IIIF Color HighRes
National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
| |||||||||
|
| IIIF Color HighRes |
| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.2 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Citation Information
142
MARCO POLO BooK II.
On leaving Siju you ride south for three days, con-
stantly falling in with fine towns and villages and hamlets
and farms, with their cultivated lands. There is plenty
of wheat and other corn, and of game also ; and the
people are all Idolaters and subjects of the Great Kaan.
At the end of those three days you reach the great
river CARAMORAN, which flows hither from Prester John's
country. It is a great river, and more than a mile in
width, and so deep that great ships can navigate it. It
abounds in fish, and very big ones too. You must know
that in this river there are some 15,000 vessels, all
belonging to the Great Kaan, and kept to transport his
troops to the Indian Isles whenever there may be
occasion ; for the sea is only one day distant from the
place we are speaking of. And each of these vessels,
taking one with another, will require 20 mariners, and will
carry 15 horses with the men belonging to them, and
their provisions, arms, and equipments.'
Hither and thither, on either bank of the river, stands
a town ; the one facing the other. The one is called
COIGANJU and the other CAI JU ; the former is a large
place, and the latter a little one. And when you pass
this river you enter the great province of MANZI. So
now I must tell you how this province of Manzi . was
conquered by the Great Kaan.3
NOTE i.—Situ can scarcely be other than Su-t'sien (Sootsín of Keith Johnston's map) as Murray and Pauthier have said. The latter states that one of the old names of the place was Si-chair, which corresponds to that given by Marco. Biot does not give this name.
The town stands on the flat alluvial of the Hwang-Ho, and is approached by high embanked roads. (Astley, III. 524-525.)
[Sir J. F. Davis writes : " From Sootsien Hien to the point of junction with the Yellow River, a length of about fifty miles, that great stream and the canal run nearly parallel with each other, at an average distance of four or five miles, and sometimes much nearer." (Sketches of China, I. p. 265.) —II. C.]
NOTE 2.—We have again arrived on the banks of the Hwang-IIo, which was crossed higher up on our traveller's route to Karájang.
No accounts, since China became known to modern Europe, attribute to the Hwang-Ho the great .9tility for navigation which Polo here and elsewhere ascribes t()
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Copyright (C) 2003-2019 National Institute of Informatics and The Toyo Bunko. All Rights Reserved.