(Cf.
Deveria, Notes d'epigraphie mongolo-chinoise, p. 4.) Reclus (Geog.
Univ., Asie Orientale, p. 159) says: "To the east [of Hami], beyond the
Chukur Gobi, are to be found also some permanent villages and the remains
of cities. One of them is perhaps the 'cite d'Etzina' of which Marco Polo
speaks, and the name is to be found in that of the river Az-sind."
"Through Kanchau was the shortest, and most direct and convenient road to
I-tsi-nay.... I-tsi-nay, or Echine, is properly the name of a lake.
Khubilai, disquieted by his factious relatives on the north, established a
military post near lake I-tsi-nay, and built a town, or a fort on the
south-western shore of this lake. The name of I-tsi-nay appears from that
time; it does not occur in the chronicle of the Tangut kingdom; the lake
had then another name. Vestiges of the town are seen to this day; the
buildings were of large dimensions, and some of them were very fine. In
Marco Polo's time there existed a direct route from I-tsi-nay to
Karakorum; traces of this road are still noticeable, but it is no more
used. This circumstance, i.e. the existence of a road from I-tsi-nay to
Karakorum, probably led Marco Polo to make an excursion (a mental one, I
suppose) to the residence of the Khans in Northern Mongolia."
(Palladius, l.c. pp. 10-11.) - H. C.]
NOTE 2. - "Erberge" (G. T.). Pauthier has Herbage.
NOTE 3. - The Wild Ass of Mongolia is the Dshiggetai of Pallas (Asinus
hemionus of Gray), and identical with the Tibetan Kyang of Moorcroft
and Trans-Himalayan sportsmen. It differs, according to Blyth, only in
shades of colour and unimportant markings from the Ghor Khar of Western
India and the Persian Deserts, the Kulan of Turkestan, which Marco has
spoken of in a previous passage (supra, ch. xvi.; J. A. S. B. XXVIII.
229 seqq.). There is a fine Kyang in the Zoological Gardens, whose
portrait, after Wolf, is given here. But Mr. Ney Elias says of this animal
that he has little of the aspect of his nomadic brethren. [The wild ass
(Tibetan Kyang, Mongol Holu or Hulan) is called by the Chinese yeh
ma, "wild horse," though "every one admits that it is an ass, and should
be called yeh lo-tzu." (Rockhill, Land of the Lamas, 151, note.) - H.
C.]
[Captain Younghusband (1886) saw in the Altai Mountains "considerable
numbers of wild asses, which appeared to be perfectly similar to the Kyang
of Ladak and Tibet, and wild horses too - the Equus Prejevalskii - roaming
about these great open plains." (Proc.
