IIIF Color HighRes
National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
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| IIIF Color HighRes |
| Cathay and the Way Thither : vol.2 |
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Citation Information
{
262 CONTEMPORARY NOTICES OF CATHAY
course of time forced outlets in sundry places, and thus fountains were produced. On the foundation formed as has been described a palace in the Chinese taste was erected, and enclosed by a marble wall. From this wall starts an outer fence of wood which surrounds the park, to prevent any one from entering, and to preserve the game. Inside the city itself a second palace was built, about a bowshot from the first ; but the Kaan generally takes up his residence in the palace outside the town.
In this empire of Cathay there are many considerable cities ; each has its appropriate title marking a particular rank in the scale. The relative precedence of governors is indicated by that of the cities which they administer, so that there is no need to specify their dignities in the diploma of appointment, or to enter into curious questions of precedence. You know at once [by the rank of the cities to which they are attached] which ought to make way for another or to bow the knee before him. These ranks or titles are as follows : 1. King ; 2. Du ; 3. Fu; 4. Chu ; 5. ... ; 6. Kiun ; 7. Hien ; 8. Chin,*; 9. Si6n.'
The first of these titles designates a vast tract of country, say like Ram, Persia, or Baghdad. The second is applied to a province, which is the seat of an imperial residence. The others diminish in importance in like proportion ; thus the seventh indicates small cities, the eighth towns, the
1 1. King, imperial capital, as in Peking, Nanking ; 2. Tu, court or imperial residence, as Taitu, Shangtu ; 3. Fu, a city of the first class, or rather the department of which it is the head; Chen, a city of the second class, or the district of which it is the head ; 5. This is blank in Kiaproth's original; Von Ham. read it Gur ; perhaps it was Lu, which was a special subdivision in China under the Mongols, rendered by Pauthier circuit ; I do not understand its relation to the others, but Duhalde says it was some-
what less than a Fu ; 6. Kiun, a chief military garrison ; 7. Man, a city of the third order, or sub-district, of which it is the head; 8. Chin, a small
town ; 9. Tsun, a village. The custom of naming the dignitary by the
title belonging to the class of district under him still prevails in China ;
as if," says Pauthier, we were to call our Prefects Departments and our Sub-Prefects Arrondissements" (M. P., p. xcvii).
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