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| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
I 90 MARCO POLO BOOK I.
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[Khotan is the chief place of Turkestan for cotton manufactures ; its khâm is to be found everywhere* This name, which means raw in Persian, is given to a stuff made with cotton thread, which has not undergone any preparation ; they manufacture also two other cotton stuffs : alatcha with blue and red stripes, and tchekmen, very thick and coarse, used to make dresses and sacks ; if khani is better at Khotan, alatcha and tchekmen are superior at Kashgar. (Grenard, II. pp. 191-192.)
Grenard (II. pp. 175-177), among the fruits, mentions apricots (ourouk), ripe in June, and so plentiful that to keep them they are dried up to be used like garlic against mountain sickness ; melons (koá Noun) ; water-melons (tarbouz, the best are from Hami); vine (tczl)—the best grapes (uzum) come from Boghâz langar, near Keria ; the best dried grapes are those from Turfan ; peaches (shaptâlou) ; pomegranates (anár, best from Kerghalyk), etc. ; the best apples are those of Nia and Sadju; pears are very bad ; cherries and strawberries are unknown. Grenard (II. p. 106) also says that grapes are very good, but that Khotan wine is detestable, and tastes like vinegar.
The Chinese traveller, translated by M. Gueluy (Desc. de la Chine occide;ztale, p. 45), says that all the inhabitants of Khotan are seeking for precious stones, and that melons and fruits are more plentiful than at Yarkand.—H. C.]
Mr. Johnson reports the whole country to be rich in soil and very much under-peopled. Ilchi, the capital, has a population of about 40,000, and is a great place for manufactures. The chief articles produced are silks, felts, carpets (both silk and woollen), coarse cotton cloths, and paper from the mulberry fibre. The people are strict Mahomedans, and speak a Turki dialect. Both sexes are good-looking, with a slightly Tartar cast of countenance. ( V. et V. de H. T 278 ; Rémusat, H. de la V. de Khotan, 37, 73-84 ; Chin. Repos. IX. 128 ; J. R. G. S. XXXVII. 6 seqq.)
[In 1891, Dutreuil de Rhins and Grenard at the small village of Yotkán, about 8 miles to _ the west of the present Khotan, came across what they considered the most important and probably the most ancient city of southern Chinese Turkestan. The natives say that Yotkán is the site of the old Capital. (Cf. Grenard, III. p. 127 et seq. for a description and drawings of coins and objects found at this place.)
The remains of the ancient capital of Khotan were accidentally discovered, some thirty-five years ago, at Yotkán, a village of the Borazân Tract. A great mass of highly interesting finds of ancient art pottery, engraved stones, and early Khotan coins with Kharosthi-Chinese legends, coming from this site, have recently been thoroughly examined in Dr. Hoernle's Report on the " British Collection of Central Asian Antiquities." Stein.—(See Three further Collections of Ancient Manuscripts from Central Asia, by Dr. A. F. R. Hoernle. . . . Calcutta, 1897, 8vo. )
" The sacred sites of Buddhist Khotan which Hiuen Tsang and Fa-] iian describe, can be shown to be occupied now, almost without exception, by Mohamedan shrines forming the object of popular pilgrimages." (M. A. Stein, Archeological Work about Khotan, Jour. R. As. Soc., April, 1901, p. 296.)
It may be justly said that during the last few years numerous traces of Hindu civilisation have been found in Central Asia, extending from Khotan, through the Takla-Makan, as far as Turfan, and perhaps further up.
Dr. Sven Hedin, in the year 1896, during his second journey through Takla-Makan from Khotan to Shah Yar, visited the ruins between the Khotan Daria and the Kiria Dania, where he found the remains of the city of Takla-Makan now buried in the sands. He discovered figures of Buddha, a piece of papyrus with unknown characters, vestiges of habitations. This Asiatic Pompei, says the traveller, at least ten centuries old, is anterior to the Mahomedan invasion led by Kuteïbe Ibn- Muslim, which happened at the beginning of the 8th century. Its inhabitants were Buddhist, and of Aryan race, probably originating from Ilindustan.—Dutreuil de Rhins and Grenard discovered in the Kumâri grottoes, in a small hill on the right bank of the Karakash Dania, a manuscript written on birch bark in Kharoshthi characters ; these grottoes of Kumâri are mentioned in Hiuen Tsang. (II. p. 229.
Dr. Sven Hedin followed the route Kashgar, Yangi-I3issar, Yarkand to Khotan)
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