This plain extends for two days' journey, throughout which it is as fine
as I have told you, with towns and villages as numerous. After those two
days, you again come to great mountains and valleys, and extensive
forests, and you continue to travel westward through this kind of country
for 20 days, finding however numerous towns and villages. The people are
Idolaters, and live by agriculture, by cattle-keeping, and by the chase,
for there is much game. And among other kinds, there are the animals that
produce the musk, in great numbers.[NOTE 2]
NOTE 1. - Though the termini of the route, described in these two chapters,
are undoubtedly Si-ngan fu and Ch'eng-tu fu, there are serious
difficulties attending the determination of the line actually followed.
The time according to all the MSS., so far as I know, except those of one
type, is as follows:
In the plain of Kenjanfu . . . . . 3 days.
In the mountains of Cuncun . . . . 20 "
In the plain of Acbalec . . . . . 2 "
In mountains again . . . . . . 20 "
-
45 days.
-
[From Si-ngan fu to Ch'eng-tu (Sze-ch'wan), the Chinese reckon 2300 li
(766 miles). (Cf. Rockhill, Land of the Lamas, p. 23.) Mr. G.F. Eaton,
writing from Han-chung (Jour.
