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| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.2 |
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Citation Information
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CHAP. L~'I,
THE CITY OF COIGANJU I 5 I~.
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points. The emperor, his mother, and the rest of the Sung princes and princesses, - . f 4 r
were despatched to the Mongol capital. A desperate attempt was made, at Kwa-chau
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(infra, eh. lxxii.) to recapture the young emperor, but it failed. On their arrival at_ ', , 4•"
Ta-tu, Kúblái's chief queen, Jamui Khatun, treated them with delicate consideration. .„
This amiable lady, on being shown the spoils that came from Lin-ngan, only wept, and it'° ._ •• = • I
said to her husband, " So also shall it be with the Mongol empire one day ! " The . •,.... .. .
eldest of the two boys who had escaped was proclaimed emperor by his adherents at .,' to ,
Fu-chau, in Fo-kien, but they were speedily driven from that province (where the local ,44 . t
histories, as Mr. G. Phillips informs me, preserve traces of their adventures in the It-t 4110. i
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Islands of Amoy Harbour), and the young emperor died on a desert island off the gyp.
Canton coast in 1278. His younger brother took his place, but a battle, in the , e
beginning of 1279 finally extinguished these efforts of the expiring dynasty, and the minister jumped with his young lord into the sea. It is curious that Rashiduddin, with all his opportunities of knowledge, writing at least twenty years later, was not aware of this, for he speaks of the Prince of Manzi as still a fugitive in the forests between Zayton and Canton. (Gazubil ; D' Olisson ; De Mailla ; Cathay, p. 272.) [See Parker, supra, p. 148 and 149.—H. C.]
There is a curious account in the Lettres Edifiantes (xxiv. 45 segq.) by P. Parrenin
of a kind of Pariah caste at Shao-hing (see ch. lxxix. note I), who were popularly • - j
believed to be the descendants of the great lords of the Sung Court, condemned to ' • , ~•
that degraded condition for obstinately resisting the Mongols. Another notice, however, makes the degraded body rebels against the Sung. (Milne, p. 218.)
NOTE 7.—There is much about the exposure of children, and about Chinese foundling hospitals, in the Lettres Edifiantes, especially in Recueil xv. 83, seqq. It is there stated that frequently a person not in circumstances to pay for a wife for his son, would visit the foundling hospital to seek one. The childless rich also would sometimes get children there to pass off as their own ; adopted children being excluded from certain valuable privileges.
Mr. Milne (Life in China), and again Mr. Medhurst (Foreigner in Far Cathay), have discredited the great prevalence of infant exposure in China ; but since the last work was published, I have seen the translation of a recent strong remonstrance against the practice by a Chinese writer, which certainly implied that it was very prevalent in the writer's own province. Unfortunately, I have lost the reference.
[See Father G. Palatre, L' Infanticide et l' Oeuvre de la Ste. Enfance en Chine,
1878.—I-I. C.]e4 g•
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CHAPTER LXVI.
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CONCERNING THE CITY OF COIGANJU.
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COIGANJU is, as I have told you already, a very large
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city standing at the entrance to Manzi. The people are
Idolaters and burn their dead, and are subject to the
Great Kaan. They have a vast amount of shipping, as
I mentioned before in speaking of the River Caramoran.
And an immense quantity of merchandize comes hither,
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