Asia -- Description and travel -- Early works to 1800; Mongols -- History; Polo, Marco, 1254-1323?; Voyages and travels
So, quitting this province and city of Linju, you travel three days
more towards the south, constantly finding numbers of rich towns
and villages. These still belong to Cathay; and the people are all
Idolaters, burning their dead, and using paper-money, that I mean of
their Lord the Great Kaan, whose subjects they are. This is the finest
country for game, whether in beasts or birds, that is anywhere to be
found, and all the necessaries of life are in profusion.
At the end of those three days you find the city of PIJU, a great,
rich, and noble city, with large trade and manufactures, and a great
production of silk. This city stands at the entrance to the great
province of Manzi, and there reside at it a great number of merchants
who despatch carts from this place loaded with great quantities of
goods to the different towns of Manzi. The city brings in a great
revenue to the Great Kaan.{2}
NOTE 1.—Murray suggests that Lingiu is a place which appears in
D’Anville’s Map of Shan-tung as _Lintching-y_, and in Arrowsmith’s
Map of China (also in those of Berghaus and Keith Johnston) as
_Lingchinghien_. The position assigned to it, however, on the west
bank of the canal, nearly under the 35th degree of latitude, would
agree fairly with Polo’s data. [_Lin-ch’ing, Lin-tsing_, lat. 37°
03′, _Playfair’s Dict._ No. 4276; _Biot_, p. 107.—H. C.]
In any case, I imagine Lingiu (of which, perhaps, _Lingin_ may
be the correct reading) to be the _Lenzin_ of Odoric, which he
reached in travelling by water from the south, before arriving at
Sinjumatu. (_Cathay_, p. 125.)
NOTE 2.—There can be no doubt that this is PEI-CHAU on the east
bank of the canal. The abundance of game about here is noticed by
Nieuhoff (in _Astley_, III. 417). [See _D. Gandar, Canal Impérial_,
1894.—H. C.]
CHAPTER LXIV.
CONCERNING THE CITY OF SIJU, AND THE GREAT RIVER CARAMORAN.
When you leave Piju you travel towards the south for two days, through
beautiful districts abounding in everything, and in which you find
quantities of all kinds of game. At the end of those two days you reach
the city of SIJU, a great, rich, and noble city, flourishing with
trade and manufactures. The people are Idolaters, burn their dead, use
paper-money, and are subjects of the Great Kaan. They possess extensive
and fertile plains producing abundance of wheat and other grain.{1} But
there is nothing else to mention, so let us proceed and tell you of the
countries further on.
On leaving Siju you ride south for three days, constantly falling
in with fine towns and villages and hamlets and farms, with their
cultivated lands. There is plenty of wheat and other corn, and of game
also; and the people are all Idolaters and subjects of the Great Kaan.
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