His Shieng is no
direct attempt to represent any Chinese word, but simply the term that
he had been used to employ in talking Persian or Turki, in the way that
Rashiduddin and Wassaf employ it.
I find no light as to the thirty-four provinces into which Polo represents
the empire as divided, unless it be an enumeration of the provinces and
districts which he describes in the second and third parts of Bk. II., of
which it is not difficult to reckon thirty-three or thirty-four, but not
worth while to repeat the calculation.
[China was then divided into twelve Sheng or provinces: Cheng-Tung,
Liao-Yang, Chung-Shu, Shen-Si, Ling-Pe (Karakorum), Kan-Suh, Sze-ch'wan,
Ho-Nan Kiang-Pe, Kiang-Che, Kiang-Si, Hu-Kwang and Yun-Nan. Rashiduddin
(J. As., XI. 1883, p. 447) says that of the twelve Sing, Khanbaligh was
the only one with Chin-siang. We read in Morrison's Dict. (Pt. II.
vol. i. p. 70): "Chin-seang, a Minister of State, was so called under the
Ming Dynasty." According to Mr. E. H. Parker (China Review, xxiv. p.
101), Ching Siang were abolished in 1395. I imagine that the thirty-four
provinces refer to the Fu cities, which numbered however thirty-nine,
according to Oxenham's Historical Atlas. - H. C.]
(Cathay, 263 seqq.
