Kenjanfu, or, as Ramusio gives it, Quenzanfu, is SI-NGAN FU, or as it was called in the days of its greatest fame, Chang-ngan, probably the most celebrated city in Chinese history, and the capital of several of the most potent dynasties. It was the metropolis of Shi Hwang-ti of the T’sin Dynasty, properly the first emperor and whose conquests almost intersected those of his contemporary Ptolemy Euergetes. It was, perhaps, the _Thinae_ of Claudius Ptolemy, as it was certainly the Khumdán[3] of the early Mahomedans, and the site of flourishing Christian Churches in the 7th century, as well as of the remarkable monument, the discovery of which a thousand years later disclosed their forgotten existence.[4] _Kingchao-fu_ was the name which the city bore when the Mongol invasions brought China into communication with the west, and Klaproth supposes that this was modified by the Mongols into KENJANFU. Under the latter name it is mentioned by Rashiduddin as the seat of one of the Twelve _Sings_ or great provincial administrations, and we find it still known by this name in Sharífuddin’s history of Timur. The same name is traceable in the _Kansan_ of Odoric, which he calls the second best province in the world, and the best populated. Whatever may have been the origin of the name _Kenjanfu_, Baron v. Richthofen was, on the spot, made aware of its conservation in the exact form of the Ramusian Polo. The Roman Catholic missionaries there emphatically denied that Marco could ever have been at Si-ngan fu, or that the city had ever been known by such a name as Kenjan-fu. On this the Baron called in one of the Chinese pupils of the Mission, and asked him directly what had been the name of the city under the Yuen Dynasty. He replied at once with remarkable clearness: “QUEN-ZAN-FU.” Everybody present was struck by the exact correspondence of the Chinaman’s pronunciation of the name with that which the German traveller had adopted from Ritter. [Illustration: _Reduced Facsimile of the celebrated Christian Inscription of Singanfu, in Chinese and Syriac Characters_. _Photo-lithograph, from a Rubbing._ W. GRIGGS, PHOTO-LITH.] [The vocabulary _Hweï Hwei_ (Mahomedan) of the College of Interpreters at Peking transcribes King chao from the Persian Kin-chang, a name it gives to the Shen-si province. King chao was called Ngan-si fu in 1277. (_Devéria, Epigraphie_, p. 9.) Ken-jan comes from Kin-chang = King-chao = Si-ngan fu.—H. C.]