Asia -- Description and travel -- Early works to 1800; Mongols -- History; Polo, Marco, 1254-1323?; Voyages and travels
[“In the southern part of Su-chau is the park, surrounded by a high
wall, which contains the group of buildings called the Confucian
Temple. This is the Dragon’s head;—the Dragon Street, running
directly North, is his body, and the Great Pagoda is his tail. In
front is a grove of cedars. To one side is the hall where thousands
of scholars go to worship at the Spring and Autumn Festivals—this
for the gentry alone, not for the unlettered populace. There is
a building used for the slaughter of animals, another containing
a map of the city engraved in stone; a third with tablets and
astronomical diagrams, and a fourth containing the Provincial
Library. On each side of the large courts are rooms where are
placed the tablets of the 500 sages. The main temple is 50 by 70
feet, and contains the tablet of Confucius and a number of gilded
boards with mottoes. It is a very imposing structure. On the stone
dais in front, a mat-shed is erected for the great sacrifices at
which the official magnates exercise their sacerdotal functions. As
a tourist beheld the sacred grounds and the aged trees, she said:
‘This is the most venerable-looking place I have seen in China.’ On
the gateway in front, the sage is called ‘The Prince of Doctrine in
times Past and Present.’” (_Rev. H. C. Du Bose, Chin. Rec._, xix.
p. 272).—H. C.]
NOTE 5.—The Geographic Text only, at least of the principal
Texts, has distinctly the _three_ cities, _Vugui, Vughin,
Ciangan_. Pauthier identifies the first and third with HU-CHAU
FU and Sung-kiang fu. In favour of Vuju’s being Hu-chau is the
fact mentioned by Wilson that the latter city is locally called
WUCHU.[3] If this be the place, the Traveller does not seem to be
following a direct and consecutive route from Su-chau to Hang-chau.
Nor is Hu-chau within a day’s journey of Su-chau. Mr. Kingsmill
observes that the only town at that distance is _Wukiang-hien_,
once of some little importance but now much reduced. WUKIANG,
however, is suggestive of VUGHIN; and, in that supposition,
Hu-chau must be considered the object of a digression from which
the Traveller returns and takes up his route to Hang-chau _viâ_
Wukiang. _Kiahing_ would then best answer to _Ciangan_, or
_Caingan_, as it is written in the following chapter of the G. T.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] See Quatremère’s _Rashid._, p. lxxxvii., and Hammer’s _Wassáf_, p.
42.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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