“Judging from the condition of the country,” writes the Rev. W. S. Ament (p. 120), “one could hardly believe that this general region was the original home of the silk-worm, and doubtless the people who once lived here are the only people who ever saw the silk-worm in his wild state. The historian of Cho-Chou honestly remarks that he knows of no reason why the production of silk should have ceased there, except the fact that the worms refused to live there.... The palmy days of the silk industry were in the T’ang dynasty.”—H. C.] NOTE 3.—“About a _li_ from the southern suburbs of this town, the great road to Shantung and the south-east diverged, causing an immediate diminution in the number of carts and travellers” (_Oxenham_). [From Peking “to Cheng-ting fu”, says Colonel Bell (_Proc. R. G. S._, XII. 1890, p. 58), “the route followed is the Great Southern highway; here the Great Central Asian highway leaves it.” The Rev. W. S. Ament says (_l.c._, 121) about the bifurcation of the road, one branch going on south-west to Pao-Ting fu and Shan-si, and one branch to Shantung and Ho-nan: “The union of the two roads at this point, bringing the travel and traffic of ten provinces, makes Cho Chou one of the most important cities in the Empire. The magistrate of this district is the only one, so far as we know, in the Empire who is relieved of the duty of welcoming and escorting transient officers. It was the multiplicity of such duties, so harassing, that persuaded Fang Kuan-ch’eng to write the couplet on one of the city gateways: _Jih pien ch’ung yao, wu shuang ti: T’ien hsia fan nan, ti yi Chou_. ‘In all the world, there is no place so public as this: for multiplied cares and trials, this is the first Chou.’ The people of Cho-Chou, of old celebrated for their religious spirit, are now well known for their literary enterprise.”—H. C.] This bifurcation of the roads is a notable point in Polo’s book. For after following the western road through Cathay, _i.e._ the northern provinces of China, to the borders of Tibet and the Indo-Chinese regions, our traveller will return, whimsically enough, not to the capital to take a fresh departure, but to this bifurcation outside of Chochau, and thence carry us south with him to Manzi, or China south of the Yellow River. Of a part of the road of which Polo speaks in the latter part of the chapter Williamson says: “The drive was a very beautiful one. Not only were the many villages almost hidden by foliage, but the road itself hereabouts is lined with trees.... The effect was to make the journey like a ramble through the avenues of some English park.” Beyond Tingchau however the country becomes more barren. (I. 268.) CHAPTER XXXVII. THE KINGDOM OF TAIANFU.