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0067 Cathay and the Way Thither : vol.1
Cathay and the Way Thither : vol.1 / Page 67 (Grayscale High Resolution Image)

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doi: 10.20676/00000042
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PRELIMINARY ESSAY.   11

"And this city of Taugas they say was founded by Alexander the Macedonian, after he had enslaved the Bactrians and the Sogdianians, and had consumed by fire twelve myriads of bar-

barians.

" In this city the king's women go forth in chariots made of

gold, with one ox to draw them,' and they are decked out most gorgeously with gold and jewels of great price, and the bridles of the oxen are gilt. He who hath the sovereign authority hath 700 concubines.2 And the women of the chief nobles of Taugas use silver chariots.

When the prince dies he is mourned by his women for the rest of their lives, with shaven heads and black raiment ; and it is the law that they shall never quit the sepulchre.

" They say that Alexander built a second city at the distance of a few miles, and this the barbarians call KHUBDAN.3

" Khubdan has two great rivers flowing through it, the banks of which are lined with nodding cypresses, so to speak.

Maurice at Byzantium (582-602). The Chin Emperor threw himself into a well ; the tombs of his ancestors were violated and their bodies thrown into the Kiang. The Sui thus became masters of the United Empire as Theophylactus relates. (Klaproth, Mem., as below, and see Deguignes, vol. i, 51, 52.) The characteristic black clothing of' the people of Shensi, in which lay the capital of the Sui, is noticed by Hajji Mahomed in the extracts given in Note XVIII.

In Chine Ancienne I see a plate from a Chinese drawing which represents Confucius travelling in a carriage drawn by one ox (Pl. 30).

2 The Emperor Taitsung above mentioned, is said to have dismissed three thousand women from the imperial establishment (Ch. Anc., p. 286).

3 This is sufficient of itself to show that the Taugas of the Greek writer is China. For Khumdan was the name given by the Turkish and Western Asiatic nations to the city of Chhanggan—now represented by Singanfu in Shensi—which was the capital of several Chinese dynasties between the twelfth century, B.c., and the ninth century, A.D. The name Khumdan appears in the Syriac part of the Singanfu inscription repeatedly ; in the Arab Relations of the ninth century published by Renaudot and by Reinaud ; in Masudi; in Edrisi (as the name of the great river of China) ; and in Abulfeda. What is said in the text about the two rivers running through the city is substantially correct (see Klaproth as quoted below). I have here transposed two periods of the original, to bring together what is said of Khubdan. Pauthier takes Khumdan for a western transcription of Chhangan, whilst Neumann regards it as a corruption of Kong-tien, court or palace. Both of these explanations seen unsatis-

tory.