Asia -- Description and travel -- Early works to 1800; Mongols -- History; Polo, Marco, 1254-1323?; Voyages and travels
[Mr. G. Phillips has made a special study of the route from Kinsay
to Zaytun in the _T’oung Pao_, I. p. 218 _seq._ (_The Identity of
Marco Polo’s Zaitun with Changchau_). He says (p. 222): “Leaving
Hangchau by boat for Fuhkien, the first place of importance is
Fuyang, at 100 _li_ from Hangchau. This name does not in any way
resemble Polo’s Ta Pin Zu, but I think it can be no other.” Mr.
Phillips writes (pp. 221–222) that by the route he describes, he
“intends to follow the highway which has been used by travellers
for centuries, and the greater part of which is by water.” He adds:
“I may mention that the boats used on this route can be luxuriously
fitted up, and the traveller can go in them all the way from
Hangchau to Chinghu, the head of the navigation of the Ts’ien-t’ang
River. At this Chinghu, they disembark and hire coolies and
chairs to take them and their luggage across the Sien-hia pass
to Puching in Fuhkien. This route is described by Fortune in an
opposite direction, in his _Wanderings in China_, vol. ii. p. 139.
I am inclined to think that Polo followed this route, as the one
given by Yule, by way of Shao-hing and Kin-hua by land, would be
unnecessarily tedious for the ladies Polo was escorting, and there
was no necessity to take it; more especially as there was a direct
water route to the point for which they were making. I further
incline to this route, as I can find no city at all fitting in with
Yenchau, Ramusio’s Gengiu, along the route given by Yule.”
In my paper on the Catalan Map (Paris, 1895) I gave the following
itinerary: Kinsay (Hang-chau), Tanpiju (Shao-hing fu), Vuju
(Kin-hwa fu), Ghiuju (K’iu-chau fu), Chan-shan (Sui-chang hien),
Cuju (Ch’u-chau), Ke-lin-fu (Kien-ning fu), Unken (Hu-kwan), Fuju
(Fu-chau), Zayton (Kayten, Hai-t’au), Zayton (Ts’iuen-chau), Tyunju
(Tek-hwa).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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