[In The Yuen-Shi It Is "Stated That There Were Gold And Silver Mines In
The Districts Of Siuen-Te-Chow And Yuchow, As Well As In The Kiming Shan
Mountains.
These mines were worked by the Government itself up to 1323,
when they were transferred to private enterprise.
Marco Polo's Ydifu is
probably a copyist's error, and stands instead of Yuchow." (Palladius,
24, 25.) - H. C.]
[1] Mr. Ney Elias favours me with a curious but tantalising communication
on this subject: "An old man called on me at Kwei-hwa Ch'eng (Tenduc),
who said he was neither Chinaman, Mongol, nor Mahomedan, and lived on
ground a short distance to the north of the city, especially allotted
to his ancestors by the Emperor, and where there now exist several
families of the same origin. He then mentioned the connection of his
family with that of the Emperor, but in what way I am not clear, and
said that he ought to be, or had been, a prince. Other people coming
in, he was interrupted and went away.... He was not with me more than
ten minutes, and the incident is a specimen of the difficulty in
obtaining interesting information, except by mere chance.... The idea
that struck me was, that he was perhaps a descendant of King George of
Tenduc; for I had your M. P. before me, and had been inquiring as much
as I dared about subjects it suggested.... At Kwei-hwa Ch'eng I was
very closely spied, and my servant was frequently told to warn me
against asking too many questions."
I should mention that Oppert, in his very interesting monograph, Der
Presbyter Johannes, refuses to recognise the Kerait chief at all in
that character, and supposes Polo's King George to be the
representative of a prince of the Liao (supra, p. 205), who, as we
learn from De Mailla's History, after the defeat of the Kin, in which
he had assisted Chinghiz, settled in Liaotung, and received from the
conqueror the title of King of the Liao.
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