Traced from a copy in the Berlin Library.
(This tracing was the gift of Mr. Samuel D. Horton, of Cincinnati,
through Mr. Marsh.)
Marco Polo's rectified Itinerary from Khotan to Nia.
THE BOOK OF MARCO POLO
[Illustration: MARCO POLO in the Prison of Genoa]
BOOK SECOND. - CONTINUED.
PART II. - JOURNEY TO THE WEST AND SOUTH-WEST OF CATHAY.
CHAPTER XXXV.
HERE BEGINS THE DESCRIPTION OF THE INTERIOR OF CATHAY, AND FIRST OF THE
RIVER PULISANGHIN.
Now you must know that the Emperor sent the aforesaid Messer Marco Polo,
who is the author of this whole story, on business of his into the Western
Provinces. On that occasion he travelled from Cambaluc a good four months'
journey towards the west.[NOTE 1] And so now I will tell you all that he
saw on his travels as he went and returned.
[Illustration: The Bridge of Pulisanghin. (Reduced from a Chinese
original.)
" - et desus cest flum a un mout biaus pont de pieres: car sachiez qe pont
n'a en tout le monde de si biaus ne son pareil."]
When you leave the City of Cambaluc and have ridden ten miles, you come to
a very large river which is called PULISANGHIN, and flows into the ocean,
so that merchants with their merchandise ascend it from the sea. Over this
River there is a very fine stone bridge, so fine indeed, that it has very
few equals. The fashion of it is this: it is 300 paces in length, and it
must have a good eight paces of width, for ten mounted men can ride across
it abreast. It has 24 arches and as many water-mills, and 'tis all of very
fine marble, well built and firmly founded. Along the top of the bridge
there is on either side a parapet of marble slabs and columns, made in this
way. At the beginning of the bridge there is a marble column, and under it
a marble lion, so that the column stands upon the lion's loins, whilst on
the top of the column there is a second marble lion, both being of great
size and beautifully executed sculpture. At the distance of a pace from
this column there is another precisely the same, also with its two lions,
and the space between them is closed with slabs of grey marble to prevent
people from falling over into the water. And thus the columns run from
space to space along either side of the bridge, so that altogether it is a
beautiful object.[NOTE 2]
NOTE 1. - [When Marco leaves the capital, he takes the main road, the
"Imperial Highway," from Peking to Si-ngan fu, via Pao-ting, Cheng-ting,
Hwai-luh, Tai-yuan, Ping-yang, and T'ung-kwan, on the Yellow River. Mr. G.
F. Eaton, writing from Han-chung (Jour. China Br. R. As. Soc. XXVIII.
No. 1) says it is a cart-road, except for six days between Tai-yuan and
Hwai-luh, and that it takes twenty-nine days to go from Peking to Si-ngan,
a figure which agrees well with Polo's distances; it is also the time
which Dr. Forke's journey lasted; he left Peking on the 1st May, 1892,
reached Tai-yuan on the 12th, and arrived at Si-ngan on the 30th (Von
Peking nach Ch'ang-an). Mr. Rockhill left Peking on the 17th December,
1888, reached T'ai-yuan on the 26th, crossed the Yellow River on the 5th
January, and arrived at Si-ngan fu on the 8th January, 1889, in twenty-two
days, a distance of 916 miles. (Land of the Lamas, pp. 372-374.) M.
Grenard left Si-ngan on the 10th November and reached Peking on the 16th
December, 1894 = thirty-six days; he reckons 1389 kilometres = 863 miles.
(See Rev. C. Holcombe, Tour through Shan-hsi and Shen-hsi in Jour.
North China Br.R.A.S.N.S. X. pp. 54-70.) - H.C.]
[Illustration: The Bridge of Pulisanghin. (From the Livre des
Merveilles.)]
NOTE 2. - Pul-i-Sangin, the name which Marco gives the River, means in
Persian simply (as Marsden noticed) "The Stone Bridge." In a very different
region the same name often occurs in the history of Timur applied to a
certain bridge, in the country north of Badakhshan, over the Wakhsh branch
of the Oxus. And the Turkish admiral Sidi 'Ali, travelling that way from
India in the 16th century, applies the name, as it is applied here, to the
river; for his journal tells us that beyond Kulib he crossed "the River
Pulisangin."
We may easily suppose, therefore, that near Cambaluc also, the Bridge,
first, and then the River, came to be known to the Persian-speaking
foreigners of the court and city by this name. This supposition is however
a little perplexed by the circumstance that Rashiduddin calls the River
the Sangin and that Sangkan-Ho appears from the maps or citations of
Martini, Klaproth, Neumann, and Pauthier to have been one of the Chinese
names of the river, and indeed, Sankang is still the name of one of the
confluents forming the Hwan Ho.
[By Sanghin, Polo renders the Chinese Sang-kan, by which name the River
Hun-ho is already mentioned, in the 6th century of our era. Hun-ho is
also an ancient name; and the same river in ancient books is often called
Lu-Kou River also. All these names are in use up to the present time; but
on modern Chinese maps, only the upper part of the river is termed
Sang-Kan ho, whilst south of the inner Great Wall, and in the plain, the
name of Hun-ho is applied to it. Hun ho means "Muddy River," and the
term is quite suitable. In the last century, the Emperor K'ien-lung ordered
the Hun-ho to be named Yung-ting ho, a name found on modern maps, but the
people always call it Hun ho (Bretschneider, Peking, p. 54.) - H.C.]
The River is that which appears in the maps as the Hwan Ho, Hun-ho, or
Yongting Ho, flowing about 7 miles west of Peking towards the south-east
and joining the Pe-Ho at Tientsin; and the Bridge is that which has been
known for ages as the Lu-kou-Kiao or Bridge of Lukou, adjoining the town
which is called in the Russian map of Peking Feuchen, but in the official
Chinese Atlas Kung-Keih-cheng.
