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| Notes on Marco Polo : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
162 117. CARACHOÇO
way that by the use of the character 'J.ij chou, the name should acquire a purely Chinese appearance. The result is that Ch'ên Ch'êng, in the Hsi-yä fan-kuo chih which embodies the information collected during his embassy of 1414 (ed. of the Pei-ping National Library, 19 a), speaks of Huochou as meaning « Fiery district », and as owing that name to its hot climate. But some trans-
criptions are chosen without any attempt at a semantic value : for instance, RI Ho-ch'o, used
by Ou-yang Hsüan in the 14th cent., does not pretend to be anything but a phonetic rendering of Qoco. A Jaen form 1 fA -,t"4- Kao-ch'a-an == Kao-can, based on the Chinese name Kaoch'ang, existed during the Ming period (cf. GRUBE, Die sprache and Schrift der Jucen, p. 17).
Even when many texts still use the simple form Ho-chou, the enlarged Qarà-qö o makes its
appearance as â 4;IJ Ha-la-[ho.]chou in 1285 (YS, 13, 9 a; perhaps a misreading for the
next form), afterwards ç, IJ iI JI] Ha-la-ho-chou in 1286 ( YS, 14, 4 b), i û 4;1J 'jZ- ).ij Ha-la-ho-
chou in the biography of A-shu (see « Agiul »; YS, 128, 3 a) and 11{1. 4IJ A Ha-la-huo-chou in
1330, 1347 and in the biography of Ye-iii Hsi-liang (YS, 34, 3 b; 34, 9 a; 41, 5 b; 180, 2 a).
The formt•IIJ A Ha-la-huo-chê occurs on the Chinese map of c. 1330, of Western origin,
and in the corresponding list of YS, 63, 15 b; it may be the one which is at the basis of a misreading Ha-la-huo in the text quoted by LAUFER, Sino-Iranica, 236. The same form Ha [ fl ]-Iahuo-chê occurs in a Ming itinerary (China Review, v, 232). The modern Chinese transcription
is t Ç Ha-la-ho-cho (cf. Hsi-yä t'u-chih, 14, 6). It is said in the Ming shih (329, 8 a)
that Huo-chou is also called i!û IJ Ha-la, the same name of course as Qarà-hôjo (cf. Br, 186; JA, 1925, I, 582). Naturally enough, BRETSCHNEIDER said that there were « evidently two characters wanting in the Chinese text ». But the form of the Ming shih is curiously supported by a text hitherto mistranslated. « Sanang Setsen » speaks, under the year 1439, of a land (yajar) which SCHMIDT'S translation calls « Turufanu Chara » (= Turufanu tiara), adding that Turfan must be meant (Gesch. der Ost-Mongolen, 155, 406; SCHMIDT'S Mongol text actually gives Tü0). From this passage BLOCHET (Moufazzal, 691) deduced the existence of a « Turfan the Black », grammatically impossible. But the text is perfectly clear, and is correctly understood by the Chinese translator of the Mongol chronicle : Turufan-u Qara närätü yajar means « the land of Turfan called Qara ». In other words, the Mongol chronicler of 1662 knew Qarà-hôjo under the same shortened name Qara which is given in the Ming shih as an alternative name of Huo-chou. The same form Qara occurs, also in connection with the events of 1439, in the Altan toVi, half a century earlier than « Sanang Setsen » (GoMBOEV ed., 161); but, instead of Turfan-u, the Altan Tobti gives Mingan-u, probably by a scribe's error.
Polo's « Carachoço » is quite correct, and in agreement with the various spellings of Ha-la-
huo-chou in YS and with Rasidu-'d-Din's Qarà-hôjô, although Juwaini, and sometimes
,
Rand also, write a~ ly l~ Qarà-hôjah (Bl, II, 85, 502, 595, 609), in the same way as Chinese sources sometimes give Ha-la-huo-chê. The latter Turkish form, now prevalent in Chinese Turkestan, is the result of popular etymology, Qarà-hôjah meaning « Black master ». An identification of the Kc"n (= *Kaêàn) of an old Sogdian document with Kao-ch'ang is not probable (cf. TP, 1931, 460) .
The name Kao-ch'ang goes back to Han times. As Kao-ch'ang-pi [1], or « Wall of Kaoch'ang »; it was the designation of a Chinese military colony which first existed for a short time
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