Minister, all the beautiful women were at his beck, either as wives or mistresses. Also he had some five-and-twenty sons who held offices of importance, and some of these, under the protection of their father’s name, committed scandals like his own, and many other abominable iniquities. This Achmath also had amassed great treasure, for everybody who wanted office sent him a heavy bribe.

In such authority did this man continue for two-and-twenty years. At last the people of the country, to wit the Cathayans, utterly wearied with the endless outrages and abominable iniquities which he perpetrated against them, whether as regarded their wives or their own persons, conspired to slay him and revolt against the government. Amongst the rest there was a certain Cathayan named Chenchu, a commander of a thousand, whose mother, daughter, and wife had all been dishonoured by Achmath. Now this man, full of bitter resentment, entered into parley regarding the destruction of the Minister with another Cathayan whose name was Vanchu, who was a commander of 10,000. They came to the conclusion that the time to do the business would be during the Great Kaan’s absence from Cambaluc. For after stopping there three months he used to go to Chandu and stop there three months; and at the same time his son Chinkin used to go away to his usual haunts, and this Achmath remained in charge of the city; sending to obtain the Kaan’s orders from Chandu when any emergency arose.

So Vanchu and Chenchu, having come to this conclusion, proceeded to communicate it to the chief people among the Cathayans, and then by common consent sent word to their friends in many other cities that they had determined on such a day, at the signal given by a beacon, to massacre all the men with beards, and that the other cities should stand ready to do the like on seeing the signal fires. The reason why they spoke of massacring the bearded men was that the Cathayans naturally have no beard, whilst beards are worn by the Tartars, Saracens, and Christians. And you should know that all the Cathayans detested the Grand Kaan’s rule because he set over them governors who were Tartars, or still more frequently Saracens, and these they could not endure, for they were treated by them just like slaves. You see the Great Kaan had not succeeded to the dominion of Cathay by hereditary right, but held it by conquest; and thus having no confidence in the natives, he put all authority into the hands of Tartars, Saracens, or Christians who were attached to his household and devoted to his service, and were foreigners in Cathay.

Wherefore, on the day appointed, the aforesaid Vanchu and Chenchu having entered the palace at night, Vanchu sat down and caused a number of lights to be kindled before him. He then sent a messenger to Achmath the Bailo, who lived in the Old City, as if to summon him to the presence of Chinkin, the Great Kaan’s son, who (it was pretended) had arrived unexpectedly. When Achmath heard this he was much surprised, but made haste to go, for he feared the Prince greatly. When he arrived at the gate he met a Tartar called Cogatai, who was Captain of the 12,000 that formed the standing garrison of the City; and the latter asked him whither he was bound so late? “To Chinkin, who is just arrived.” Quoth Cogatai, “How can that be? How could he come so privily that I know nought of it?” So he followed the Minister with a certain number of his soldiers. Now the notion of the Cathayans was that, if they could make an end of Achmath, they would have nought else to be afraid of. So as soon as Achmath got inside the palace, and saw all that illumination, he bowed down before Vanchu, supposing him to be Chinkin, and Chenchu who was standing ready with a sword straightway cut his head off. As soon as Cogatai, who had halted at the entrance, beheld this, he shouted “Treason!” and instantly discharged an arrow at Vanchu and shot him dead as he sat. At the same time he called his people to seize Chenchu, and sent a proclamation through the city that any one found in the streets would be instantly put to death. The Cathayans saw that the Tartars had discovered the plot, and that they had no longer any leader, since Vanchu was killed and Chenchu was taken. So they kept still in their houses, and were unable to pass the signal for the rising of the other cities as had been settled. Cogatai immediately dispatched messengers to the Great Kaan giving an orderly report of the whole affair, and the Kaan sent back orders for him to make a careful investigation, and to punish the guilty as their misdeeds deserved. In the morning Cogatai examined all the Cathayans, and put to death a number whom he found to be ringleaders in the plot. The same thing was done in the other cities, when it was found that the plot extended to them also.

After the Great Kaan had returned to Cambaluc he was very anxious to discover what had led to this affair, and he then learned all about the endless iniquities of that accursed Achmath and his sons. It was proved that he and seven of his sons (for they were not all bad) had forced no end of women to be their wives, besides those whom they had ravished. The Great Kaan then ordered all the treasure that Achmath had accumulated in the Old City to be transferred to his own treasury in the New City, and it was found to be of enormous amount. He also ordered the body of Achmath to be dug up and cast into the streets for the dogs to tear; and commanded those of his sons that had followed the father’s evil example to be flayed alive.{4}

These circumstances called the Kaan’s attention to the accursed doctrines of the Sect of the Saracens, which excuse every crime, yea even murder itself, when committed on such as are not of their religion. And seeing that this doctrine had led the accursed Achmath and his sons to act as they did without any sense of guilt, the Kaan was led to entertain the greatest disgust and abomination for it. So he summoned the Saracens and prohibited their doing many things which their religion enjoined. Thus, he ordered them to regulate their marriages by the Tartar Law, and prohibited their cutting the throats of animals killed for food, ordering them to rip the stomach in the Tartar way.

Now when all this happened Messer Marco was upon the spot.]{5}

NOTE 1.—This narrative is from Ramusio’s version, and constitutes one of the most notable passages peculiar to that version.

The name of the oppressive Minister is printed in Ramusio’s Collection Achmach. But the c and t are so constantly interchanged in MSS. that I think there can be no question this was a mere clerical error for Achmath, and so I write it. I have also for consistency changed the spelling of Xandu, Chingis, etc., to that hitherto adopted in our text of Chandu, Chinkin, etc.

NOTE 2.—The remarks of a Chinese historian on Kúblái’s administration may be appropriately quoted here: “Hupilai Han must certainly be regarded as one of the greatest princes that ever existed, and as one of the most successful in all that he undertook. This he owed to his judgment in the selection of his officers, and to his talent for commanding them. He carried his arms into the most remote countries, and rendered his name so formidable that not a few nations spontaneously submitted to his supremacy. Nor was there ever an Empire of such vast extent. He cultivated literature, protected its professors, and even thankfully received their advice. Yet he never placed a Chinese in his cabinet, and he employed foreigners only as Ministers. These, however, he chose with discernment, always excepting the Ministers of Finance. He really loved his subjects; and if they were not always happy under his government, it is because they took care to conceal their sufferings. There were in those days no Public Censors whose duty it is to warn the Sovereign of what is going on: and no one dared to speak out for fear of the resentment of the Ministers, who were the depositaries of the Imperial authority, and the authors of the oppressions under which the people laboured. Several Chinese, men of letters and of great ability, who lived at Hupilai’s court, might have rendered that prince the greatest service in the administration of his dominions, but they never were intrusted with any but subordinate offices, and they were not in a position to make known the malversations of those public blood-suckers.” (De Mailla, IX. 459–460.)

AHMAD was a native of Fenáket (afterwards Sháh-Rúkhia), near the Jaxartes, and obtained employment under Kúblái through the Empress Jamui Khatun, who had known him before her marriage. To her Court he was originally attached, but we find him already employed in high financial office in 1264. Kúblái’s demands for money must have been very large, and he eschewed looking too closely into the character of his financial agents or the means by which they raised money for him. Ahmad was very successful in this, and being a man of great talent and address, obtained immense influence over the Emperor, until at last nothing was done save by his direction, though he always appeared to be acting under the orders of Kúblái. The Chinese authorities in Gaubil and De Mailla speak strongly of his oppressions, but only in general terms, and without affording such particulars as we derive from the text.

The Hereditary Prince Chingkim was strongly adverse to Ahmad; and some of the high Chinese officials on various occasions made remonstrance against the Minister’s proceedings; but Kúblái turned a deaf ear to them, and Ahmad succeeded in ruining most of his opponents. (Gaubil, 141, 143, 151; De Mailla, IX. 316–317; D’Ohsson, II. 468–469.)

[The Rev. W. S. Ament (Marco Polo in Cambaluc, 105) writes: “No name is more execrated than that of Ah-ha-ma (called Achmath by Polo), a Persian, who was chosen to manage the finances of the Empire. He was finally destroyed by a combination against him while the Khan was absent with Crown Prince Chen Chin, on a visit to Shang Tu.” Achmath has his biography under the name of A-ho-ma (Ahmed) in the ch. 205 of the Yuen-shi, under the rubric “Villanous Ministers.” (Bretschneider, Med. Res. I. p. 272.) —H. C.]

NOTE 3.—This term Bailo was the designation of the representative of Venetian dignity at Constantinople, called Podestà during the period of the Latin rule there, and it has endured throughout the Turkish Empire to our own day in the form Balios as the designation of a Frank Consul. [There was also a Venetian bailo in Syria.—H. C.] But that term itself could scarcely have been in use at Cambaluc, even among the handful of Franks, to designate the powerful Minister, and it looks as if Marco had confounded the word in his own mind with some Oriental term of like sound, possibly the Arabic Wáli, “a Prince, Governor of a Province, ... a chief Magistrate.” (F. Johnson.) In the Roteiro of the Voyage of Vasco da Gama (2nd ed. Lisbon, 1861, pp. 53–54) it is said that on the arrival of the ships at Calicut the King sent “a man who was called the Bale, which is much the same as Alquaide.” And the Editor gives the same explanation that I have suggested.

I observe that according to Pandit Manphul the native governor of Kashgar, under the Chinese Amban, used to be called the Baili Beg. [In this case Baili stands for beilêh.—H. C.] (Panjab Trade Report, App. p. cccxxxvii.)

NOTE 4.—The story, as related in De Mailla and Gaubil, is as follows. It contains much less detail than the text, and it differs as to the manner of the chief conspirator’s death, whilst agreeing as to his name and the main facts of the episode.

In the spring of 1282 (Gaubil, 1281) Kúblái and Prince Chingkim had gone off as usual to Shangtu, leaving Ahmad in charge at the Capital. The whole country was at heart in revolt against his oppressions. Kúblái alone knew, or would know, nothing of them.

WANGCHU, a chief officer of the city, resolved to take the opportunity of delivering the Empire from such a curse, and was joined in his enterprise by a certain sorcerer called Kao Hoshang. They sent two Lamas to the Council Board with a message that the Crown Prince was returning to the Capital to take part in certain Buddhist ceremonies, but no credit was given to this. Wangchu then, pretending to have received orders from the Prince, desired an officer called CHANG-Y (perhaps the Chenchu of Polo’s narrative) to go in the evening with a guard of honour to receive him. Late at night a message was sent to summon the Ministers, as the Prince (it was pretended) had already arrived. They came in haste with Ahmad at their head, and as he entered the Palace Wangchu struck him heavily with a copper mace and stretched him dead. Wangchu was arrested, or according to one account surrendered, though he might easily have escaped, confident that the Crown Prince would save his life. Intelligence was sent off to Kúblái, who received it at Chaghan-Nor. (See Book I. ch. lx.) He immediately despatched officers to arrest the guilty and bring them to justice. Wangchu, Chang-y, and Kao Hoshang were publicly executed at the Old City; Wangchu dying like a hero, and maintaining that he had done the Empire an important service which would yet be acknowledged. (De Mailla, IX. 412–413; Gaubil, 193–194; D’Ohsson, II. 470.) [Cf. G. Phillips, in T’oung-Pao, I. p. 220.—H. C.]

NOTE 5.—And it is a pleasant fact that Messer Marco’s presence, and his upright conduct upon this occasion, have not been forgotten in the Chinese Annals: “The Emperor having returned from Chaghan-Nor to Shangtu, desired POLO, Assessor of the Privy Council, to explain the reasons which had led Wangchu to commit this murder. Polo spoke with boldness of the crimes and oppressions of Ahama (Ahmad), which had rendered him an object of detestation throughout the Empire. The Emperor’s eyes were opened, and he praised the courage of Wangchu. He complained that those who surrounded him, in abstaining from admonishing him of what was going on, had thought more of their fear of displeasing the Minister than of the interests of the State.” By Kúblái’s order, the body of Ahmad was taken up, his head was cut off and publicly exposed, and his body cast to the dogs. His son also was put to death with all his family, and his immense wealth confiscated. 714 persons were punished, one way or other, for their share in Ahmad’s malversations. (De Mailla, IX. 413–414.)

What is said near the end of this chapter about the Kaan’s resentment against the Saracens has some confirmation in circumstances related by Rashiduddin. The refusal of some Mussulman merchants, on a certain occasion at Court, to eat of the dishes sent them by the Emperor, gave great offence, and led to the revival of an order of Chinghiz, which prohibited, under pain of death, the slaughter of animals by cutting their throats. This endured for seven years, and was then removed on the strong representation made to Kúblái of the loss caused by the cessation of the visits of the Mahomedan merchants. On a previous occasion also the Mahomedans had incurred disfavour, owing to the ill-will of certain Christians, who quoted to Kúblái a text of the Koran enjoining the killing of polytheists. The Emperor sent for the Mullahs, and asked them why they did not act on the Divine injunction? All they could say was that the time was not yet come! Kúblái ordered them for execution, and was only appeased by the intercession of Ahmad, and the introduction of a divine with more tact, who smoothed over obnoxious applications of the text. (D’Ohsson, II. 492–493.)

Chapter XXIV

HOW THE GREAT KAAN CAUSETH THE BARK OF TREES, MADE INTO SOMETHING LIKE PAPER, TO PASS FOR MONEY OVER ALL HIS COUNTRY.

Now that I have told you in detail of the splendour of this City of the Emperor’s, I shall proceed to tell you of the Mint which he hath in the same city, in the which he hath his money coined and struck, as I shall relate to you. And in doing so I shall make manifest to you how it is that the Great Lord may well be able to accomplish even much more than I have told you, or am going to tell you, in this Book. For, tell it how I might, you never would be satisfied that I was keeping within truth and reason!

The Emperor’s Mint then is in this same City of Cambaluc, and the way it is wrought is such that you might say he hath the Secret of Alchemy in perfection, and you would be right! For he makes his money after this fashion.

He makes them take of the bark of a certain tree, in fact of the Mulberry Tree, the leaves of which are the food of the silkworms,—these trees being so numerous that whole districts are full of them. What they take is a certain fine white bast or skin which lies between the wood of the tree and the thick outer bark, and this they make into something resembling sheets of paper, but black. When these sheets have been prepared they are cut up into pieces of different sizes. The smallest of these sizes is worth a half tornesel; the next, a little larger, one tornesel; one, a little larger still, is worth half a silver groat of Venice; another a whole groat; others yet two groats, five groats, and ten groats. There is also a kind worth one Bezant of gold, and others of three Bezants, and so up to ten. All these pieces of paper are [issued with as much solemnity and authority as if they were of pure gold or silver; and on every piece a variety of officials, whose duty it is, have to write their names, and to put their seals. And when all is prepared duly, the chief officer deputed by the Kaan smears the Seal entrusted to him with vermilion, and impresses it on the paper, so that the form of the Seal remains printed upon it in red; the Money is then authentic. Any one forging it would be punished with death.] And the Kaan causes every year to be made such a vast quantity of this money, which costs him nothing, that it must equal in amount all the treasure in the world.

With these pieces of paper, made as I have described, he causes all payments on his own account to be made; and he makes them to pass current universally over all his kingdoms and provinces and territories, and whithersoever his power and sovereignty extends. And nobody, however important he may think himself, dares to refuse them on pain of death. And indeed everybody takes them readily, for wheresoever a person may go throughout the Great Kaan’s dominions he shall find these pieces of paper current, and shall be able to transact all sales and purchases of goods by means of them just as well as if they were coins of pure gold. And all the while they are so light that ten bezants’ worth does not weigh one golden bezant.

Furthermore all merchants arriving from India or other countries, and bringing with them gold or silver or gems and pearls, are prohibited from selling to any one but the Emperor. He has twelve experts chosen for this business, men of shrewdness and experience in such affairs; these appraise the articles, and the Emperor then pays a liberal price for them in those pieces of paper. The merchants accept his price readily, for in the first place they would not get so good an one from anybody else, and secondly they are paid without any delay. And with this paper-money they can buy what they like anywhere over the Empire, whilst it is also vastly lighter to carry about on their journeys. And it is a truth that the merchants will several times in the year bring wares to the amount of 400,000 bezants, and the Grand Sire pays for all in that paper. So he buys such a quantity of those precious things every year that his treasure is endless, whilst all the time the money he pays away costs him nothing at all. Moreover, several times in the year proclamation is made through the city that any one who may have gold or silver or gems or pearls, by taking them to the Mint shall get a handsome price for them. And the owners are glad to do this, because they would find no other purchaser give so large a price. Thus the quantity they bring in is marvellous, though these who do not choose to do so may let it alone. Still, in this way, nearly all the valuables in the country come into the Kaan’s possession.

When any of those pieces of paper are spoilt—not that they are so very flimsy neither—the owner carries them to the Mint, and by paying three per cent. on the value he gets new pieces in exchange. And if any Baron, or any one else soever, hath need of gold or silver or gems or pearls, in order to make plate, or girdles, or the like, he goes to the Mint and buys as much as he list, paying in this paper-money.{1}

Now you have heard the ways and means whereby the Great Kaan may have, and in fact has, more treasure than all the Kings in the World; and you know all about it and the reason why. And now I will tell you of the great Dignitaries which act in this city on behalf of the Emperor.

NOTE 1.—It is surprising to find that, nearly two centuries ago, Magaillans, a missionary who had lived many years in China, and was presumably a Chinese scholar, should have utterly denied the truth of Polo’s statements about the paper-currency of China. Yet the fact even then did not rest on Polo’s statement only. The same thing had been alleged in the printed works of Rubruquis, Roger Bacon, Hayton, Friar Odoric, the Archbishop of Soltania, and Josaphat Barbaro, to say nothing of other European authorities that remained in manuscript, or of the numerous Oriental records of the same circumstance.

The issue of paper-money in China is at least as old as the beginning of the 9th century. In 1160 the system had gone to such excess that government paper equivalent in nominal value to 43,600,000 ounces of silver had been issued in six years, and there were local notes besides; so that the Empire was flooded with rapidly depreciating paper.

The Kin or “Golden” Dynasty of Northern Invaders who immediately preceded the Mongols took to paper, in spite of their title, as kindly as the native sovereigns. Their notes had a course of seven years, after which new notes were issued to the holders, with a deduction of 15 per cent.

The Mongols commenced their issues of paper-money in 1236, long before they had transferred the seat of their government to China. Kúblái made such an issue in the first year of his reign (1260), and continued to issue notes copiously till the end. In 1287 he put out a complete new currency, one note of which was to exchange against five of the previous series of equal nominal value! In both issues the paper-money was, in official valuation, only equivalent to half its nominal value in silver; a circumstance not very easy to understand. The paper-money was called Chao.

The notes of Kúblái’s first issue (1260–1287) with which Polo may be supposed most familiar, were divided into three classes; (1) Notes of Tens, viz. of 10, 20, 30, and 50 tsien or cash; (2) Notes of Hundreds, viz. of 100, 200, and 500 tsien; and (3) Notes of Strings or Thousands of cash, or in other words of Liangs or ounces of silver (otherwise Tael), viz. of 1000 and 2000 tsien. There were also notes printed on silk for 1, 2, 3, 5, and 10 ounces each, valued at par in silver, but these would not circulate. In 1275, it should be mentioned, there had been a supplementary issue of small notes for 2, 3, and 5 cash each.

Marsden states an equation between Marco’s values of the Notes and the actual Chinese currency, to which Biot seems to assent. I doubt its correctness, for his assumed values of the groat or grosso and tornesel are surely wrong. The grosso ran at that time 18 to the gold ducat or sequin, and allowing for the then higher relative value of silver, should have contained about 5_d._ of silver. The ducat was also equivalent to 2 lire, and the tornese (Romanin, III. 343) was 4 deniers. Now the denier is always, I believe ¹⁄₂₄₀ of the líra. Hence the tornese would be ⁹⁄₆₀ of the grosso.

But we are not to look for exact correspondences, when we see Polo applying round figures in European coinage to Chinese currency.

His bezant notes, I agree with Marsden, here represent the Chinese notes for one and more ounces of silver. And here the correspondence of value is much nearer than it seems at first sight. The Chinese liang or ounce of silver is valued commonly at 6_s._ 7_d._, say roundly 80_d._[1] But the relation of gold and silver in civilized Asia was then (see ch. I. note 4, and also Cathay, pp. ccl. and 442) as 10 to 1, not, as with us now, more than 15 to 1. Wherefore the liang in relation to gold would be worth 120_d._ or 10_s._, a little over the Venetian ducat and somewhat less than the bezant or dínár. We shall then find the table of Chinese issues, as compared with Marco’s equivalents, to stand thus:—

CHINESE ISSUES, AS RECORDED. MARCO POLO’S STATEMENT.

For 10 ounces of silver (viz. . } the Chinese Ting)[2] . . } 10 bezants.

For 1 ounce of silver, i.e. 1 liang,} or 1000 tsien (cash) } 1 „

For 500 tsien . . . . 10 groats. 200 „ . . . . . 5 „ (should have been 4). 100 „ . . . . . 2 „ 50 „ . . . . . 1 „ 30 „ . . . . . ½ „ (but the proportionate equivalent of half a groat would be 25 tsien). 20 „ . . . . . 10 „ . . . . . 1 tornesel (but the proportionate equivalent would be 7½ tsien). 5 „ . . . . . ½ „ (but prop. equivalent 3¾ tsien).

Pauthier has given from the Chinese Annals of the Mongol Dynasty a complete Table of the Issues of Paper-Money during every year of Kúblái’s reign (1260–1294), estimated at their nominal value in Ting or tens of silver ounces. The lowest issue was in 1269, of 228,960 ounces, which at the rate of 120_d._ to the ounce (see above) = 114,480_l._, and the highest was in 1290, viz. 50,002,500 ounces, equivalent at the same estimate to 25,001,250_l._! whilst the total amount in the 34 years was 249,654,290 ounces or 124,827,144_l._ in nominal value. Well might Marco speak of the vast quantity of such notes that the Great Kaan issued annually!

To complete the history of the Chinese paper-currency so far as we can:

In 1309, a new issue took place with the same provision as in Kúblái’s issue of 1287, i.e. each note of the new issue was to exchange against 5 of the old of the same nominal value. And it was at the same time prescribed that the notes should exchange at par with metals, which of course it was beyond the power of Government to enforce, and so the notes were abandoned. Issues continued from time to time to the end of the Mongol Dynasty. The paper-currency is spoken of by Odoric (1320–30), by Pegolotti (1330–40), and by Ibn Batuta (1348), as still the chief, if not sole, currency of the Empire. According to the Chinese authorities, the credit of these issues was constantly diminishing, as it is easy to suppose. But it is odd that all the Western Travellers speak as if the notes were as good as gold. Pegolotti, writing for mercantile men, and from the information (as we may suppose) of mercantile men, says explicitly that there was no depreciation.

The Ming Dynasty for a time carried on the system of paper-money; with the difference that while under the Mongols no other currency had been admitted, their successors made payments in notes, but accepted only hard cash from their people![3] In 1448 the chao of 1000 cash was worth but 3. Barbaro still heard talk of the Chinese paper-currency from travellers whom he met at Azov about this time; but after 1455 there is said to be no more mention of it in Chinese history.

I have never heard of the preservation of any note of the Mongols; but some of the Ming survive, and are highly valued as curiosities in China. The late Sir G. T. Staunton appears to have possessed one; Dr. Lockhart formerly had two, of which he gave one to Sir Harry Parkes, and retains the other. The paper is so dark as to explain Marco’s description of it as black. By Dr. Lockhart’s kindness I am enabled to give a reduced representation of this note, as near a facsimile as we have been able to render it, but with some restoration, e.g. of the seals, of which on the original there is the barest indication remaining.

[Mr. Vissering (Chinese Currency, Addenda, I.–III.) gives a facsimile and a description of a Chinese banknote of the Ming Dynasty belonging to the collection of the Asiatic Museum of the Academy of Sciences at St. Petersburg. “In the eighth year of the period Hung-wu (1375), the Emperor Tai-tsu issued an order to his minister of finances to make the Pao-tsao (precious bills) of the Ta-Ming Dynasty, and to employ as raw material for the composition of those bills the fibres of the mulberry tree.”—H. C.]

Notwithstanding the disuse of Government issues of paper-money from that time till recent years, there had long been in some of the cities of China a large use of private and local promissory notes as currency. In Fuchau this was especially the case; bullion was almost entirely displaced, and the banking-houses in that city were counted by hundreds. These were under no government control; any individual or company having sufficient capital or credit could establish a bank and issue their bills, which varied in amount from 100 cash to 1000 dollars. Some fifteen years ago the Imperial Government seems to have been induced by the exhausted state of the Treasury, and these large examples of the local use of paper-currency, to consider projects for resuming that system after the disuse of four centuries. A curious report by a Committee of the Imperial Supreme Council, on a project for such a currency, appears among the papers published by the Russian Mission at Peking. It is unfavourable to the particular project, but we gather from other sources that the Government not long afterwards did open banks in the large cities of the Empire for the issue of a new paper-currency, but that it met with bad success. At Fuchau, in 1858, I learn from one notice, the dollar was worth from 18,000 to 20,000 cash in Government Bills. Dr. Rennie, in 1861, speaks of the dollar at Peking as valued at 15,000, and later at 25,000 paper cash. Sushun, the Regent, had issued a vast number of notes through banks of his own in various parts of Peking. These he failed to redeem, causing the failure of all the banks, and great consequent commotion in the city. The Regent had led the Emperor [Hien Fung] systematically into debauched habits which ended in paralysis. On the Emperor’s death the Empress caused the arrest and execution of Sushun. His conduct in connection with the bank failures was so bitterly resented that when the poor wretch was led to execution (8th November, 1861), as I learn from an eye-witness, the defrauded creditors lined the streets and cheered.[4]

The Japanese also had a paper-currency in the 14th century. It is different in form from that of China. That figured by Siebold is a strip of strong paper doubled, 6¼ in. long by 1¾ in. wide, bearing a representation of the tutelary god of riches, with long inscriptions in Chinese characters, seals in black and red, and an indication of value in ancient Japanese characters. I do not learn whether notes of considerable amount are still used in Japan; but Sir R. Alcock speaks of banknotes for small change from 30 to 500 cash and more, as in general use in the interior.

Two notable and disastrous attempts to imitate the Chinese system of currency took place in the Middle Ages; one of them in Persia, apparently in Polo’s very presence, the other in India some 36 years later.

The first was initiated in 1294 by the worthless Kaikhatu Khan, when his own and his ministers’ extravagance had emptied the Treasury, on the suggestion of a financial officer called ’Izzuddín Muzaffar. The notes were direct copies of Kúblái’s, even the Chinese characters being imitated as part of the device upon them.[5] The Chinese name Chao was applied to them, and the Mongol Resident at Tabriz, Pulad Chingsang, was consulted in carrying out the measure. Expensive preparations were made for this object; offices called Cháo-Khánahs were erected in the principal cities of the provinces, and a numerous staff appointed to carry out the details. Ghazan Khan in Khorasan, however, would have none of it, and refused to allow any of these preparations to be made within his government. After the constrained use of the Chao for two or three days Tabriz was in an uproar; the markets were closed; the people rose and murdered ’Izzuddín; and the whole project had to be abandoned. Marco was in Persia at this time, or just before, and Sir John Malcolm not unnaturally suggests that he might have had something to do with the scheme; a suggestion which excites a needless commotion in the breast of M. Pauthier. We may draw from the story the somewhat notable conclusion that Block-printing was practised, at least for this one purpose, at Tabriz in 1294.

The other like enterprise was that of Sultan Mahomed Tughlak of Delhi, in 1330–31. This also was undertaken for like reasons, and was in professed imitation of the Chao of Cathay. Mahomed, however, used copper tokens instead of paper; the copper being made apparently of equal weight to the gold or silver coin which it represented. The system seems to have had a little more vogue than at Tabriz, but was speedily brought to an end by the ease with which forgeries on an enormous scale were practised. The Sultan, in hopes of reviving the credit of his currency, ordered that every one bringing copper tokens to the Treasury should have them cashed in gold or silver. “The people who in despair had flung aside their copper coins like stones and bricks in their houses, all rushed to the Treasury and exchanged them for gold and silver. In this way the Treasury soon became empty, but the copper coins had as little circulation as ever, and a very grievous blow was given to the State.”

An odd issue of currency, not of paper, but of leather, took place in Italy a few years before Polo’s birth. The Emperor Frederic II., at the siege of Faenza in 1241, being in great straits for money, issued pieces of leather stamped with the mark of his mint at the value of his Golden Augustals. This leather coinage was very popular, especially at Florence, and it was afterwards honourably redeemed by Frederic’s Treasury. Popular tradition in Sicily reproaches William the Bad among his other sins with having issued money of leather, but any stone is good enough to cast at a dog with such a surname.

[Ma Twan-lin mentions that in the fourth year of the period Yuen Show (B.C. 119), a currency of white metal and deer-skin was made. Mr. Vissering (Chinese Currency, 38) observes that the skin-tallies “were purely tokens, and have had nothing in common with the leather-money, which was, during a long time, current in Russia. This Russian skin-money had a truly representative character, as the parcels were used instead of the skins from which they were cut; the skins themselves being too bulky and heavy to be constantly carried backward and forward, only a little piece was cut off, to figure as a token of possession of the whole skin. The ownership of the skin was proved when the piece fitted in the hole.”

Mr. Rockhill (Rubruck, 201 note) says: “As early as B.C. 118, we find the Chinese using ‘leather-money’ (p’i pi). These were pieces of white deer-skin, a foot square, with a coloured border. Each had a value of 40,000 cash. (Ma Twan-lin, Bk. 8, 5.)”

Mr. Charles F. Keary (Coins and Medals, by S. Lane Poole, 128) mentions that “in the reign of Elizabeth there was a very extensive issue of private tokens in lead, tin, latten, and leather.”—H. C.]

(Klapr. in Mém. Rel. à l’Asie, I. 375 seqq.; Biot, in J. As. sér. III. tom. iv.; Marsden and Pauthier, in loco; Parkes, in J. R. A. S. XIII. 179; Doolittle, 452 seqq.; Wylie, J. of Shanghai Lit. and Scient. Soc. No. I.; Arbeiten der kais. russ. Gesandsch. zu Peking, I. p. 48; Rennie, Peking, etc., I. 296, 347; Birch, in. Num. Chron. XII. 169; Information from Dr. Lockhart; Alcock, II. 86; D’Ohsson, IV. 53; Cowell, in J. A. S. B. XXIX. 183 seqq.; Thomas, Coins of Patan Sovs. of Hind., (from Numism. Chron. 1852), p. 139 seqq.; Kington’s Fred. II. II. 195; Amari, III. 816; W. Vissering, On Chinese Currency, Leiden, 1877.)

[“Without doubt the Mongols borrowed the bank-note system from the Kin. Up to the present time there is in Si-ngan-fu a block kept, which was used for printing the bank-notes of the Kin Dynasty. I have had the opportunity of seeing a print of those bank-notes, they were of the same size and shape as the bank-notes of the Ming. A reproduction of the text of the Kin bank-notes is found in the Kin shi ts’ui pien. This copy has the characters pao küan (precious charter) and the years of reign Chêng Yew, 1213–1216. The first essay of the Mongols to introduce bank-notes dates from the time of Ogodai Khan (1229–1242), but Chinese history only mentions the fact without giving details. At that time silk in skeins was the only article of a determinate value in the trade and on the project of Ye lü ch’u ts’ai, minister of Ogodai, the taxes were also collected in silk delivered by weight. It can therefore be assumed that the name sze ch’ao (i.e. bank-notes referring to the weight of silk) dates back to the same time. At any rate, at a later time, as, under the reign of Kubilai, the issuing of banknotes was decreed, silk was taken as the standard to express the value of silver and 1000 liang silk was estimated = 50 liang (or 1 ting) silver. Thus, in consequence of those measures, it gradually became a rule to transfer the taxes and rents originally paid in silk, into silver. The wealth of the Mongol Khans in precious metals was renowned. The accounts regarding their revenues, however, which we meet with occasionally in Chinese history, do not surprise by their vastness. In the year 1298, for instance, the amount of the revenue is stated in the Siu t’ung Kien to have been:—

19,000 liang of gold = (190,000 liang of silver, according to the exchange of that time at the rate of 1 to 10).

60,000 liang of silver.

3,600,000 ting of silver in bank-notes (i.e. 180 millions liang); altogether 180,250,000 liang of silver.

The number seems indeed very high for that time. But if the exceedingly low exchange of the bank-notes be taken into consideration, the sum will be reduced to a modest amount.” (Palladius, pp. 50–51.)—H. C.]

[Dr. Bretschneider (Hist. Bot. Disc., I. p. 4) makes the following remark:—“Polo states (I. 409) that the Great Kaan causeth the bark of great Mulberry-trees, made into something like paper, to pass for money.” He seems to be mistaken. Paper in China is not made from mulberry-trees but from the Broussonetia papyrifera, which latter tree belongs to the same order of Moraceae. The same fibres are used also in some parts of China for making cloth, and Marco Polo alludes probably to the same tree when stating (II. 108) “that in the province of Cuiju (Kwei chau) they manufacture stuff of the bark of certain trees, which form very fine summer clothing.”—H. C.]

---------------------------------------------------------------------- [1] Even now there are at least eight different taels (or liangs) in extensive use over the Empire, and varying as much as from 96 to 106; and besides these are many local taels, with about the same limits of variation.—(Williamson’s Journeys, I. 60.)

[2] [The Archimandrite Palladius (l.c., p. 50, note) says that “the ting of the Mongol time, as well as during the reign of the Kin, was a unit of weight equivalent to fifty liang, but not to ten liang. Cf. Ch’u keng lu, and Yuen-shi, ch. xcv. The Yuen pao, which as everybody in China knows, is equivalent to fifty liang (taels) of silver, is the same as the ancient ting, and the character Yuen indicates that it dates from the Yuen Dynasty.”—H. C.]Return to passage

[3] This is also, as regards Customs payments, the system of the Government of modern Italy.Return to passage

[4] The first edition of this work gave a facsimile of one of this unlucky minister’s notes.Return to passage

[5] On both sides, however, was the Mahomedan formula, and beneath that the words Yiranjín Túrjí, a title conferred on the kings of Persia by the Kaan. There was also an inscription to the following effect: that the Emperor in the year 693 (A.H.) had issued these auspicious chao, that all who forged or uttered false notes should be summarily punished, with their wives and children, and their property confiscated; and that when these auspicious notes were once in circulation, poverty would vanish, provisions become cheap, and rich and poor be equal (Cowell). The use of the term chao at Tabriz may be compared with that of Bănklōt, current in modern India.Return to passage

Chapter XXV

CONCERNING THE TWELVE BARONS WHO ARE SET OVER ALL THE AFFAIRS OF THE GREAT KAAN.

You must know that the Great Kaan hath chosen twelve great Barons to whom he hath committed all the necessary affairs of thirty-four great provinces; and now I will tell you particulars about them and their establishments.

You must know that these twelve Barons reside all together in a very rich and handsome palace, which is inside the city of Cambaluc, and consists of a variety of edifices, with many suites of apartments. To every province is assigned a judge and several clerks, and all reside in this palace, where each has his separate quarters. These judges and clerks administer all the affairs of the provinces to which they are attached, under the direction of the twelve Barons. Howbeit, when an affair is of very great importance, the twelve Barons lay in before the Emperor, and he decides as he thinks best. But the power of those twelve Barons is so great that they choose the governors for all those thirty-four great provinces that I have mentioned, and only after they have chosen do they inform the Emperor of their choice. This he confirms, and grants to the person nominated a tablet of gold such as is appropriate to the rank of his government.

Those twelve Barons also have such authority that they can dispose of the movements of the forces, and send them whither, and in such strength, as they please. This is done indeed with the Emperor’s cognizance, but still the orders are issued on their authority. They are styled SHIENG, which is as much as to say “The Supreme Court,” and the palace where they abide is also called Shieng. This body forms the highest authority at the Court of the Great Kaan; and indeed they can favour and advance whom they will. I will not now name the thirty-four provinces to you, because they will be spoken of in detail in the course of this Book.{1}

NOTE 1.—Pauthier’s extracts from the Chinese Annals of the Dynasty, in illustration of this subject, are interesting. These, as he represents them, show the Council of Ministers usually to have consisted of twelve high officials, viz.: two Ch’ing-siang [丞 相] or (chief) ministers of state, one styled, “of the Right,” and the other “of the Left”; four called P’ing-chang ching-ssé, which seems to mean something like ministers in charge of special departments; four assistant ministers; two Counsellors.

Rashiduddin, however, limits the Council to the first two classes: “Strictly speaking, the Council of State is composed of four Ch’ing-sang (Ch’ing-siang) or great officers (Wazírs he afterwards terms them), and four Fanchán (P’ing-chang) or associated members, taken from the nations of the Tajiks, Cathayans, Ighurs, and Arkaun” (i.e. Nestorian Christians). (Compare p. 418, supra.)

[A Samarkand man, Seyyd Tadj Eddin Hassan ben el Khallal, quoted in the Masálak al Absár, says: “Near the Khan are two amírs who are his ministers; they are called Djing San جينكصان (Ch’ing-siang). After them come the two Bidjan بجان (P’ing Chang), then the two Zoudjin زوجين (Tso Chen), then the two Yudjin يوجين (Yu Chen), and at last the Landjun لنجون (Lang Chang), head of the scribes, and secretary of the sovereign. The Khan holds a sitting every day in the middle of a large building called Chen شن (Sheng), which is very like our Palace of Justice.” (C. Schefer, Cent. Ec. Langues Or., pp. 18–19.)—H. C.]

In a later age we find the twelve Barons reappearing in the pages of Mendoza: “The King hath in this city of Tabin (Peking), where he is resident, a royal council of twelve counsellors and a president, chosen men throughout all the kingdom, and such as have had experience in government many years.” And also in the early centuries of the Christian era we hear that the Khan of the Turks had his twelve grandees, divided into those of the Right and those of the Left, probably a copy from a Chinese order then also existing.

But to return to Rashiduddin: “As the Kaan generally resides at the capital, he has erected a place for the sittings of the Great Council, called Sing.... The dignitaries mentioned above are expected to attend daily at the Sing, and to make themselves acquainted with all that passes there.”

The Sing of Rashid is evidently the Shieng or Sheng (Scieng) of Polo. M. Pauthier is on this point somewhat contemptuous towards Neumann, who, he says, confounds Marco Polo’s twelve Barons or Ministers of State with the chiefs of the twelve great provincial governments called Sing, who had their residence at the chief cities of those governments; whilst in fact Polo’s Scieng (he asserts) has nothing to do with the Sing, but represents the Chinese word Siang “a minister,” and “the office of a minister.” [There was no doubt a confusion between Siang 相 and Sheng 省.—H. C.]

It is very probable that two different words, Siang and Sing, got confounded by the non-Chinese attachés of the Imperial Court; but it seems to me quite certain that they applied the same word, Sing or Sheng, to both institutions, viz. to the High Council of State, and to the provincial governments. It also looks as if Marco Polo himself had made that very confusion with which Pauthier charges Neumann. For whilst here he represents the twelve Barons as forming a Council of State at the capital, we find further on, when speaking of the city of Yangchau, he says: “Et si siet en ceste cité uns des xii Barons du Grant Kaan; car elle est esleue pour un des xii sieges,” where the last word is probably a mistranscription of Sciengs, or Sings, and in any case the reference is to a distribution of the empire into twelve governments.

To be convinced that Sing was used by foreigners in the double sense that I have said, we have only to proceed with Rashiduddin’s account of the administration. After what we have already quoted, he goes on: “The Sing of Khanbaligh is the most eminent, and the building is very large.... Sings do not exist in all the cities, but only in the capitals of great provinces.... In the whole empire of the Kaan there are twelve of these Sings; but that of Khanbaligh is the only one which has Ching-sangs amongst its members.” Wassáf again, after describing the greatness of Khanzai (Kinsay of Polo) says: “These circumstances characterize the capital itself, but four hundred cities of note, and embracing ample territories, are dependent on its jurisdiction, insomuch that the most inconsiderable of those cities surpasses Baghdad and Shiraz. In the number of these cities are Lankinfu and Zaitun, and Chinkalán; for they call Khanzai a Shing, i.e. a great city in which the high and mighty Council of Administration holds its meetings.” Friar Odoric again says: “This empire hath been divided by the Lord thereof into twelve parts, each one thereof is termed a Singo.”

Polo, it seems evident to me, knew nothing of Chinese. His Shieng is no direct attempt to represent any Chinese word, but simply the term that he had been used to employ in talking Persian or Turki, in the way that Rashiduddin and Wassáf employ it.

I find no light as to the thirty-four provinces into which Polo represents the empire as divided, unless it be an enumeration of the provinces and districts which he describes in the second and third parts of Bk. II., of which it is not difficult to reckon thirty-three or thirty-four, but not worth while to repeat the calculation.

[China was then divided into twelve Sheng or provinces: Cheng-Tung, Liao-Yang, Chung-Shu, Shen-Si, Ling-Pe (Karakorum), Kan-Suh, Sze-ch’wan, Ho-Nan Kiang-Pe, Kiang-Ché, Kiang-Si, Hu-Kwang and Yun-Nan. Rashiduddin (J. As., XI. 1883, p. 447) says that of the twelve Sing, Khanbaligh was the only one with Chin-siang. We read in Morrison’s Dict. (Pt. II. vol. i. p. 70): “Chin-seang, a Minister of State, was so called under the Ming Dynasty.” According to Mr. E. H. Parker (China Review, xxiv. p. 101), Ching Siang were abolished in 1395. I imagine that the thirty-four provinces refer to the Fu cities, which numbered however thirty-nine, according to Oxenham’s Historical Atlas.—H. C.]

(Cathay, 263 seqq. and 137; Mendoza, I. 96; Erdmann, 142; Hammer’s Wassáf, p. 42, but corrected.)

Chapter XXVI

HOW THE KAAN’S POSTS AND RUNNERS ARE SPED THROUGH MANY LANDS AND PROVINCES.

Now you must know that from this city of Cambaluc proceed many roads and highways leading to a variety of provinces, one to one province, another to another; and each road receives the name of the province to which it leads; and it is a very sensible plan.{1} And the messengers of the Emperor in travelling from Cambaluc, be the road whichsoever they will, find at every twenty-five miles of the journey a station which they call Yamb,{2} or, as we should say, the “Horse-Post-House.” And at each of those stations used by the messengers, there is a large and handsome building for them to put up at, in which they find all the rooms furnished with fine beds and all other necessary articles in rich silk, and where they are provided with everything they can want. If even a king were to arrive at one of these, he would find himself well lodged.

At some of these stations, moreover, there shall be posted some four hundred horses standing ready for the use of the messengers; at others there shall be two hundred, according to the requirements, and to what the Emperor has established in each case. At every twenty-five miles, as I said, or anyhow at every thirty miles, you find one of these stations, on all the principal highways leading to the different provincial governments; and the same is the case throughout all the chief provinces subject to the Great Kaan.{3} Even when the messengers have to pass through a roadless tract where neither house nor hostel exists, still there the station-houses have been established just the same, excepting that the intervals are somewhat greater, and the day’s journey is fixed at thirty-five to forty-five miles, instead of twenty-five to thirty. But they are provided with horses and all the other necessaries just like those we have described, so that the Emperor’s messengers, come they from what region they may, find everything ready for them.

And in sooth this is a thing done on the greatest scale of magnificence that ever was seen. Never had emperor, king, or lord, such wealth as this manifests! For it is a fact that on all these posts taken together there are more than 300,000 horses kept up, specially for the use of the messengers. And the great buildings that I have mentioned are more than 10,000 in number, all richly furnished, as I told you. The thing is on a scale so wonderful and costly that it is hard to bring oneself to describe it.{4}

But now I will tell you another thing that I had forgotten, but which ought to be told whilst I am on this subject. You must know that by the Great Kaan’s orders there has been established between those post-houses, at every interval of three miles, a little fort with some forty houses round about it, in which dwell the people who act as the Emperor’s foot-runners. Every one of those runners wears a great wide belt, set all over with bells, so that as they run the three miles from post to post their bells are heard jingling a long way off. And thus on reaching the post the runner finds another man similarly equipt, and all ready to take his place, who instantly takes over whatsoever he has in charge, and with it receives a slip of paper from the clerk, who is always at hand for the purpose; and so the new man sets off and runs his three miles. At the next station he finds his relief ready in like manner; and so the post proceeds, with a change at every three miles. And in this way the Emperor, who has an immense number of these runners, receives despatches with news from places ten days’ journey off in one day and night; or, if need be, news from a hundred days off in ten days and nights; and that is no small matter! (In fact in the fruit season many a time fruit shall be gathered one morning in Cambaluc, and the evening of the next day it shall reach the Great Kaan at Chandu, a distance of ten days’ journey.{5} The clerk at each of the posts notes the time of each courier’s arrival and departure; and there are often other officers whose business it is to make monthly visitations of all the posts, and to punish those runners who have been slack in their work.{6}) The Emperor exempts these men from all tribute, and pays them besides.

Moreover, there are also at those stations other men equipt similarly with girdles hung with bells, who are employed for expresses when there is a call for great haste in sending despatches to any governor of a province, or to give news when any Baron has revolted, or in other such emergencies; and these men travel a good two hundred or two hundred and fifty miles in the day, and as much in the night. I’ll tell you how it stands. They take a horse from those at the station which are standing ready saddled, all fresh and in wind, and mount and go at full speed, as hard as they can ride in fact. And when those at the next post hear the bells they get ready another horse and a man equipt in the same way, and he takes over the letter or whatever it be, and is off full-speed to the third station, where again a fresh horse is found all ready, and so the despatch speeds along from post to post, always at full gallop, with regular change of horses. And the speed at which they go is marvellous. (By night, however, they cannot go so fast as by day, because they have to be accompanied by footmen with torches, who could not keep up with them at full speed.)

Those men are highly prized; and they could never do it, did they not bind hard the stomach, chest and head with strong bands. And each of them carries with him a gerfalcon tablet, in sign that he is bound on an urgent express; so that if perchance his horse break down, or he meet with other mishap, whomsoever he may fall in with on the road, he is empowered to make him dismount and give up his horse. Nobody dares refuse in such a case; so that the courier hath always a good fresh nag to carry him.{7}

Now all these numbers of post-horses cost the Emperor nothing at all; and I will tell you the how and the why. Every city, or village, or hamlet, that stands near one of those post-stations, has a fixed demand made on it for as many horses as it can supply, and these it must furnish to the post. And in this way are provided all the posts of the cities, as well as the towns and villages round about them; only in uninhabited tracts the horses are furnished at the expense of the Emperor himself.

(Nor do the cities maintain the full number, say of 400 horses, always at their station, but month by month 200 shall be kept at the station, and the other 200 at grass, coming in their turn to relieve the first 200. And if there chance to be some river or lake to be passed by the runners and horse-posts, the neighbouring cities are bound to keep three or four boats in constant readiness for the purpose.)

And now I will tell you of the great bounty exercised by the Emperor towards his people twice a year.

NOTE 1.—The G. Text has “et ce est mout sçue chouse”; Pauthier’s Text, “mais il est moult celé.” The latter seems absurd. I have no doubt that sçue is correct, and is an Italianism, saputo having sometimes the sense of prudent or judicious. Thus P. della Valle (II. 26), speaking of Sháh Abbás: “Ma noti V.S. i tiri di questo re, saputo insieme e bizzarro,” “acute with all his eccentricity.”

NOTE 2.—Both Neumann and Pauthier seek Chinese etymologies of this Mongol word, which the Tartars carried with them all over Asia. It survives in Persian and Turki in the senses both of a post-house and a post-horse, and in Russia, in the former sense, is a relic of the Mongol dominion. The ambassadors of Shah Rukh, on arriving at Sukchu, were lodged in the Yám-Khána, or post-house, by the city gate; and they found ninety-nine such Yams between Sukchu and Khanbaligh, at each of which they were supplied with provisions, servants, beds, night-clothes, etc. Odoric likewise speaks of the hostelries called Yam, and Rubruquis applies the same term to quarters in the imperial camp, which were assigned for the lodgment of ambassadors. (Cathay, ccii., 137; Rubr. 310.)

[Mr. Rockhill (Rubruck, 101, note) says that these post-stations were established by Okkodai in 1234 throughout the Mongol empire. (D’Ohsson, ii. 63.) Dr. G. Schlegel (T’oung Pao, II. 1891, 265, note) observes that iam is not, as Pauthier supposed, a contraction of yi-mà, horse post-house (yi-mà means post-horse, and Pauthier makes a mistake), but represents the Chinese character 站, pronounced at present chán, which means in fact a road station, a post. In Annamite, this character 站 is pronounced trạm, and it means, according to Bonet’s Dict. Annamite-Français: “Relais de poste, station de repos.” (See Bretschneider, Med. Res. I. p. 187 note.)—H. C.]

NOTE 3.—Martini and Magaillans, in the 17th century, give nearly the same account of the government hostelries.

NOTE 4.—Here Ramusio has this digression: “Should any one find it difficult to understand how there should be such a population as all this implies, and how they can subsist, the answer is that all the Idolaters, and Saracens as well, take six, eight, or ten wives apiece when they can afford it, and beget an infinity of children. In fact, you shall find many men who have each more than thirty sons who form an armed retinue to their father, and this through the fact of his having so many wives. With us, on the other hand, a man hath but one wife; and if she be barren, still he must abide by her for life, and have no progeny; thus we have not such a population as they have.

“And as regards food, they have abundance; for they generally consume rice, panic, and millet (especially the Tartars, Cathayans, and people of Manzi); and these three crops in those countries render an hundred-fold. Those nations use no bread, but only boil those kinds of grain with milk or meat for their victual. Their wheat, indeed, does not render so much, but this they use only to make vermicelli, and pastes of that description. No spot of arable land is left untilled; and their cattle are infinitely prolific, so that when they take the field every man is followed by six, eight, or more horses for his own use. Thus you may clearly perceive how the population of those parts is so great, and how they have such an abundance of food.”

NOTE 5.—The Burmese kings used to have the odoriferous Durian transmitted by horse-posts from Tenasserim to Ava. But the most notable example of the rapid transmission of such dainties, and the nearest approach I know of to their despatch by telegraph, was that practised for the benefit of the Fatimite Khalif Aziz (latter part of 10th century), who had a great desire for a dish of cherries of Balbek. The Wazir Yakub ben-Kilis caused six hundred pigeons to be despatched from Balbek to Cairo, each of which carried attached to either leg a small silk bag containing a cherry! (Quat. Makrizi, IV. 118.)

NOTE 6.—“Note is taken at every post,” says Amyot, in speaking of the Chinese practice of last century, “of the time of the courier’s arrival, in order that it may be known at what point delays have occurred.” (Mém. VIII. 185.)

NOTE 7.—The post-system is described almost exactly as in the text by Friar Odoric and the Archbishop of Soltania, in the generation after Polo, and very much in the same way by Magaillans in the 17th century. Posts had existed in China from an old date. They are spoken of by Mas’udi and the Relations of the 9th century. They were also employed under the ancient Persian kings; and they were in use in India, at least in the generation after Polo. The Mongols, too, carried the institution wherever they went.

Polo describes the couriers as changed at short intervals, but more usually in Asiatic posts the same man rides an enormous distance. The express courier in Tibet, as described by “the Pandit,” rides from Gartokh to Lhasa, a distance of 800 miles, travelling day and night. The courier’s coat is sealed upon him, so that he dares not take off his clothes till the seal is officially broken on his arrival at the terminus. These messengers had faces cracked, eyes bloodshot and sunken, and bodies raw with vermin. (J. R. G. S. XXXVIII. p. 149.) The modern Turkish post from Constantinople to Baghdad, a distance of 1100 miles, is done in twenty days by four Tartars riding night and day. The changes are at Sivas, Diarbekir, and Mosul. M. Tchihatcheff calculates that the night riding accomplishes only one quarter of the whole. (Asie Mineure, 2ᵈᵉ Ptie. 632–635.)—See I. p. 352, paï tze.

Chapter XXVII

HOW THE EMPEROR BESTOWS HELP ON HIS PEOPLE, WHEN THEY ARE AFFLICTED WITH DEARTH OR MURRAIN.

Now you must know that the Emperor sends his Messengers over all his Lands and Kingdoms and Provinces, to ascertain from his officers if the people are afflicted by any dearth through unfavourable seasons, or storms or locusts, or other like calamity; and from those who have suffered in this way no taxes are exacted for that year; nay more, he causes them to be supplied with corn of his own for food and seed. Now this is undoubtedly a great bounty on his part. And when winter comes, he causes inquiry to be made as to those who have lost their cattle, whether by murrain or other mishap, and such persons not only go scot free, but get presents of cattle. And thus, as I tell you, the Lord every year helps and fosters the people subject to him.

[There is another trait of the Great Kaan I should tell you; and that is, that if a chance shot from his bow strike any herd or flock, whether belonging to one person or to many, and however big the flock may be, he takes no tithe thereof for three years. In like manner, if the arrow strike a boat full of goods, that boat-load pays no duty; for it is thought unlucky that an arrow strike any one’s property; and the Great Kaan says it would be an abomination before God, were such property, that has been struck by the divine wrath, to enter into his Treasury.{1}]

NOTE 1.—The Chinese author already quoted as to Kúblái’s character (Note 2, ch. xxiii. supra) says: “This Prince, at the sight of some evil prognostic, or when there was dearth, would remit taxation, and cause grain to be distributed to those who were in destitution. He would often complain that there never lacked informers if balances were due, or if corvées had been ordered, but when the necessities of the people required to be reported, not a word was said.”

Wassáf tells a long story in illustration of Kúblái’s justice and consideration for the peasantry. One of his sons, with a handful of followers, had got separated from the army, and halted at a village in the territory of Bishbaligh, where the people gave them sheep and wine. Next year two of the party came the same way and demanded a sheep and a stoup of wine. The people gave it, but went to the Kaan and told the story, saying they feared it might grow into a perpetual exaction. Kúblái sharply rebuked the Prince, and gave the people compensation and an order in their favour. (De Mailla, ix. 460; Hammer’s Wassaf, 38–39.)]

Chapter XXVIII

HOW THE GREAT KAAN CAUSES TREES TO BE PLANTED BY THE HIGHWAYS.

The Emperor moreover hath taken order that all the highways travelled by his messengers and the people generally should be planted with rows of great trees a few paces apart; and thus these trees are visible a long way off, and no one can miss the way by day or night. Even the roads through uninhabited tracts are thus planted, and it is the greatest possible solace to travellers. And this is done on all the ways, where it can be of service. [The Great Kaan plants these trees all the more readily, because his astrologers and diviners tell him that he who plants trees lives long.{1}

But where the ground is so sandy and desert that trees will not grow, he causes other landmarks, pillars or stones, to be set up to show the way.]

NOTE 1.—In this Kúblái imitated the great King Asoka, or Priyadarsi, who in his graven edicts (circa B.C. 250) on the Delhi Pillar, says: “Along the high roads I have caused fig-trees to be planted, that they may be for shade to animals and men. I have also planted mango-trees; and at every half-coss I have caused wells to be constructed, and resting-places for the night. And how many hostels have been erected by me at various places for the entertainment of man and beast.” (J. A. S. B. IV. 604.) There are still remains of the fine avenues of Kúblái and his successors in various parts of Northern China. (See Williamson, i. 74.)

XXIX. CONCERNING THE RICE-WINE DRUNK BY THE PEOPLE OF CATHAY

Most of the people of Cathay drink wine of the kind that I shall now describe. It is a liquor which they brew of rice with a quantity of excellent spice, in such fashion that it makes better drink than any other kind of wine; it is not only good, but clear and pleasing to the eye.{1} And being very hot stuff, it makes one drunk sooner than any other wine.

NOTE 1.—The mode of making Chinese rice-wine is described in Amyot’s Mémoires, V. 468 seqq. A kind of yeast is employed, with which is often mixed a flour prepared from fragrant herbs, almonds, pine-seeds, dried fruits, etc. Rubruquis says this liquor was not distinguishable, except by smell, from the best wine of Auxerre; a wine so famous in the Middle Ages, that the Historian Friar, Salimbene, went from Lyons to Auxerre on purpose to drink it.[1] Ysbrandt Ides compares the rice-wine to Rhenish; John Bell to Canary; a modern traveller quoted by Davis, “in colour, and a little in taste, to Madeira.” [Friar Odoric (Cathay, i. p. 117) calls this wine bigni; Dr. Schlegel (T’oung Pao, ii. p. 264) says Odoric’s wine was probably made with the date Mi-yin, pronounced Bi-im in old days. But Marco’s wine is made of rice, and is called shao hsing chiu. Mr. Rockhill (Rubruck, p. 166, note) writes: “There is another stronger liquor distilled from millet, and called shao chiu: in Anglo-Chinese, samshu; Mongols call it araka, arrak, and arreki. Ma Twan-lin (Bk. 327) says that the Moho (the early Nu-chên Tartars) drank rice wine (mi chiu), but I fancy that they, like the Mongols, got it from the Chinese.”

Dr. Emil Bretschneider (Botanicon Sinicum, ii. pp. 154–158) gives a most interesting account of the use and fabrication of intoxicating beverages by the Chinese. “The invention of wine or spirits in China,” he says, “is generally ascribed to a certain I TI, who lived in the time of the Emperor Yü. According to others, the inventor of wine was TU K’ANG.” One may refer also to Dr. Macgowan’s paper On the “Mutton Wine” of the Mongols and Analogous Preparations of the Chinese. (Jour. N. China Br. R. As. Soc., 1871–1872, pp. 237–240.)—H. C.]

---------------------------------------------------------------------- [1] Kington’s Fred. II. II. 457. So, in a French play of the 13th century, a publican in his patois invites custom, with hot bread, hot herrings, and wine of Auxerre in plenty:—

“Chaiens, fait bon disner chaiens; Chi a caut pain et caus herens, Et vin d’Aucheurre à plain tonnel.”— (Théat. Franç. au Moyen Age, 168.)

Chapter XXX

CONCERNING THE BLACK STONES THAT ARE DUG IN CATHAY, AND ARE BURNT FOR FUEL.

It is a fact that all over the country of Cathay there is a kind of black stones existing in beds in the mountains, which they dig out and burn like firewood. If you supply the fire with them at night, and see that they are well kindled, you will find them still alight in the morning; and they make such capital fuel that no other is used throughout the country. It is true that they have plenty of wood also, but they do not burn it, because those stones burn better and cost less.{1}

[Moreover with that vast number of people, and the number of hot baths that they maintain—for every one has such a bath at least three times a week, and in winter if possible every day, whilst every nobleman and man of wealth has a private bath for his own use—the wood would not suffice for the purpose.]

NOTE 1.—There is a great consumption of coal in Northern China, especially in the brick stoves, which are universal, even in poor houses. Coal seems to exist in every one of the eighteen provinces of China, which in this respect is justly pronounced to be one of the most favoured countries in the world. Near the capital coal is mined at Yuen-ming-yuen, and in a variety of isolated deposits among the hills in the direction of the Kalgan road, and in the district round Siuen-hwa-fu. (Sindachu of Polo, ante ch. lix.) But the most important coal-fields in relation to the future are those of Shan-tung Hu-nan, Ho-nan, and Shan-si. The last is eminently the coal and iron province of China, and its coal-field, as described by Baron Richthofen, combines, in an extraordinary manner, all the advantages that can enhance the value of such a field except (at present) that of facile export; whilst the quantity available is so great that from Southern Shan-si alone he estimates the whole world could be supplied, at the present rate of consumption, for several thousand years. “Adits, miles in length, could be driven within the body of the coal.... These extraordinary conditions ... will eventually give rise to some curious features in mining ... if a railroad should ever be built from the plain to this region ... branches of it will be constructed within the body of one or other of these beds of anthracite.” Baron Richthofen, in the paper which we quote from, indicates the revolution in the deposit of the world’s wealth and power, to which such facts, combined with other characteristics of China, point as probable; a revolution so vast that its contemplation seems like that of a planetary catastrophe.

In the coal-fields of Hu-nan “the mines are chiefly opened where the rivers intersect the inclined strata of the coal-measures and allow the coal-beds to be attacked by the miner immediately at their out-croppings.”

At the highest point of the Great Kiang, reached by Sarel and Blakiston, they found mines on the cliffs over the river, from which the coal was sent down by long bamboo cables, the loaded baskets drawing up the empty ones.

[Many coal-fields have been explored since; one of the most important is the coal-field of the Yun-nan province; the finest deposits are perhaps those found in the bend of the Kiang; coal is found also at Mong-Tzŭ, Lin-ngan, etc.; this rich coal region has been explored in 1898 by the French engineer A. Leclère. (See Congrès int. Géog., Paris, 1900, pp. 178–184.)—H. C.]

In various parts of China, as in Che-kiang, Sze-ch’wan, and at Peking, they form powdered coal, mixed with mud, into bricks, somewhat like our “patent fuel.” This practice is noticed by Ibn Batuta, as well as the use of coal in making porcelain, though this he seems to have misunderstood. Rashiduddin also mentions the use of coal in China. It was in use, according to citations of Pauthier’s, before the Christian era. It is a popular belief in China, that every provincial capital is bound to be established over a coal-field, so as to have a provision in case of siege. It is said that during the British siege of Canton mines were opened to the north of the city.

(The Distribution of Coal in China, by Baron Richthofen, in Ocean Highways, N.S., I. 311; Macgowan in Ch. Repos. xix. 385–387; Blakiston, 133, 265; Mid. Kingdom, I. 73, 78; Amyot, xi. 334; Cathay, 261, 478, 482; Notes by Rev. A. Williamson in J. N. Ch. Br. R. A. S., December, 1867; Hedde and Rondot, p. 63.)

Æneas Sylvius relates as a miracle that took place before his eyes in Scotland, that poor and almost naked beggars, when stones were given them as alms at the church doors, went away quite delighted; for stones of that kind were imbued either with brimstone or with some oily matter, so that they could be burnt instead of wood, of which the country was destitute. (Quoted by Jos. Robertson, Statuta Eccles. Scotic. I. xciii.)

Chapter XXXI

HOW THE GREAT KAAN CAUSES STORES OF CORN TO BE MADE, TO HELP HIS PEOPLE WITHAL IN TIME OF DEARTH.

You must know that when the Emperor sees that corn is cheap and abundant, he buys up large quantities, and has it stored in all his provinces in great granaries, where it is so well looked after that it will keep for three or four years.{1}

And this applies, let me tell you, to all kinds of corn, whether wheat, barley, millet, rice, panic, or what not, and when there is any scarcity of a particular kind of corn, he causes that to be issued. And if the price of the corn is at one bezant the measure, he lets them have it at a bezant for four measures, or at whatever price will produce general cheapness; and every one can have food in this way. And by this providence of the Emperor’s, his people can never suffer from dearth. He does the same over his whole Empire; causing these supplies to be stored everywhere, according to calculation of the wants and necessities of the people.

NOTE 1.—“Le fait si bien estuier que il dure bien trois ans ou quatre” (Pauthier): “si bien estudier” (G. T.). The word may be estiver (It. stivare), to stow, but I half suspect it should be estuver in the sense of “kiln-dry,” though both the Geog. Latin and the Crusca render it gubernare.[1] Lecomte says: “Rice is always stored in the public granaries for three or four years in advance. It keeps long if care be taken to air it and stir it about; and although not so good to the taste or look as new rice, it is said to be more wholesome.”

The Archbishop of Soltania (A.D. 1330) speaks of these stores. “The said Emperor is very pitiful and compassionate ... and so when there is a dearth in the land he openeth his garners, and giveth forth of his wheat and his rice for half what others are selling it at.” Kúblái Kaan’s measures of this kind are recorded in the annals of the Dynasty, as quoted by Pauthier. The same practice is ascribed to the sovereigns of the T’ang Dynasty by the old Arab Relations. In later days a missionary gives in the Lettres Edifiantes an unfavourable account of the action of these public granaries, and of the rascality that occurred in connection with them. (Lecomte, II. 101; Cathay, 240; Relat. I. 39; Let. Ed. xxiv. 76.)

[The Yuen-shi in ch. 96 contains sections on dispensaries (Hui min yao kü), granary regulations (Shi ti), and regulations for a time of dearth (Chen Sü). (Bretschneider, Med. Res. I. p. 187.)—H. C.]

---------------------------------------------------------------------- [1] Marsden observes incidentally (Hist. of Sumatra, 1st edition, p. 71) that he was told in Bengal they used to dry-kiln the rice for exportation, “owing to which, or to some other process, it will continue good for several years.”

XXXII. OF THE CHARITY OF THE EMPEROR TO THE POOR

I have told you how the Great Kaan provides for the distribution of necessaries to his people in time of dearth, by making store in time of cheapness. Now I will tell you of his alms and great charity to the poor of his city of Cambaluc.

You see he causes selection to be made of a number of families in the city which are in a state of indigence, and of such families some may consist of six in the house, some of eight, some of ten, more or fewer in each as it may hap, but the whole number being very great. And each family he causes annually to be supplied with wheat and other corn sufficient for the whole year. And this he never fails to do every year. Moreover, all those who choose to go to the daily dole at the Court receive a great loaf apiece, hot from the baking, and nobody is denied; for so the Lord hath ordered. And so some 30,000 people go for it every day from year’s end to year’s end. Now this is a great goodness in the Emperor to take pity of his poor people thus! And they benefit so much by it that they worship him as he were God.

[He also provides the poor with clothes. For he lays a tithe upon all wool, silk, hemp, and the like, from which clothing can be made; and he has these woven and laid up in a building set apart for the purpose; and as all artizans are bound to give a day’s labour weekly, in this way the Kaan has these stuffs made into clothing for those poor families, suitable for summer or winter, according to the time of year. He also provides the clothing for his troops, and has woollens woven for them in every city, the material for which is furnished by the tithe aforesaid. You should know that the Tartars, before they were converted to the religion of the Idolaters, never practised almsgiving. Indeed, when any poor man begged of them they would tell him, “Go with God’s curse, for if He loved you as He loves me, He would have provided for you.” But the sages of the Idolaters, and especially the Bacsis mentioned before, told the Great Kaan that it was a good work to provide for the poor, and that his idols would be greatly pleased if he did so. And since then he has taken to do for the poor so much as you have heard.{1}]

NOTE 1.—This is a curious testimony to an ameliorating effect of Buddhism on rude nations. The general establishment of medical aid for men and animals is alluded to in the edicts of Asoka;[1] and hospitals for the diseased and destitute were found by Fahian at Palibothra, whilst Hiuen Tsang speaks of the distribution of food and medicine at the Punyasálás or “Houses of Beneficence,” in the Panjáb. Various examples of a charitable spirit in Chinese Institutions will be found in a letter by Père d’Entrecolles in the XVth Recueil of Lettres Edifiantes; and a similar detail in Nevius’s China and the Chinese, ch. xv. (See Prinsep’s Essays, II. 15; Beal’s Fah-hian, 107; Pèl. Boudd. II. 190.) The Tartar sentiment towards the poor survives on the Arctic shores:—“The Yakuts regard the rich as favoured by the gods; the poor as rejected and cast out by them.” (Billings, Fr. Tranls. I. 233.)

---------------------------------------------------------------------- [1] As rendered by J. Prinsep. But I see that Professor H. H. Wilson did not admit the passage to bear that meaning.

Chapter XXXIII

[CONCERNING THE ASTROLOGERS IN THE CITY OF CAMBALUC.]

[There are in the city of Cambaluc, what with Christians, Saracens, and Cathayans, some five thousand astrologers and soothsayers, whom the Great Kaan provides with annual maintenance and clothing, just as he provides the poor of whom we have spoken, and they are in the constant exercise of their art in this city.

They have a kind of astrolabe on which are inscribed the planetary signs, the hours and critical points of the whole year. And every year these Christian, Saracen, and Cathayan astrologers, each sect apart, investigate by means of this astrolabe the course and character of the whole year, according to the indications of each of its Moons, in order to discover by the natural course and disposition of the planets, and the other circumstances of the heavens, what shall be the nature of the weather, and what peculiarities shall be produced by each Moon of the year; as, for example, under which Moon there shall be thunderstorms and tempests, under which there shall be disease, murrain, wars, disorders, and treasons, and so on, according to the indications of each; but always adding that it lies with God to do less or more according to His pleasure. And they write down the results of their examination in certain little pamphlets for the year, which are called Tacuin, and these are sold for a groat to all who desire to know what is coming. Those of the astrologers, of course whose predictions are found to be most exact, are held to be the greatest adepts in their art, and get the greater fame.{1}

And if any one having some great matter in hand, or proposing to make a long journey for traffic or other business, desires to know what will be the upshot, he goes to one of these astrologers and says: “Turn up your books and see what is the present aspect of the heavens, for I am going away on such and such a business.” Then the astrologer will reply that the applicant must also tell the year, month, and hour of his birth; and when he has got that information he will see how the horoscope of his nativity combines with the indications of the time when the question is put, and then he predicts the result, good or bad, according to the aspect of the heavens.

You must know, too, that the Tartars reckon their years by twelves; the sign of the first year being the Lion, of the second the Ox, of the third the Dragon, of the fourth the Dog, and so forth up to the twelfth;{2} so that when one is asked the year of his birth he answers that it was in the year of the Lion (let us say), on such a day or night, at such an hour, and such a moment. And the father of a child always takes care to write these particulars down in a book. When the twelve yearly symbols have been gone through, then they come back to the first, and go through with them again in the same succession.]

NOTE 1.—It is odd that Marsden should have sought a Chinese explanation of the Arabic word Taḳwím even with Tavernier before him: “They sell in Persia an annual almanac called Tacuim, which is properly an ephemeris containing the longitude and latitude of the planets, their conjunctions and oppositions, and other such matter. The Tacuim is full of predictions regarding war, pestilence, and famine; it indicates the favourable time for putting on new clothes, for getting bled or purged, for making a journey, and so forth. They put entire faith in it, and whoever can afford one governs himself in all things by its rules.” (Bk. V. ch. xiv.)

The use of the term by Marco may possibly be an illustration of what I have elsewhere propounded, viz. that he was not acquainted with Chinese, but that his intercourse and conversation lay chiefly with the foreigners at the Kaan’s Court, and probably was carried on in the Persian language. But not long after the date of our Book we find the word used in Italian by Jacopo Alighieri (Dante’s son):—

“A voler giudicare Si conviene adequare Inprimo il Taccuino, Per vedere il cammino Come i Pianeti vanno Per tutto quanto l’anno.” —Rime Antiche Toscane, III. 10.

Marco does not allude to the fact that almanacs were published by the Government, as they were then and still are. Pauthier (515 seqq.) gives some very curious details on this subject from the Annals of the Yuen. In the accounts of the year 1328, it appears that no less than 3,123,185 copies were printed in three different sizes at different prices, besides a separate almanac for the Hwei-Hwei or Mahomedans. Had Polo not omitted to touch on the issue of almanacs by Government he could scarcely have failed to enter on the subject of printing, on which he has kept a silence so singular and unaccountable.

The Chinese Government still “considers the publication of a Calendar of the first importance and utility. It must do everything in its power, not only to point out to its numerous subjects the distribution of the seasons, ... but on account of the general superstition it must mark in the almanac the lucky and unlucky days, the best days for being married, for undertaking a journey, for making their dresses, for buying or building, for presenting petitions to the Emperor, and for many other cases of ordinary life. By this means the Government keeps the people within the limits of humble obedience; it is for this reason that the Emperors of China established the Academy of Astronomy.” (Timk. I. 358.) The acceptance of the Imperial Almanac by a foreign Prince is considered an acknowledgment of vassalage to the Emperor.

It is a penal offence to issue a pirated or counterfeit edition of the Government Almanac. No one ventures to be without one, lest he become liable to the greatest misfortunes by undertaking the important measures on black-balled days.

The price varies now, according to Williams, from 1½_d._ to 5_d._ a copy. The price in 1328 was 1 tsien or cash for the cheapest edition, and 1 liang or tael of silver for the édition de luxe; but as these prices were in paper-money it is extremely difficult to say, in the varying depreciation of that currency, what the price really amounted to.

[“The Calendars for the use of the people, published by Imperial command, are of two kinds. The first, Wan-nien-shu, the Calendar of Ten Thousand Years, is an abridgment of the Calendar, comprising 397 years, viz. from 1624 to 2020. The second and more complete Calendar is the Annual Calendar, which, under the preceding dynasties, was named Li-je, Order of Days, and is now called Shih-hsien-shu, Book of Constant Conformity (with the Heavens). This name was given by the Emperor Shun-chih, in the first year of his reign (1644), on being presented by Father John Schall (Tang Jo-wang) with a new Calendar, calculated on the principles of European science. This Annual Calendar gives the following indications: (1°) The cyclical signs of the current year, of the months, and of all the days; (2°) the long and short months, as well as the intercalary month, as the case may be; (3°) the designation of each day by the 5 elements, the 28 constellations, and the 12 happy presages; (4°) the day and hour of the new moon, of the full moon, and of the two dichotomies, Shang-hsien and Hsia-hsien; (5°) the day and hour for the positions of the sun in the 24 zodiacal signs, calculated for the various capitals of China as well as for Manchuria, Mongolia, and the tributary Kingdoms; (6°) the hour of sunrise and sunset and the length of day and night for the principal days of the month in the several capitals; (7°) various superstitious indications purporting to point out what days and hours are auspicious or not for such or such affairs in different places. Those superstitious indications are stated to have been introduced into the Calendar under the Yüan dynasty.” (P. Hoang, Chinese Calendar, pp. 2–3.)—H. C.]

We may note that in Polo’s time one of the principal officers of the Mathematical Board was Gaisue, a native of Folin or the Byzantine Empire, who was also in charge of the medical department of the Court. Regarding the Observatory, see note at p. 378, supra.

And I am indebted yet again to the generous zeal of Mr. Wylie of Shanghai, for the principal notes and extracts which will, I trust, satisfy others as well as myself that the instruments in the garden of the Observatory belong to the period of Marco Polo’s residence in China.[1]

The objections to the alleged age of these instruments were entirely based on an inspection of photographs. The opinion was given very strongly that no instrument of the kind, so perfect in theory and in execution, could have been even imagined in those days, and that nothing of such scientific quality could have been made except by the Jesuits. In fact it was asserted or implied that these instruments must have been made about the year 1700, and were therefore not earlier in age than those which stand on the terraced roof of the Observatory, and are well known to most of us from the representation in Duhalde and in many popular works.

The only authority that I could lay hand on was Lecomte, and what he says was not conclusive. I extract the most pertinent passages:

“It was on the terrace of the tower that the Chinese astronomers had set their instruments, and though few in number they occupied the whole area. But Father Verbiest, the Director of the Observatory, considering them useless for astronomical observation, persuaded the Emperor to let them be removed, to make way for several instruments of his own construction. The instruments set aside by the European astronomers are still in a hall adjoining the tower, buried in dust and oblivion; and we saw them only through a grated window. They appeared to us to be very large and well cast, in form approaching our astronomical circles; that is all that we could make out. There was, however, thrown into a back yard by itself, a celestial globe of bronze, of about 3 feet in diameter. Of this we were able to take a nearer view. Its form was somewhat oval; the divisions by no means exact, and the whole work coarse enough.

“Besides this in a lower hall they had established a gnomon.... This observatory, not worthy of much consideration for its ancient instruments, much less for its situation, its form, or its construction, is now enriched by several bronze instruments which Father Verbiest has placed there. These are large, well cast, adorned in every case with figures of dragons,” etc. He then proceeds to describe them:

“(1). Armillary Zodiacal Sphere of 6 feet diameter. This sphere reposes on the heads of four dragons, the bodies of which after various convolutions come to rest upon the extremities of two brazen beams forming a cross, and thus bear the entire weight of the instrument. These dragons ... are represented according to the notion the Chinese form of them, enveloped in clouds, covered above the horns with long hair, with a tufted beard on the lower jaw, flaming eyes, long sharp teeth, the gaping throat ever vomiting a torrent of fire. Four lion-cubs of the same material bear the ends of the cross beams, and the heads of these are raised or depressed by means of attached screws, according to what is required. The circles are divided on both exterior and interior surface into 360 degrees; each degree into 60 minutes by transverse lines, and the minutes into sections of 10 seconds each by the sight-edge[2] applied to them.”

Of Verbiest’s other instruments we need give only the names: (2) Equinoxial Sphere, 6 feet diameter. (3) Azimuthal Horizon, same diam. (4) Great Quadrant, of 6 feet radius. (5) Sextant of about 8 feet radius. (6) Celestial Globe of 6 feet diameter.

As Lecomte gives no details of the old instruments which he saw through a grating, and as the description of this zodiacal sphere (No. 1) corresponds in some of its main features with that represented in the photograph, I could not but recognize the possibility that this instrument of Verbiest’s had for some reason or other been removed from the Terrace, and that the photograph might therefore possibly not be a representation of one of the ancient instruments displaced by him.[3]

The question having been raised it was very desirable to settle it, and I applied to Mr. Wylie for information, as I had received the photographs from him, and knew that he had been Mr. Thomson’s companion and helper in the matter.

“Let me assure you,” he writes (21st August, 1874), “the Jesuits had nothing to do with the manufacture of the so-called Mongol instruments; and whoever made them, they were certainly on the Peking Observatory before Loyola was born. They are not made for the astronomical system introduced by the Jesuits, but are altogether conformable to the system introduced by Kúblái’s astronomer Ko Show-king.... I will mention one thing which is quite decisive as to the Jesuits. The circle is divided into 365¼ degrees, each degree into 100 minutes, and each minute into 100 seconds. The Jesuits always used the sexagesimal division. Lecomte speaks of the imperfection of the division on the Jesuit-made instruments; but those on the Mongol instruments are immeasurably coarser.

“I understand it is not the ornamentation your friend objects to?[4] If it is, I would observe that there is no evidence of progress in the decorative and ornamental arts during the Ming Dynasty; and even in the Jesuit instruments that part of the work is purely Chinese, excepting in one instrument, which I am persuaded must have been made in Europe.

“I have a Chinese work called Luh-King-t’oo-Kaou, ‘Illustrations and Investigations of the Six Classics.’ This was written in A.D. 1131–1162, and revised and printed in 1165–1174. It contains a representation of an armillary sphere, which appears to me to be much the same as the sphere in question. There is a solid horizon fixed to a graduated outer circle. Inside the latter is a meridian circle, at right angles to which is a graduated colure; then the equator, apparently a double ring, and the ecliptic; also two diametric bars. The cut is rudely executed, but it certainly shows that some one imagined something more perfect. The instrument stands on a cross frame, with 4 dragon supporters and a prop in the centre.[5]

“It should be remembered that under the Mongol Dynasty the Chinese had much intercourse with Central Asia; and among others Yelewchootsae, as confidential minister and astronomer, followed Chinghiz in his Western campaign, held intercourse with the astronomers of Samarkand, and on his return laid some astronomical inventions before the Emperor.

“I append a notice of the Observatory taken from a popular description of Peking, by which it will be seen that the construction of these instruments is attributed to Ko Show-king, one of the most renowned astronomers of China. He was the chief astronomer under Kúblái Kaan” [to whom he was presented in 1262; he was born in 1231.—H. C.]

“It must be remembered that there was a special vitality among the Chinese under the Yuen with regard to the arts and sciences, and the Emperor had the choice of artizans and men of science from all countries. From the age of the Yuen till the arrival of the Jesuits, we hear nothing of any new instruments having been made; and it is well known that astronomy was never in a lower condition than under the Ming.”[6]

Mr. Wylie then draws attention to the account given by Trigault of the instruments that Matteo Ricci saw at Nanking, when he went (in the year 1599) to pay a visit to some of the literati of that city. He transcribes the account from the French Hist. de l’Expédition Chrestienne en la Chine, 1618. But as I have the Latin, which is the original and is more lucid, by me, I will translate from that.[7]

“Not only at Peking, but in this capital also (Nanking) there is a College of Chinese Mathematicians, and this one certainly is more distinguished by the vastness of its buildings than by the skill of its professors. They have little talent and less learning, and do nothing beyond the preparation of the almanacs on the rules of calculation made by the ancients; and when it chances that events do not agree with their calculation they assert that what they had calculated was the regular course of things, but that the aberrant conduct of the stars was a prognostic from heaven of something going to happen on the earth. This something they make out according to their fancy, and so spread a veil over their own blunders. These gentlemen did not much trust Father Matteo, fearing, no doubt, lest he should put them to shame; but when at last they were freed from this apprehension they came and amicably visited the Father in hope of learning something from him. And when he went to return their visit he saw something that really was new and beyond his expectation.

“There is a high hill at one side of the city, but still within the walls. On the top of the hill there is an ample terrace, capitally adapted for astronomical observation, and surrounded by magnificent buildings which form the residence of the Professors.... On this terrace are to be seen astronomical instruments of cast-metal, well worthy of inspection whether for size or for beauty; and we certainly have never seen or read of anything in Europe like them. For nearly 250 years they have stood thus exposed to the rain, the snow, and all other atmospheric inclemencies, and yet they have lost absolutely nothing of their original lustre. And lest I should be accused of raising expectations which I do not justify, I will do my best in a digression, probably not unwelcome, to bring them before the eyes of my readers.

“The larger of these instruments were four in number. First we inspected a great globe [A], graduated with meridians and parallels; we estimated that three men would hardly be able to embrace its girth.... A second instrument was a great sphere [B], not less in diameter than that measure of the outstretched arms which is commonly called a geometric pace. It had a horizon and poles; instead of circles it was provided with certain double hoops (armillæ), the void space between the pair serving the purpose of the circles of our spheres. All these were divided into 365 degrees and some odd minutes. There was no globe to represent the earth in the centre, but there was a certain tube, bored like a gun-barrel, which could readily be turned about and fixed to any azimuth or any altitude so as to observe any particular star through the tube, just as we do with our vane-sights;[8]—not at all a despicable device! The third machine was a gnomon [C], the height of which was twice the diameter of the former instrument, erected on a very large and long slab of marble, on the northern side of the terrace. The stone slab had a channel cut round the margin, to be filled with water in order to determine whether the slab was level or not, and the style was set vertical as in hour-dials.[9] We may suppose this gnomon to have been erected that by its aid the shadow at the solstices and equinoxes might be precisely noted, for in that view both the slab and the style were graduated. The fourth and last instrument, and the largest of all, was one consisting as it were of three or four huge astrolabes in juxtaposition [D]; each of them having a diameter of such a geometrical pace as I have specified. The fiducial line, or Alhidada, as it is called, was not lacking, nor yet the Dioptra.[10] Of these astrolabes, one having a tilted position in the direction of the south, represented the equator; a second, which stood crosswise on the first, in a north and south plane, the Father took for a meridian; but it could be turned round on its axis; a third stood in the meridian plane with its axis perpendicular, and seemed to stand for a vertical circle; but this also could be turned round so as to show any vertical whatever. Moreover all these were graduated, and the degrees marked by prominent studs of iron, so that in the night the graduation could be read by the touch without a light. All this compound astrolabe instrument was erected on a level marble platform with channels round it for levelling. On each of these instruments explanations of everything were given in Chinese characters; and there were also engraved the 24 zodiacal constellations which answer to our 12 signs, 2 to each.[11] There was, however, one error common to all the instruments, viz. that, in all, the elevation of the Pole was assumed to be 36°. Now there can be no question about the fact that the city of Nanking lies in lat. 32¼°; whence it would seem probable that these instruments were made for another locality, and had been erected at Nanking, without reference to its position, by some one ill versed in mathematical science.[12]

“Some years afterwards Father Matteo saw similar instruments at Peking, or rather the same instruments, so exactly alike were they, insomuch that they had unquestionably been made by the same artist. And indeed it is known that they were cast at the period when the Tartars were dominant in China; and we may without rashness conjecture that they were the work of some foreigner acquainted with our studies. But it is time to have done with these instruments.”—(Lib. IV. cap. 5.)

In this interesting description it will be seen that the Armillary Sphere [B] agrees entirely with that represented in illustration facing p. 450. And the second of his photographs in my possession, but not, I believe, yet published, answers perfectly to the curious description of the 4th instrument [D]. Indeed, I should scarcely have been able to translate that description intelligibly but for the aid of the photograph before me. It shows the three astrolabes or graduated circles with travelling indexes arranged exactly as described, and pivoted on a complex frame of bronze; (1) circle in the plane of the equator for measuring right ascensions; (2) circle with its axis vertical to the plane of the last, for measuring declinations: (3) circle with vertical axis, for zenith distances? The Gnomon [A] was seen by Mr. Wylie in one of the lower rooms of the Observatory (see below). Of the Globe we do not now hear; and that mentioned by Lecomte among the ancient instruments was inferior to what Ricci describes at Peking.

I now transcribe Mr. Wylie’s translation of an extract from a Popular Description of Peking:

“The observatory is on an elevated stage on the city wall, in the south-east corner of the (Tartar) city, and was built in the year (A.D. 1279). In the centre was the Tze-wei[13] Palace, inside of which were a pair of scrolls, and a cross inscription, by the imperial hand. Formerly it contained the Hwan-t’ien-e [B] ‘Armillary Sphere’; the Keen-e [D?] ‘Transit Instrument’ (?); the Tung-kew [A] ‘Brass Globe’; and the Leang-t’ien-ch’ih, ‘Sector,’ which were constructed by Ko Show-king under the Yuen Dynasty.

“In (1673) the old instruments having stood the wear of long past years, had become almost useless, and six new instruments were made by imperial authority. These were the T’ien-t’ee ‘Celestial Globe’ (6); Chih-taoue ‘Equinoctial Sphere’ (2); Hwang-taoue ‘Zodiacal Sphere’ (1); Te-p’ing kinge ‘Azimuthal Horizon’ (3); Te-p’ing weie ‘Altitude Instrument’ (4); Ke-yene ‘Sextant’ (5). These were placed in the Observatory, and to the present day are respectfully used. The old instruments were at the same time removed, and deposited at the foot of the stage. In (1715) the Te-ping King-wei-e ‘Azimuth and Altitude Instrument’ was made;[14] and in 1744 the Ke-hang-foo-chin-e (literally ‘Sphere and Tube instrument for sweeping the heavens’). All these were placed on the Observatory stage.

“There is a wind-index-pole called the ‘Fair-wind-pennon,’ on which is an iron disk marked out in 28 points, corresponding in number to the 28 constellations.”[15]

✛ Mr. Wylie justly observes that the evidence is all in accord, and it leaves, I think, no reasonable room for doubt that the instruments now in the Observatory garden at Peking are those which were cast aside by Father Verbiest[16] in 1673 (or 1668); which Father Ricci saw at Peking at the beginning of the century, and of which he has described the duplicates at Nanking; and which had come down from the time of the Mongols, or, more precisely, of Kúblái Khan.

Ricci speaks of their age as nearly 250 years in 1599; Verbiest as nearly 300 years in 1668. But these estimates evidently point to the termination of the Mongol Dynasty (1368), to which the Chinese would naturally refer their oral chronology. We have seen that Kúblái’s reign was the era of flourishing astronomy, and that the instruments are referred to his astronomer Ko Shéu-king; nor does there seem any ground for questioning this. In fact, it being once established that the instruments existed when the Jesuits entered China, all the objections fall to the ground.

We may observe that the number of the ancient instruments mentioned in the popular Chinese account agrees with the number of important instruments described by Ricci, and the titles of three at least out of the four seem to indicate the same instruments. The catalogue of the new instruments of 1673 (or 1668) given in the native work also agrees exactly with that given by Lecomte.[17] And in reference to my question as to the possibility that one of Verbiest’s instruments might have been removed from the terrace to the garden, it is now hardly worth while to repeat Mr. Wylie’s assurance that there is no ground whatever for such a supposition. The instruments represented by Lecomte are all still on the terrace, only their positions have been somewhat altered to make room for the two added in last century.

Probably, says Mr. Wylie, more might have been added from Chinese works, especially the biography of Ko Shéu-king. But my kind correspondent was unable to travel beyond the books on his own shelves. Nor was it needful.

It will have been seen that, beautiful as the art and casting of these instruments is, it would be a mistake to suppose that they are entitled to equally high rank in scientific accuracy. Mr. Wylie mentioned the question that had been started to Freiherr von Gumpach, who was for some years Professor of Astronomy in the Peking College. Whilst entirely rejecting the doubts that had been raised as to the age of the Mongol instruments, he said that he had seen those of Tycho Brahe, and the former are quite unworthy to be compared with Tycho’s in scientific accuracy.

The doubts expressed have been useful in drawing attention to these remarkable reliques of the era of Kúblái’s reign, and of Marco Polo’s residence in Cathay, though I fear they are answerable for having added some pages to a work that required no enlargement!

[Mr. Wylie sent a most valuable paper on The Mongol Astronomical Instruments at Peking to the Congress of Orientalists held at St. Petersburg, which was reprinted at Shanghai in 1897 in Chinese Researches. Some of the astronomical instruments have been removed to Potsdam by the Germans since the siege of the foreign Legations at Peking in 1900.—H. C.]

On these auguries, and on diviners and fortune-tellers, see Semedo, p. 118 seqq.; Kidd, p. 313 (also for preceding references, Mid. Kingdom, II. 152; Gaubil, 136).

NOTE 2.—✛ The real cycle of the Mongols, which was also that of the Chinese, runs: 1. Rat; 2. Ox; 3. Tiger; 4. Hare; 5. Dragon; 6. Serpent; 7. Horse; 8. Sheep; 9. Ape; 10. Cock; 11. Dog; 12. Swine. But as such a cycle [12 earthly branches, Ti-chih] is too short to avoid confusion, it is combined with a co-efficient cycle of ten epithets [celestial Stems, T’ien-kan] in such wise as to produce a 60-year cycle of compound names before the same shall recur. These co-efficient epithets are found in four different forms: (1) From the Elements: Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, Water, attaching to each a masculine and feminine attribute so as to make ten epithets. (2) From the Colours: Blue, Red, Yellow, White, Black, similarly treated. (3) By terms without meaning in Mongol, directly adopted or imitated from the Chinese, Ga, Yi, Bing, Ting, etc. (4) By the five Cardinal Points: East, South, Middle, West, North. Thus 1864 was the first year of a 60-year cycle:—

1864 = (Masc.) Wood-Rat Year = (Masc.) Blue-Rat Year. 1865 = (Fem.) Wood-Ox Year = (Fem.) Blue-Ox Year. 1866 = (Masc.) Fire-Tiger Year = (Masc.) Red-Tiger Year. 1867 = (Fem.) Fire-Hare Year = (Fem.) Red-Hare Year. 1923 = (Fem.) Water-Swine Year = (Fem.) Black-Swine Year.

And then a new cycle commences just as before.

This Calendar was carried by the Mongols into all their dominions, and it would appear to have long survived them in Persia. Thus a document issued in favour of Sir John Chardin by the Shaikh-ul-Islám of Ispahan, bears the strange date for a Mahomedan luminary of “The year of the Swine.” The Hindus also had a 60-year cycle, but with them each year had an independent name.

The Mongols borrowed their system from the Chinese, who attribute its invention to the Emperor Hwang-ti, and its initiation to the 61st year of his reign, corresponding to B.C. 2637. [“It was Ta-nao, Minister to the Emperor Hwang-ti, who, by command of his Sovereign, devised the sexagenary cycle. Hwang-ti began to reign 2697 B.C., and the 61st year of his reign was taken for the first cyclical sign.” P. Hoang, Chinese Calendar, p. 11.—H. C.] The characters representing what we have called the ten co-efficient epithets are called by the Chinese the “Heavenly Stems”; those equivalent to the twelve animal symbols are the “Earthly Branches,” and they are applied in their combinations not to years only, but to cycles of months, days, and hours, such hours being equal to two of ours. Thus every year, month, day, and hour will have two appropriate characters, and the four pairs belonging to the time of any man’s birth constitute what the Chinese call the “Eight Characters” of his age, to which constant reference is made in some of their systems of fortune-telling, and in the selection of propitious days for the transaction of business. To this system the text alludes. A curious account of the principles of prognostication on such a basis will be found in Doolittle’s Social Life of the Chinese (p. 579 seqq.; on the Calendar, see Schmidt’s Preface to S. Setzen; Pallas, Sammlungen, II. 228 seqq.; Prinsep’s Essays, Useful Tables, 146).

[“Kubilai Khan established in Peking two astronomical boards and two observatories. One of them was a Chinese Observatory (sze t’ien t’ai), the other a Mohammedan Observatory (hui hui sze t’ien t’ai), each with its particular astronomical and chronological systems, its particular astrology and instruments. The first astronomical and calendar system was compiled for the Mongols by Ye-liu Ch’u-ts’ai, who was in Chingis Khan’s service, not only as a high counsellor, but also as an astronomer and astrologer. After having been convinced of the obsoleteness and incorrectness of the astronomical calculations in the Ta ming li (the name of the calendar system of the Kin Dynasty), he thought out at the time he was at Samarcand a new system, valid not only for China, but also for the countries conquered by the Mongols in Western Asia, and named it in memory of Chingis Khan’s expedition Si ching keng wu yüan li, i.e. ‘Astronomical Calendar beginning with the year Keng wu, compiled during the war in the west.’ Keng-wu was the year 1210 of our era. Ye-liu Ch’u-ts’ai chose this year, and the moment of the winter solstice, for the beginning of his period; because, according to his calculations, it coincided with the beginning of a new astronomical or planetary period. He took also into consideration, that since the year 1211 Chingis Khan’s glory had spread over the whole world. Ye-liu Ch’u-ts’ai’s calendar was not adopted in China, but the system of it is explained in the Yuen-shi, in the section on Astronomy and the Calendar.

“In the year 1267, the Mohammedans presented to Kubilai their astronomical calendar (wan nien li, i.e.), the calendar of ten thousand years. By taking this denomination in its literal sense, we may conclude that the Mahommedans brought to China the ancient Persian system, founded on the period of 10,000 years. The compilers of the Yuen-shi seem not to have had access to documents relating to this system, for they give no details about it. Finally by order of Kubilai the astronomers Hui-Heng and Ko Show-King composed a new calculation under the name of Shou-shi-li, which came into use from the year 1280. It is thoroughly explained in the Yuen-shi. Notwithstanding the fame this system generally enjoyed, its blemishes came soon to light. In the sixth month of 1302 an eclipse of the sun happened, and the calculation of the astronomer proved to be erroneous (it seems the calculation had anticipated the real time). The astronomers of the Ming Dynasty explained the errors in the Shou-shi-li by the circumstance, that in that calculation the period for one degree of precession of the equinox was taken too long (eighty-one years). But they were themselves hardly able to overcome these difficulties.” (Palladius, pp. 51–53.)—H. C.]

---------------------------------------------------------------------- [1] Besides the works quoted in the text I have only been able to consult Gaubil’s notices, as abstracted in Lalande; and the Introductory Remarks to Mr. J. Williams’s Observations of Comets ... extracted from the Chinese Annals, London, 1871.

[2] Pinnula. The French pinnule is properly a sight-vane at the end of a traversing bar. The transverse lines imply that minutes were read by the system of our diagonal scales; and these I understand to have been subdivided still further by aid of a divided edge attached to the sight-vane; qu. a Vernier?

[3] Verbiest himself speaks of the displaced instruments thus ... “ut nova instrumenta astronomica facienda mihi imponeret, quæ scilicet more Europæo affabre facta, et in specula Astroptica Pekinensi collocata, æternam Imperii Tartarici memoriam apud posteritatem servarent, prioribus instrumentis Sinicis rudioris Minervæ, quæ jam a trecentis proxime annis speculam occupabant, inde amotis. Imperator statim annuit illorum postulatis, et totius rei curam, publico diplomate mihi imposuit. Ego itaque intra quadriennis spatium sex diversi generis instrumenta confeci.” This is from an account of the Observatory written by Verbiest himself, and printed at Peking in 1668 (Liber Organicus Astronomiæ Europææ apud Sinas Restitutæ, etc.). My friend Mr. D. Hanbury made the extract from a copy of this rare book in the London Institution Library. An enlarged edition was published in Europe. (Dillingen, 1687.)

[4] On the contrary, he considered the photographs interesting, as showing to how late a period the art of fine casting had endured.

[5] This ancient instrument is probably the same that is engraved in Pauthier’s Chine Ancienne under the title of “The Sphere of the Emperor Shun” (B.C. 2255!).

[6] After the death of Kúblái astronomy fell into neglect, and when Hongwu, the first Ming sovereign, took the throne (1368) the subject was almost forgotten. Nor was there any revival till the time of Ching. The latter was a prince who in 1573 associated himself with the astronomer Hing-yun-lu to reform the state of astronomy. (Gaubil.)

What Ricci has recorded (in Trigautius) of the dense ignorance of the Chinese literati in astronomical matters is entirely consistent with the preceding statements.

[7] I had entirely forgotten to look at Trigault till Mr. Wylie sent me the extract. The copy I use (De Christianâ Expeditione apud Sinas ... Auct. Nicolao Trigautio) is of Lugdun. 1616. The first edition was published at August. Vindelicorum (Augsburg) in 1615: the French, at Lyons, in 1616.

[8] “Pinnulis.”

[9] “Et stilus eo modo quo in horologiis ad perpendiculum collocatus.”

[10] The Alidada is the traversing index bar which carries the dioptra, pinnules, or sight-vanes. The word is found in some older English Dictionaries, and in France and Italy is still applied to the traversing index of a plane table or of a sextant. Littré derives it from (Ar.) ’adád, enumeration; but it is really from a quite different word, al-iḍádat عضادة “a door-post,” which is found in this sense in an Arabic treatise on the Astrolabe. (See Dozy and Engelmann, p. 140.)

[11] This is an error of Ricci’s, as Mr. Wylie observes, or of his reporter.

The Chinese divide their year into 24 portions of 15 days each. Of these 24 divisions twelve called Kung mark the twelve places in which the sun and moon come into conjunction, and are thus in some degree analogous to our 12 signs of the Zodiac. The names of these Kung are entirely different from those of our sign, though since the 17th century the Western Zodiac, with paraphrased names, has been introduced in some of their books. But besides that, they divide the heavens into 28 stellar spaces. The correspondence of this division to the Hindu system of the 28 Lunar Mansions, called Nakshatras, has given rise to much discussion. The Chinese sieu or stellar spaces are excessively unequal, varying from 24° in equatorial extent down to 24′. (Williams, op. cit.) [See P. Hoang, supra p. 449.]

[12] Mr. Wylie is inclined to distrust the accuracy of this remark, as the only city nearly on the 36th parallel is P’ing-yang fu.

But we have noted in regard to this (Polo’s Pianfu, vol. ii. p. 17) that a college for the education of Mongol youth was instituted here, by the great minister Yeliu Chutsai, whose devotion to astronomy Mr. Wylie has noticed above. In fact, two colleges were established by him, one at Yenking, i.e. Peking, the other at P’ing-yang; and astronomy is specified as one of the studies to be pursued at these. (See D’Ohsson, II. 71–72, quoting De Mailla.) It seems highly probable that the two sets of instruments were originally intended for these two institutions, and that one set was carried to Nanking, when the Ming set their capital there in 1368.

[13] The 28 sieu or stellar spaces, above spoken of, do not extend to the Pole; they are indeed very unequal in extent on the meridian as well as on the equator. And the area in the northern sky not embraced in them is divided into three large spaces called Yuen or enclosures, of which the field of circumpolar stars (or circle of perpetual apparition) forms one which is called Tze-Wei. (Williams.)

The southern circumpolar stars form a fourth space, beyond the 28 sieu. Ibid.

[14] “This was obviously made in France. There is nothing Chinese about it, either in construction or ornament. It is very different from all the others.” (Note by Mr. Wylie.)Return to passage

[15] “There follows a minute description of the brass clepsydra, and the brass gnomon, which it is unnecessary to translate. I have seen both these instruments, in two of the lower rooms.”—Id.Return to passage

[16] [Ferdinand Verbiest, S.J., was born at Pitthens, near Courtrai; he arrived in China in 1659 and died at Peking on the 29th January, 1688.—H. C.]Return to passage

[17] We have attached letters A, B, C, to indicate the correspondences of the ancient instruments, and cyphers 1, 2, 3, to indicate the correspondences of the modern instruments.Return to passage