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
NOTICES 01,E THE LAND ROUTE TO CATHAY, ETC. 291
CHAPTER II.
Things needful for merchants who desire to make the journey to Cathay above described.
IN the first place, you must let your beard grow long and not shave. And at Tana you should furnish yourself with a dragoman. And you must not try to save money in the matter of dragomen by taking a bad one instead of a good one. For the additional wages of the good one will not cost you so much as you will save by having him.' And besides the dragoman it will be well to take at least two good men servants, who are acquainted with the Cumanian tongue. And if the merchant likes to take a woman with him from Tana, he can do so ; if he does not like to take one there is
of a paper currency under the Chinese name (chao) in 1294. After most expensive preparations in erecting offices in every province, etc., the scheme utterly failed, the shops and markets of Tabriz were deserted, and the chao had to be given up. Mahomed Tughlak of Dehli fared no better in a somewhat similar project some thirty-five years later. In Japan bank-notes were introduced about 1319-1327, but in that country they always represented considerable sums. They continued to exist in the last century, and perhaps do still.
The notes of the Sung, Kin, and Mongol dynasties were all made with the bark of the paper mulberry. Those of the first two were only printed with characters and sealed ; the last were also ornamented.
A note of the Ming dynasty is figured in Duhalde, ii, 168. It is for 1000 cash, and bears the following inscription : " On the request of the Board of Treasurers, it is ordered that paper money thus impressed with the imperial seal have currency the same as copper money. Forgers shall lose their heads, and informers shall receive a reward of 250 taels, with the criminal's goods. In such a year and month of the reign of Hong-Vu." (Klaproth in Mem. Rel. d l'Asie, i, 375-388; Biot, in J. A., ser. iii, tom. iv; Parkes, in J. R. A. S., xiii, 179 ; D'Ohsson, iv, 53 ; Elphinstone's Hist. of India, ii, 62). Another and probably more exact account of the history of paper-money under the Mongols will be found in Pauthier's new Marco Polo, but time does not allow me to benefit by it.
Regarding the balish, see note to Odoric, p. 115.
1 The Italian here is very obscure and probably defective, but this seems the general sense; or perhaps, so much as the greed of the other will cause you loss."
19 `z
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