And you must know that on your left hand, that is
towards the east, and three days' journey distant, is the Ocean Sea. At
every place between the sea and the city salt is made in great quantities.
And there is a rich and noble city called TINJU, at which there is
produced salt enough to supply the whole province, and I can tell you it
brings the Great Kaan an incredible revenue. The people are Idolaters and
subject to the Kaan. Let us quit this, however, and go back to Tiju.
[NOTE 1]
Again, leaving Tiju, you ride another day towards the south-east, and at
the end of your journey you arrive at the very great and noble city of
YANJU, which has seven-and-twenty other wealthy cities under its
administration; so that this Yanju is, you see, a city of great
importance.[NOTE 2] It is the seat of one of the Great Kaan's Twelve
Barons, for it has been chosen to be one of the Twelve Sings. The
people are Idolaters and use paper-money, and are subject to the Great
Kaan. And Messer Marco Polo himself, of whom this book speaks, did govern
this city for three full years, by the order of the Great Kaan.[NOTE 3]
The people live by trade and manufactures, for a great amount of harness
for knights and men-at-arms is made there. And in this city and its
neighbourhood a large number of troops are stationed by the Kaan's orders.
There is no more to say about it. So now I will tell you about two great
provinces of Manzi which lie towards the west. And first of that called
Nanghin.
NOTE 1. - Though the text would lead us to look for Tiju on the direct
line between Kao-yu and Yang-chau, and like them on the canal bank (indeed
one MS., C. of Pauthier, specifies its standing on the same river as the
cities already passed, i.e. on the canal), we seem constrained to admit
the general opinion that this is TAI-CHAU, a town lying some 25 miles at
least to the eastward of the canal, but apparently connected with it by a
navigable channel.
Tinju or Chinju (for both the G.T. and Ramusio read Cingui) cannot
be identified with certainty. But I should think it likely, from Polo's
"geographical style," that when he spoke of the sea as three days distant
he had this city in view, and that it is probably TUNG-CHAU, near the
northern shore of the estuary of the Yang-tzu, which might be fairly
described as three days from Tai-chau. Mr. Kingsmill identifies it with
I-chin hien, the great port on the Kiang for the export of the Yang-chau
salt. This is possible; but I-chin lies west of the canal, and though the
form Chinju would really represent I-chin as then named, such a position
seems scarcely compatible with the way, vague as it is, in which Tinju or
Chinju is introduced.
