This has the notable property of
keeping so cool that many people cannot wear it even in the hot weather.
Generally it is used only for summer clothing." (Dict. des Tissus,
VII. 404; Chin. Repos. XVIII. 217 and 529; Ann. de la Prop. de
la Foi, XXXI. 137.)
NOTE 3. - Tigers of course are meant. (See supra, vol. i. p. 399.)
M. Perny speaks of tigers in the mountainous parts of Kwei-chau. (Op.
cit. 139.)
NOTE 4. - These great dogs were noticed by Lieutenant (now General)
Macleod, in his journey to Kiang Hung on the great River Mekong, as
accompanying the caravans of Chinese traders on their way to the Siamese
territory. (See Macleod's Journal, p. 66.)
NOTE 5. - The trade in wild silk (i.e. from the oak-leaf silkworm) is in
truth an important branch of commerce in Kwei-chau. But the chief seat of
this is at Tsuni-fu, and I do not think that Polo's route can be sought so
far to the eastward. (Ann. de la Prop. XXXI. 136; Richthofen, Letter
VII. 81.)
NOTE 6. - We have now got back to Sindafu, i.e. Ch'eng-tu fu in
Sze-ch'wan, and are better able to review the geography of the track we
have been following. I do not find it possible to solve all its
difficulties.
The different provinces treated of in the chapters from lv. to lix. are
strung by Marco upon an easterly, or, as we must interpret,
north-easterly line of travel, real or hypothetical. Their names and
intervals are as follows: (1) Bangala; whence 30 marches to (2) Caugigu; 25
marches to (3) Anin; 8 marches to (4) Toloman or Coloman; 12 days in Cuiju
along a river to the city of (5) Fungul, Sinugul (or what not); 12 days
further, on or along the same river, to (6) Ch'eng-tu fu. Total from
Bangala to Ch'eng-tu fu 87 days.
I have said that the line of travel is real or hypothetical, for no
doubt a large part of it was only founded on hearsay. We last left our
traveller at Mien, or on the frontier of Yun-nan and Mien. Bangala is
reached per sallum with no indication of interval, and its position is
entirely misapprehended. Marco conceives of it, not as in India, but as
being, like Mien, a province on the confines of India, as being under
the same king as Mien, as lying to the south of that kingdom, and as being
at the (south) western extremity of a great traverse line which runs
(north) east into Kwei-chau and Sze-ch'wan. All these conditions point
consistently to one locality; that, however, is not Bengal but Pegu. On
the other hand, the circumstances of manners and products, so far as they
go, do belong to Bengal.
