Martini Relates That When One Of The Emperors Wanted To Make War On Japan,
The Province Of Fo-Kien Offered To Bridge The Interval With Their Vessels!
ZAYTON, as Martini and Deguignes conjectured, is T'SWAN-CHAU FU, or
CHWAN-CHAU FU (written by French scholars Thsiouan-
Tcheou-fou), often
called in our charts, etc., Chinchew, a famous seaport of Fo-kien about
100 miles in a straight line S.W. by S. of Fu-chau, Klaproth supposes that
the name by which it was known to the Arabs and other Westerns was
corrupted from an old Chinese name of the city, given in the Imperial
Geography, viz. TSEU-T'UNG.[1] Zaitun commended itself to Arabian ears,
being the Arabic for an olive-tree (whence Jerusalem is called
Zaituniyah); but the corruption (if such it be) must be of very old date,
as the city appears to have received its present name in the 7th or 8th
century.
Abulfeda, whose Geography was terminated in 1321, had heard the real name
of Zayton: "Shanju" he calls it, "known in our time as Zaitun"; and
again: "Zaitun, i.e. Shanju, is a haven of China, and, according to the
accounts of merchants who have travelled to those parts, is a city of
mark. It is situated on a marine estuary which ships enter from the China
Sea. The estuary extends fifteen miles, and there is a river at the head
of it. According to some who have seen the place, the tide flows. It is
half a day from the sea, and the channel by which ships come up from the
sea is of fresh water. It is smaller in size than Hamath, and has the
remains of a wall which was destroyed by the Tartars. The people drink
water from the channel, and also from wells."
Friar Odoric (in China, circa 1323-1327, who travelled apparently by
land from Chin-kalan, i.e. Canton) says: "Passing through many cities
and towns, I came to a certain noble city which is called Zayton, where we
Friars Minor have two Houses.... In this city is great plenty of all
things that are needful for human subsistence. For example, you can get
three pounds and eight ounces of sugar for less than half a groat. The
city is twice as great as Bologna, and in it are many monasteries of
devotees, idol-worshippers every man of them. In one of those monasteries
which I visited there were 3000 monks.... The place is one of the best in
the world.... Thence I passed eastward to a certain city called Fuzo....
The city is a mighty fine one, and standeth upon the sea." Andrew of
Perugia, another Franciscan, was Bishop of Zayton from 1322, having
resided there from 1318. In 1326 he writes a letter home, in which he
speaks of the place as "a great city on the shores of the Ocean Sea, which
is called in the Persian tongue Cayton (Cayton); and in this city a rich
Armenian lady did build a large and fine enough church, which was erected
into a cathedral by the Archbishop," and so on. He speaks incidentally of
the Genoese merchants frequenting it. John Marignolli, who was there about
1347, calls it "a wondrous fine sea-port, and a city of incredible size,
where our Minor Friars have three very fine churches; ... and they have a
bath also, and a fondaco which serves as a depot for all the merchants."
Ibn Batuta about the same time says: "The first city that I reached after
crossing the sea was ZAITUN.... It is a great city, superb indeed; and in
it they make damasks of velvet as well as those of satin (Kimkha and
Atlas), which are called from the name of the city Zatuniah; they are
superior to the stuffs of Khansa and Kharbalik. The harbour of Zaitun is
one of the greatest in the world - I am wrong; it is the greatest! I
have seen there about an hundred first-class junks together; as for small
ones, they were past counting. The harbour is formed by an estuary which
runs inland from the sea until it joins the Great River."
[Mr. Geo. Phillips finds a strong argument in favour of Changchau being
Zayton in this passage of Ibn Batuta. He says (Jour. China Br.R.A.
Soc. 1888, 28-29): "Changchow in the Middle Ages was the seat of a great
silk manufacture, and the production of its looms, such as gauzes, satins
and velvets, were said to exceed in beauty those of Soochow and Hangchow.
According to the Fuhkien Gazetteer, silk goods under the name of Kinki,
and porcelain were, at the end of the Sung Dynasty, ordered to be taken
abroad and to be bartered against foreign wares, treasure having been
prohibited to leave the country. In this Kinki I think we may recognise
the Kimkha of IBN BATUTA. I incline to this fact, as the characters Kinki
are pronounced in the Amoy and Changchow dialects Khimkhi and Kimkhia.
Anxious to learn if the manufacture of these silk goods still existed in
Changchow, I communicated with the Rev. Dr. TALMAGE of Amoy, who, through
the Rev. Mr. Ross of the London Mission, gave me the information that
Kinki was formerly somewhat extensively manufactured at Changchow,
although at present it was only made by one shop in that city. IBN BATUTA
tells us that the King of China had sent to the Sultan, five hundred
pieces of Kamkha, of which one hundred were made in the city of Zaitun.
This form of present appears to have been continued by the Emperors of the
Ming Dynasty, for we learn that the Emperor Yunglo gave to the Envoy of
the Sultan of Quilon, presents of Kinki and Shalo, that is to say,
brocaded silks and gauzes. Since writing the above, I found that Dr. HIRTH
suggests that the characters Kinhua, meaning literally gold flower in the
sense of silk embroidery, possibly represent the mediaeval Khimka.
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