- Though Rubruquis (p. 292) says much the same thing, there is
little trace of such an ordinance in modern China.
Pere Parrenin observes:
"As to the hereditary perpetuation of trades, it has never existed in
China. On the contrary, very few Chinese will learn the trade of their
fathers; and it is only necessity that ever constrains them to do so."
(Lett. Edif. XXIV. 40.) Mr. Moule remarks, however, that P. Parrenin is
a little too absolute. Certain trades do run in families, even of the free
classes of Chinese, not to mention the disfranchised boatmen, barbers,
chair-coolies, etc. But, except in the latter cases, there is no
compulsion, though the Sacred Edict goes to encourage the perpetuation of
the family calling.
NOTE 4. - This sheet of water is the celebrated SI-HU, or "Western Lake,"
the fame of which had reached Abulfeda, and which has raised the
enthusiasm even of modern travellers, such as Barrow and Van Braam. The
latter speaks of three islands (and this the Chinese maps confirm), on
each of which were several villas, and of causeways across the lake, paved
and bordered with trees, and provided with numerous bridges for the
passage of boats. Barrow gives a bright description of the lake, with its
thousands of gay, gilt, and painted pleasure boats, its margins studded
with light and fanciful buildings, its gardens of choice flowering shrubs,
its monuments, and beautiful variety of scenery. None surpasses that of
Martini, whom it is always pleasant to quote, but here he is too lengthy.
The most recent description that I have met with is that of Mr. C.
Gardner, and it is as enthusiastic as any. It concludes: "Even to us
foreigners ... the spot is one of peculiar attraction, but to the Chinese
it is as a paradise." The Emperor K'ien Lung had erected a palace on one
of the islands in the lake; it was ruined by the T'ai-P'ings. Many of the
constructions about the lake date from the flourishing days of the T'ang
Dynasty, the 7th and 8th centuries.
Polo's ascription of a circumference of 30 miles to the lake, corroborates
the supposition that in the compass of the city a confusion had been made
between miles and li, for Semedo gives the circuit of the lake really as
30 li. Probably the document to which Marco refers at the beginning of
the chapter was seen by him in a Persian translation, in which li had
been rendered by mil. A Persian work of the same age, quoted by
Quatremere (the Nuzhat al-Kultub, gives the circuit of the lake as six
parasangs, or some 24 miles, a statement which probably had a like origin).
Polo says the lake was within the city. This might be merely a loose way
of speaking, but it may on the other hand be a further indication of the
former existence of an extensive outer wall. The Persian author just
quoted also speaks of the lake as within the city.
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