The
Envoy Was Informed That, As The Khan Suffered From Swollen Feet It Would
Be Useful For Him To Wear Boots Made Of The Skin Of This Animal, And In
The 10th Month, The King Of Corea Forwarded To The Khan Seventeen Skins Of
It.
It is further recorded in the Corean history, that in the 8th month of
1292, sorcerers and Shaman women from Corea were sent at the request of
the Khan to cure him of a disease of the feet and hands.
At that time the
king of Corea was also in Peking, and the sorcerers and Shaman women were
admitted during an audience the King had of the Khan. They took the Khan's
hands and feet and began to recite exorcisms, whilst Kubilai was
laughing." - H. C.]
NOTE 6. - Marsden and Pauthier identify Cachar Modun with Tchakiri
Mondou, or Moudon, which appears in D'Anville's atlas as the title of a
"Levee de terre naturelle," in the extreme east of Manchuria, and in lat.
44 deg., between the Khinga Lake and the sea. This position is out of the
question. It is more than 900 miles, in a straight line from Peking, and
the mere journey thither and back would have taken Kublai's camp something
like six months. The name Kachar Modun is probably Mongol, and as
Katzar is = "land, region," and Modun = "wood" or "tree," a fair
interpretation lies on the surface. Such a name indeed has little
individuality. But the Jesuit maps have a Modun Khotan ("Wood-ville")
just about the locality supposed, viz. in the region north of the eastern
extremity of the Great Wall.
[Captain Gill writes (River of Golden Sand, I. p. 111): "This country
around Urh-Chuang is admirably described [in Marco Polo, pp. 403, 406],
and I should almost imagine that the Kaan must have set off south-east
from Peking, and enjoyed some of his hawking not far from here, before he
travelled to Cachar Modun, wherever that may have been."
"With respect to Cachar Modun, Marco Polo intends perhaps by this name
Ho-si wu, which place, together with Yang-ts'un, were comprised in the
general name Ma t'ou (perhaps the Modun of M. Polo). Ma-t'ou is even
now a general term for a jetty in Chinese. Ho-si in the Mongol spelling
was Ha-shin. D'Ohsson, in his translation of Rashid-eddin renders Ho-si
by Co-shi (Hist. des Mongols, I. p. 95), but Rashid in that case
speaks not of Ho-si wu, but of the Tangut Empire, which in Chinese was
called Ho-si, meaning west of the (Yellow) River. (See supra, p. 205).
Ho-si wu, as well as Yang-ts'un, both exist even now as villages on the
Pei-ho River, and near the first ancient walls can be seen. Ho-si wu means:
'Custom's barrier west of the (Pei-ho) river.'" (Palladius, p. 45.) This
identification cannot be accepted on account of the position of Ho-si wu.
- H. C.]
NOTE 7.
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