340. SIUGIU 835
in Polo's time, a place of great importance because from it was regulated the water necessary for the feeding of the Grand Canal north and south. The identification of « Singiu matu » with Chining has been established by MOULE in TP, 1912, 431-433, who noticed that the place was precisely called 1R j.(.j Hsin-chou (= Polo's « Singiu ») in the 1276 itinerary from Hang-chou to Shang-tu (cf. TP, 1915, 409. 417) ; Polo uses both « Singiu » and « Singiu matu ». But the seat of the admi-
nistration was changed several times in the Mongol period from Chi-ning to É Chü-yeh and
vice-versa. The trend of the itineraries in Yung-lo ta-tien, 14926, 4 b, in spite of many clerical errors, seems to refer to a time when the seat was at Chü-yeh. It would require more time and space than I have at my disposal to inquire into the great changes which occurred in the hydrography of the region just about Polo's date. I am positive on one point, however : his « Singiu » or « Singiu matu » is the same as the Hsin-chou of the commissioners of 1276; and I think it is the present Chi-ning, though it may be Chü-yeh, which, in such a case, would have been at that time an important hydrographic centre before Chi-ning became one. It may be worth noting that the commissioners of 1276 did not reach Hsin-chou by water.
F has « Cuigiu », which led PAUTHIER and YULE astray when they thought here of Kui-chou;
the place can only be -J4 Hsü-chou, Hsü-chou-fu or « Sui-fu » of our maps, on the Yang-tzû,
and the various readings of other Mss. could be called upon to justify the correction, if -iu- and -ui-did not constantly alternate throughout the whole book (cf. « Siucin », for which F has both « Ciugiu » and « Cuigiu »). In both F's « Ciugiu », we have hsü (siü) noted by ciu, although Polo's ci- is generally c- or ci-; either c- has been taken here before i with its French value, or ci- has replaced very early an original si-; I have decided for the second solution, with some hesitation. In the present case, I dare not attach much value to Z's reading « Sugçu », as the g is wrong, and suggests a contamination with the name of Su-chou (see « Succiu »). See also « Siugiu2 ».
CHARIGNON (II, 269) has admitted that Polo's return journey started from Lin-an, far to the South of Yün-nan-fu, which he takes as the geographical equivalent of Polo's « Amau ». BENEDETTO (BI, 448), taking too literally Polo's later vague and second-hand information about the Gulf of Tonkin (see « Cheynam ») bordering upon the provinces of « Amau » and « Toloman », has looked for « Toloman » on the eastern (and even south-eastern) border of Yün-nan, which is impossible in view of Polo's itinerary, and for anybody who accepts at the same time, as CHARIGNON and BENEDETTO do, that « Ciugiu » is Hsü-chou-fu. But the chapters on Burma, Bengala, « Caugigu » and « Amau » are « hors-d'oeuvre » in Polo's account of Yün-nan, and I think YULE was right (Y, II, 131) in making the return journey start, in spite of the Mss. (in particular of F), not from «Amau » (q. v.), but from Yün-nan-fu; we have here another example of these digressions which Rustichello or an early copyist has turned into portions of the main itinerary. Chinese texts of the time are full
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