"When
Marco Polo visited Khotan on his way to China, between the years 1271 and
1275, the people of the oasis were flourishing, as the Venetian's
previously quoted account shows. His description of the territories
further east, Pein, Cherchen, and Lop, which he passed through before
crossing 'the Great Desert' to Sha-chou, leaves no doubt that the route
from Khotan into Kan-su was in his time a regular caravan road. Marco Polo
found the people of Khotan 'all worshippers of Mahommet' and the territory
subject to the 'Great Kaan', i.e. Kublai, whom by that time almost the
whole of the Middle Kingdom acknowledged as emperor. While the
neighbouring Yarkand owed allegiance to Kaidu, the ruler of the Chagatai
dominion, Khotan had thus once more renewed its old historical connexion
with China."
XXVI., p. 190.
"A note of Yule's on p. 190 of Vol. I. describes Johnson's report on the
people of Khoten (1865) as having 'a slightly Tartar cast of countenance.'
The Toba History makes the same remark 1300 years earlier: 'From
Kao-ch'ang (Turfan) westwards the people of the various countries have deep
eyes and high noses; the features in only this one country (Khoten) are not
very Hu (Persian, etc.), but rather like Chinese.' I published a
tolerably complete digest of Lob Nor and Khoten early history from Chinese
sources, in the Anglo-Russian Society's Journal for Jan. and April, 1903.
It appears to me that the ancient capital Yotkhan, discovered thirty-five
years ago, and visited in 1891 by MM. de Rhins and Grenard, probably
furnishes a clue to the ancient Chinese name of Yu-t'ien." (E.H. PARKER,
Asiatic Quart. Rev., Jan., 1904, p. 143.)
XXXVII., p. 190 n.
Stein has devoted a whole chapter of his Sand-buried Ruins of Khotan,
Chap. XVI., pp. 256 seq. to Yotkan, the Site of the Ancient Capital.
XXXVII., p. 191, n. 1.
PEIN.
"It is a mistake to suppose that the earlier pilgrim Fa-hien (A.D. 400)
followed the 'directer route' from China; he was obliged to go to Kao
ch'ang, and then turn sharp south to Khoten." (E.H. PARKER, Asiatic
Quart. Rev., Jan., 1904, p. 143.)
XXXVII., p. 192.
I have embodied, in Vol. II., p. 595, of Marco Polo, some of the remarks
of Sir Aurel Stein regarding Pein and Uzun Tati. In Ancient Khotan, I.,
pp. 462-3, he has given further evidence of the identity of Uzun Tati and
P'i mo, and he has discussed the position of Ulug-Ziarat, probably the Han
mo of Sung Yun.
XXXVII., p. 191; II., p. 595.
"Keriya, the Pein of Marco Polo and Pimo of Hwen Tsiang, writes
Huntington, is a pleasant district, with a population of about fifteen
thousand souls." Huntington discusses (p. 387) the theory of Stein:
"Stein identifies Pimo or Pein, with ancient Kenan, the site ... now known
as Uzun Tetti or Ulugh Mazar, north of Chira. This identification is
doubtful, as appears from the following table of distances given by Hwen
Tsiang, which is as accurate as could be expected from a casual traveller.
I have reckoned the 'li,' the Chinese unit of distance, as equivalent to
0.26 of a mile.
Distance according to
Names of Places. True Distance. Hwen Tsiang.
Khotan (Yutien) to Keriya (Pimo) 97 miles. 330 li 86 miles.
Keriya (Pimo) to Niya (Niyang) 64 " 200 " 52 "
Niya (Niyang) to Endereh (Tuholo) 94 " 400 " 104 "
Endereh (Tuholo) to Kotak Sheri? (Chemotona) 138? " 600 " 156 "
Kotak Sheri (Chemotona) to Lulan (Nafopo) 264? " 1000 " 260 "
"If we use the value of the 'li' 0.274 of a mile given by Hedin, the
distances from Khotan to Keriya and from Keriya to Niya, according to Hwen
Tsiang, become 91 and 55 miles instead of 86 and 52 as given in the table,
which is not far from the true distances, 97 and 64.
"If, however, Pimo is identical with Kenan, as Stein thinks, the distances
which Hwen Tsiang gives as 86 and 52 miles become respectively 60 and 89,
which is evidently quite wrong.
"Strong confirmation of the identification of Keriya with Pimo is found in
a comparison of extracts from Marco Polo's and Hwen Tsiang's accounts of
that city with passages from my note-book, written long before I had read
the comments of the ancient travellers. Marco Polo says that the people of
Pein, or Pima, as he also calls it, have the peculiar custom 'that if a
married man goes to a distance from home to be about twenty days, his wife
has a right, if she is so inclined, to take another husband; and the men,
on the same principle, marry wherever they happen to reside.' The
quotation from my notes runs as follows: 'The women of the place are noted
for their attractiveness and loose character. It is said that many men
coming to Keriya for a short time become enamoured of the women here, and
remain permanently, taking new wives and abandoning their former wives and
families.'
"Hwen Tsiang observed that thirty 'li,' seven or eight miles, west of
Pimo, there is 'a great desert marsh, upwards of several acres in extent,
without any verdure whatever. The surface is reddish black.' The natives
explained to the pilgrim that it was the blood-stained site of a great
battle fought many years before. Eighteen miles north-west of Keriya
bazaar, or ten miles from the most westerly village of the oasis, I
observed that 'some areas which are flooded part of the year are of a deep
rich red colour, due to a small plant two or three inches high.' I saw
such vegetation nowhere else and apparently it was an equally unusual
sight to Hwen Tsiang.
