Asia -- Description and travel -- Early works to 1800; Mongols -- History; Polo, Marco, 1254-1323?; Voyages and travels
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[1] A passing suggestion of the identity of Kafchi Kué and Caugigu is
made by D’Ohsson, and I formerly objected. (See _Cathay_, p. 272.)
[2] Cuiju might be read _Ciuju_—representing _Siuchau_, but the
difficulty about Fungul would remain.
[Illustration: Fortified Villages on Western frontier of Kweichau.
(From Garnier.)
“=Chastiaus ont-il grant quantité en grandismes montagnes et
fortres.=”]
BOOK II.—_Continued_.
PART III.—JOURNEY SOUTHWARD THROUGH EASTERN PROVINCES
OF CATHAY AND MANZI.
CHAPTER LX.
CONCERNING THE CITIES OF CACANFU AND OF CHANGLU.
Cacanfu is a noble city. The people are Idolaters and burn their dead;
they have paper-money, and live by trade and handicrafts. For they
have plenty of silk from which they weave stuffs of silk and gold, and
sendals in large quantities. [There are also certain Christians at this
place, who have a church.] And the city is at the head of an important
territory containing numerous towns and villages. [A great river
passes through it, on which much merchandise is carried to the city of
Cambaluc, for by many channels and canals it is connected therewith.{1}]
We will now set forth again, and travel three days towards the south,
and then we come to a town called CHANGLU. This is another great city
belonging to the Great Kaan, and to the province of Cathay. The people
have paper-money, and are Idolaters and burn their dead. And you must
know they make salt in great quantities at this place; I will tell you
how ’tis done.{2}
A kind of earth is found there which is exceedingly salt. This they
dig up and pile in great heaps. Upon these heaps they pour water in
quantities till it runs out at the bottom; and then they take up this
water and boil it well in great iron cauldrons, and as it cools it
deposits a fine white salt in very small grains. This salt they then
carry about for sale to many neighbouring districts, and get great
profit thereby.
There is nothing else worth mentioning, so let us go forward five days’
journey, and we shall come to a city called Chinangli.
NOTE 1.—In the greater part of the journey which occupies the
remainder of Book II., Pauthier is a chief authority, owing
to his industrious Chinese reading and citation. Most of his
identifications seem well founded, though sometimes we shall be
constrained to dissent from them widely. A considerable number have
been anticipated by former editors, but even in such cases he is
often able to bring forward new grounds.
CACANFU is HO-KIEN FU in Pe Chih-li, 52 miles in a direct line
south by east of Chochau. It was the head of one of the _Lu_ or
circuits into which the Mongols divided China. (_Pauthier_.)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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