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| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
CHAP. XXXIV. THE GREAT CITY OF SAMARCAN
I83
CHAPTER XXXIV.
OF THE GREAT CITY OF SAMARCAN.
SAMARCAN is a great and noble city towards the north-
west, inhabited by both Christians and Saracens, who
are subject to the Great Kaan's nephew, CAIDOU by
name ; he is, however, at bitter enmity with the Kaan.l
I will tell you of a great marvel that happened at this
city.
It is not a great while ago that SIGATAY, own brother
to the Great Kaan, who was Lord of this country and
of many an one besides, became a Christian.2 The
a ..
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.1111111.111/P► r~.vr r+will■ ~
west of the lake, Langar, Sarhadd, 30 miles from Langar, and seven clays from Sirikol, and Kila Panj, twelve days from Sirikól. "—I-I. C.]
[I cannot admit with Professor Paquier (Lc. pp. 127-128) that Marco Polo did not visit Kashgar.—Grenard (II. p. 17) makes the remark that it took Marco Polo seventy days from Badakhshan to Kashgar, a distance that, in the Plain of Turkestan, he shall cross in sixteen days.—The Chinese traveller, translated by M. Gueluy (Desc. de la Chine occidentale, p. 45), says that the -name Kashgar is made of Kash, fine colour, and gar, brick house.—H. C.]
Kashgar was the capital, from 1865 to 1877, of Ya'kúb Kúshbegi, a soldier of fortune, by descent it is said a Tajik of Shighnan, who, when the Chinese yoke was thrown off, made a throne for himself in Eastern Turkestan, and subjected the whole basin to his authority, taking the title of 4talik Gházi.
It is not easy to see how Kashgar should have been subject to the Great Kaan, except in the sense in which all territories under Mongol rule owed him homage.
Yarkand, Polo acknowledges to have belonged to Kaidu, and the boundary between
Kaidu's territory and the Kaan's lay between Karashahr and Komul [Bk. I. eh. xli.], much further east.
[Bretschneider, Mea'. Res. (II. p. 47), says : " Marco Polo states with respect to the
kingdom of Cascar (I. 189) that it was subject to the Great Khan, and says the same
regarding Cotan (I. 196), whilst Yarcan (I. 195), according to Marco Polo, belonged
to Kaidu. This does not agree with Rashid's statements about the boundary between Kaidu's territory and the Khan's."—H. C.]
Kashgar was at this time a Metropolitan See of the Nestorian Church. ( Cathay, etc. 275, ccxlv.)
Many strange sayings have been unduly ascribed to our traveller, but I remember none stranger than this by Colonel Tod : " Marco Polo calls Cashgar, where he was in the 6th century, the birthplace of the Swedes " ! (Rajasthan, I. 6o.) Pétis de
la Croix and Tod between them are answerable for this nonsense. (See The Hist. of
Gengh i zcan the Great, p. 116. )
On cotton, see ch. xxxvi.—On Nestorians, see K anchau.
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