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0263 Cathay and the way thither : vol.2
中国および中国への道 : vol.2
Cathay and the way thither : vol.2 / 263 ページ(カラー画像)

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doi: 10.20676/00000042
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AND THE INDIAN ARCHIPELAGO.   503

city, the province under which is the last of those of China, and proceeded to enter CATHAY.'

Cathay is the best cultivated land in the world ; in the whole country you will not find a bit of ground lying fallow. The reason is, that if a piece of ground be left uncultivated, they still oblige the people on it, or if there be none the people nearest to it, to pay the land-tax. Gardens, villages, and cultivated fields line the two banks of the river in uninterrupted succession from the city of Khans& to the city of KHUNBILIK, a space of sixty-four days' journey.

In those tracts you find no Musulmans, unless as mere passengers, for the localities are not adapted for them to fix themselves in, and you find no regular cities, but only villages, and plains covered with corn, fruit trees, and sugar cane. I do not know in the whole world a region to be compared to this, except that space of four days' march between Anbâr and 'Anah. Every evening we landed at a different village, and were hospitably received.2

And thus at last we arrived at Khânbalik, also called KHÂNIK6.3 It is the capital of the Kan or great Emperor, who rules over China and Cathay. We moored, according to the custom of these people, ten miles short of Khanbalik, and they sent a report of our arrival to the admirals, who gave

1 Khithce. Here Ibn Batuta makes China (Sin) correspond to Mangi, or the Sung empire, first reduced under the Mongols by Kublai. In other passages he appears to use Sin for the whole empire, as (in iii, 17) where he speaks of Almâlik as situated at the extremity of Mawarulnahr, near

the place where China (Sin) begins.   •

2 Anbar, on the Euphrates abreast of Baghdad; Anah, about 120 miles higher up. The alleged absence of cities on the banks of the canal is so contrary to fact, that one's doubts arise whether Ibn Batuta could have travelled beyond Hangcheu.

3 Of this name Khaniku I can make nothing. Khccnkic indeed appears in Abulfeda several times as the alternative name of Khans&, but is in that case an evident mistake (one dot too many), for the Khccnfu of Abu Said in Reinaud's Relations, the Ganpu of Marco, the Kd,nphû of the Chinese, which was the seaport of Khansa or Hangcheu, and stood upon the estuary of the Che Kiang, about twelve leagues from the great city (Klapr. Mem. ii, 200).