"I have found no certain account of market-squares,
though the Fang,[2] of which a few still exist, and a very large number
are laid down in the Sung Map, mainly grouped along the chief street, may
perhaps represent them.... The names of some of these (Fang) and of the
Sze or markets still remain."
Mr. Wylie sent Sir Henry Yule a tracing of the figures mentioned in the
footnote; it is worth while to append them, at least in diagram.
No 1. No 2. No 3.
++ ++ ++
| - - - - - -| | - - - - - -| | - - -| - - - | - - - |
| | | | | | | a | |
+| | |+ +| |+ +| - - -+ - - - + - - - |+
+| - - -+ - - -|+ +| - - - - - -|+ +| | | |+
| | | | | | | b | |
| | | | | +| - - -+ - - - + - - - |+
| - - - - - -| | - - - - - -| +| | | |+
++ | | c | |
| - - -| - - - | - - - |
++ ++
No. 1. Plan of a Fang or Square.
No. 2. Plan of a Fang or Square in the South of the Imperial City
of Si-ngan fu.
No. 3. Arrangement of Two-Fang Square, with four streets and 8 gates.
a. The Market place.
b. The Official Establishment.
c. Office for regulating Weights.
Compare Polo's statement that in each of the squares at Kinsay, where the
markets were held, there were two great Palaces facing one another, in
which were established the officers who decided differences between
merchants, etc.
The double lines represent streets, and the ++ are gates.
NOTE 4. - There is no mention of pork, the characteristic animal food of
China, and the only one specified by Friar Odoric in his account of the
same city. Probably Mark may have got a little Saracenized among the
Mahomedans at the Kaan's Court, and doubted if 'twere good manners to
mention it. It is perhaps a relic of the same feeling, gendered by Saracen
rule, that in Sicily pigs are called i neri.
"The larger game, red-deer and fallow-deer, is now never seen for sale.
Hog-deer, wild-swine, pheasants, water-fowl, and every description of
'vermin' and small birds, are exposed for sale, not now in markets, but at
the retail wine shops. Wild-cats, racoons, otters, badgers, kites, owls,
etc., etc., festoon the shop fronts along with game." (Moule.)
NOTE 5. - Van Braam, in passing through Shan-tung Province, speaks of very
large pears. "The colour is a beautiful golden yellow. Before it is pared
the pear is somewhat hard, but in eating it the juice flows, the pulp
melts, and the taste is pleasant enough." Williams says these Shan-tung
pears are largely exported, but he is not so complimentary to them as
Polo: "The pears are large and juicy, sometimes weighing 8 or 10 pounds,
but remarkably tasteless and coarse." (V. Braam, II. 33-34; Mid.
Kingd., I. 78 and II. 44). In the beginning of 1867 I saw pears in Covent
Garden Market which I should guess to have weighed 7 or 8 lbs. each. They
were priced at 18 guineas a dozen!
["Large pears are nowadays produced in Shan-tung and Manchuria, but they
are rather tasteless and coarse. I am inclined to suppose that Polo's
large pears were Chinese quinces, Cydonia chinensis, Thouin, this fruit
being of enormous size, sometimes one foot long, and very fragrant. The
Chinese use it for sweet-meats." (Bretschneider, Hist. of Bot. Disc. I.
p. 2.) - H.C.]
As regards the "yellow and white" peaches, Marsden supposes the former to
be apricots. Two kinds of peach, correctly so described, are indeed common
in Sicily, where I write; - and both are, in their raw state, equally good
food for i neri! But I see Mr. Moule also identifies the yellow peach
with "the hwang-mei or clingstone apricot," as he knows no yellow peach
in China.
NOTE 6. - "E non veggono mai l'ora che di nuovo possano ritornarvi;" a
curious Italian idiom. (See Vocab. It. Univ. sub. v. "vedere".)
NOTE 7. - It would seem that the habits of the Chinese in reference to the
use of pepper and such spices have changed. Besides this passage, implying
that their consumption of pepper was large, Marco tells us below (ch.
lxxxii.) that for one shipload of pepper carried to Alexandria for the
consumption of Christendom, a hundred went to Zayton in Manzi. At the
present day, according to Williams, the Chinese use little spice; pepper
chiefly as a febrifuge in the shape of pepper-tea, and that even less
than they did some years ago. (See p. 239, infra, and Mid. Kingd., II.
46, 408.) On this, however, Mr. Moule observes: "Pepper is not so
completely relegated to the doctors. A month or two ago, passing a
portable cookshop in the city, I heard a girl-purchaser cry to the cook,
'Be sure you put in pepper and leeks!'"
NOTE 8. - Marsden, after referring to the ingenious frauds commonly related
of Chinese traders, observes: "In the long continued intercourse that has
subsisted between the agents of the European companies and the more
eminent of the Chinese merchants ... complaints on the ground of
commercial unfairness have been extremely rare, and on the contrary, their
transactions have been marked with the most perfect good faith and mutual
confidence." Mr. Consul Medhurst bears similar strong testimony to the
upright dealings of Chinese merchants. His remark that, as a rule, he has
found that the Chinese deteriorate by intimacy with foreigners is worthy
of notice;[3] it is a remark capable of application wherever the East and
West come into habitual contact. Favourable opinions among the nations on
their frontiers of Chinese dealing, as expressed to Wood and Burnes in
Turkestan, and to Macleod and Richardson in Laos, have been quoted by me
elsewhere in reference to the old classical reputation of the Seres for
integrity. Indeed, Marco's whole account of the people here might pass for
an expanded paraphrase of the Latin commonplaces regarding the Seres. Mr.
Milne, a missionary for many years in China, stands up manfully against
the wholesale disparagement or Chinese character (p. 401).
NOTE 9.
