The Masalak-Al-Absar Calls
It One Day's Journey In Length, And Half A Day's Journey In Breadth.
The
enthusiastic Jesuit Martini tries hard to justify Polo in this as in other
points of his description.
We shall quote the whole of his remarks at the
end of the chapters on Kinsay.
[Dr. F. Hirth, in a paper published in the T'oung Pao, V. pp. 386-390
(Ueber den Shiffsverkehr von Kinsay zu Marco Polo's Zeit), has some
interesting notes on the maritime trade of Hang-chau, collected from a
work in twenty books, kept at the Berlin Royal Library, in which is to be
found a description of Hang-chau under the title of Meng-liang-lu,
published in 1274 by Wu Tzu-mu, himself a native of this city: there are
various classes of sea-going vessels; large boats measuring 5000 liao
and carrying from five to six hundred passengers; smaller boats measuring
from 2 to 1000 liao and carrying from two to three hundred passengers;
there are small fast boats called tsuan-feng, "wind breaker," with six
or eight oarsmen, which can carry easily 100 passengers, and are generally
used for fishing; sampans are not taken into account. To start for foreign
countries one must embark at Ts'wan-chau, and then go to the sea of
Ts'i-chau (Paracels), through the Tai-hsue pass; coming back he must look
to Kwen-lun (Pulo Condor). - H.C.]
The 12,000 bridges have been much carped at, and modern accounts of
Hang-chau (desperately meagre as they are) do not speak of its bridges as
notable. "There is, indeed," says Mr. Kingsmill, speaking of changes in the
hydrography about Hang-chau, "no trace in the city of the magnificent
canals and bridges described by Marco Polo." The number was no doubt in
this case also a mere popular saw, and Friar Odoric repeats it. The sober
and veracious John Marignolli, alluding apparently to their statements, and
perhaps to others which have not reached us, says: "When authors tell of
its ten thousand noble bridges of stone, adorned with sculptures and
statues of armed princes, it passes the belief of one who has not been
there, and yet peradventure these authors tell us no lie." Wassaf speaks of
360 bridges only, but they make up in size what they lack in number, for
they cross canals as big as the Tigris! Marsden aptly quotes in reference
to this point excessively loose and discrepant statements from modern
authors as to the number of bridges in Venice. The great height of the
arches of the canal bridges in this part of China is especially noticed by
travellers. Barrow, quoted by Marsden, says: "Some have the piers of such
an extraordinary height that the largest vessels of 200 tons sail under
them without striking their masts."
[Illustration: Plan of the Imperial City of Hangchow in the 13th Century.
(From the Notes of the Right Rev. G.E. Moule.)]
Mr. Moule has added up the lists of bridges in the whole department (or
Fu) and found them to amount to 848, and many of these even are now
unknown, their approximate sites being given from ancient topographies.
The number represented in a large modern map of the city, which I owe to
Mr. Moule's kindness, is III.
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