IIIF Color HighRes
National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
| |||||||||
|
| IIIF Color HighRes |
| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.1 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Citation Information
CHAP. XXVI. THE ILAAN'S POSTS AND RUNNERS
437
must furnish to the post. And in this way are provided
all the posts of the cities, as well as the towns and
villages round about them ; only in uninhabited tracts
the horses are furnished at the expense of the Emperor
himself.
(Nor do the cities maintain the full number, say of
400 horses, always at their station, but month by month
200 shall be kept at the station, and the other 200 at
grass, coming in their turn to relieve the first 200. And
if there chance to be some river or lake to be passed by
the runners and horse-posts, the neighbouring cities are
bound to keep three or four boats in constant readiness
for the purpose.)
And now I will tell you of the great bounty exercised
by the Emperor towards his people twice a year.
NOTE r.—The G. Text has " et ce est //lout slue chouse " ; Pauthier's Text, " mais it est moult celé." The latter seems absurd. I have no doubt that sfrue is correct, and is an Italianism, saputo having sometimes the sense of prudent or judicious. Thus P. della Valle (II. 26), speaking of Shah Abbas : "Ma noti VS. i tiri di questo re, saputo insieme e bizzarro," " acute with all his eccentricity."
NOTE 2.—Both Neumann and Pauthier seek Chinese etymologies of this Mongol word, which the Tartars carried with them all over Asia. It survives in Persian and Turki in the senses both of a post-house and a post-horse, and in Russia, in the former sense, is a relic of the Mongol dominion. The ambassadors of Shah Rukh, on arriving at Sukchu, were lodged in the Vám-Kizána, or post-house, by the city gate ; and they found ninety-nine such Yams between Sukchu and Khanbaligh, at each of which they were supplied with provisions, servants, beds, night-clothes, etc. Odoric likewise speaks of the hostelries called Yanz, and Rubruquis applies the same term to quarters in the imperial camp, which were assigned for the lodgment of ambassadors. (Cathay, ccii. 137 ; Rubr. 310. )
[Mr. Rockhill (Rubruck, tot, note) says that these post-stations were established by Okkodai in 1234 throughout the Mongol empire. (D'Ohsson, ii. 63.) Dr. G. Schlegel (T'oung Pao, II. 1891, 265, note) observes that iam is not, as Pauthier supposed, a contraction of yi-may, horse post-house (yi-má means post-horse, and
Pauthier makes a mistake), but represents the Chinese character M , pronounced at present chán, which means in fact a road station, a post. In Annamite, this character JU is pronounced tram, and it means, according to Bonet's Diet. Annamite-Franfais:
Relais de poste, station de repos." (See Bretschneider, Med. Res. I. p. 187 note.) —H. C.]
NOTE 3.—Martini and Magaillans, in the 17th century, give nearly the same account of the government hostelries.
NOTE 4.—Here Ramusio has this digression : " Should any one find it difficult to understand how there should be such a population as all this implies, and how they
_ ! '
.,
,
, • . ,
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Copyright (C) 2003-2019 National Institute of Informatics and The Toyo Bunko. All Rights Reserved.