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| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
276
MARCO POLO BOOK I.
'A
4
and white skins, and in every respect are pretty
creatures. The men are very sensual, and marry
many wives, which is not forbidden by their religion.
No matter how base a woman's descent may be, if
she have beauty she may find a husband among the
greatest men in the land, the man paying the girl's
father and mother a great sum of money, according to
the bargain that may be macle.
i
t
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~► ~4 r
; s
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NOTE I.—No approximation to the name of Erguiul in an appropriate position has yet been elicited from Chinese or other Oriental sources. We cannot go widely astray as to its position, five days east of Kanchau. Klaproth identifies it with Liangchau-fu ; Pauthier with the neighbouring city of Yungchang, on the ground that the latter was, in the time of Kúblái, the head of one of the Lús, or Circles, of Kansuh or Tangut, which he has shown some reason for believing to be the
kingdoms" of Marco.
It is probable, however, that the town called by Polo Erguiul lay north of both the cities named, and more in line with the position assigned below to Eb råß aya. (See note I, ch. lviii.)
I may notice that the structure of the name Ergui-ul or Ergiu-ul, has a look of analogy to that of Tang-keu-ul, named in the next note.
E" Erguiul is Erichew of the Mongol text of the Yuen ch'ao pi ski, Si-liang in the Chinese history, the modern Liang chow fu. Klaproth, en the authority of Rashideddin, has already identified this name with that of Si-Jiang." (Palladius, p. 18.) M. Bonin left Ning-h'ia at the end of July, 1899, and he crossed the desert to Liangchau in fifteen days from east to west; he is the first traveller who took this route : Prjevalsky went westward, passing by the residence of the Prince of Alashan, and Obrutchev followed the route south of Bonin's.—H. C.]
NOTE 2.—No doubt Marsden is right in identifying this with SINING-CHAD, now Sining-fu, the Chinese city nearest to Tibet and the Kokonor frontier. Grueber and Dorville, who passed it on their way to Lhasa, in 1661, call it urbs ingeres. Sining was visited also by Hue and Gabet, who are unsatisfactory, as usually on geographical matters. They also call it " an immense town," but thinly peopled, its commerce having been in part transferred to Tang-keu-ul, a small town closer to the frontier.
[Sining belonged to the country called Hwang Chung ; in 1198, under the Sung Dynasty, it was subjugated by the Chinese, and was named Si-ning chau ; at the beginning of the Ming Dynasty (from 1368), it was named Si-ning wei, and since 1726 Si-ning fu. (Cf. Gueluy, Chine, p. 62.) From Liangchau, M. Bonin went to Sining through the Lao kou kau pass and the Ta-Tung ho. Obrutchev and Grum Grijmaïlo took the usual route from Kanchau to Sining. After the murder of Dutreuil de Rhins at Tung bu Judo, his companion, Grenard, arrived at Sining, and left it on the 29th July, 1894. Dr. Sven Hedin gives in his book his own drawing of a gate of Siningfu, where he arrived on the 25th November, 1896.—H. C.]
Sining is called by the Tibetans Ziling or Jiling, by the Mongols Seling Khoto. A shawl wool texture, apparently made in this quarter, is imported into Kashmir and Ladak, under the name of Sling I have supposed Sining to be also the Zilm of which Mr. Shaw heard at Yarkand, and am answerable for a note to that effect on p. 38 of his High Tartary. But Mr. Shaw, on his return to Europe, gave some rather strong reasons against this. (See Proc. R. G. S, XVI. 245 ; Kircher, pp. 64, 66 ;
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