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National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
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| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.2 |
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Citation Information
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CHAP. LXXV. TIIE CITY OF SUJU
183
NOTE 2.--I believe we must not bring Marco to book for the literal accuracy of his statements as to the bridges ; but all travellers have noticed the number and elegance of the bridges of cut stone in this part of China ; see, for instance, Van Braam, II. 107, I 19-120, 124, 126 ; and Deg uignes, I. 47, who gives a particular account of the arches. These are said to be often 50 or 6o feet in span.
[" Within the city there are, generally speaking, six canals from North to South, and six canals from East to West, intersecting one another at from a quarter to half a mile. There are a hundred and fifty or two hundred bridges at intervals of two or three hundred yards ; some of these with arches, others with stone slabs thrown across, many of which are twenty feet in length. The canals are from ten to fifteen feet wide and faced with stone." (Rev. H. C. Du Bose, Chin. Rec., xix., 1888, p. 207).—H. C.]
South-West Gate and Water-Gate of Su-chau ; facsimile on half the scale from a med iæval Map, incised on Marble, A.D. 1247.
NOTE 3.—This statement about the abundance of rhubarb in the hills near Su-chau is believed by the most competent authorities to be quite erroneous. Rhubarb is exported from Shang-hai, but it is brought thither from Ilankau on the Upper Kiang, and Hankau receives it from the further west. Indeed Mr. Hanbury, in a note on the subject, adds his disbelief also that ginger is produced in Kiang-nan. And I see in the Shang-hai trade-returns of 1865, that there is /to ginger among the exports. [Green ginger is mentioned in the Shang-hai Trade Reports for 1900 among the exports (p. 309) to the amount of 18,756 piculs ; none is mentioned at Su-chau. —H. C.]. Some one, I forget where, has suggested a confusion with Suh-chau in Kan-suh, the great rhubarb mart, which seems possible.
[" Polo is correct in giving Tangut as the native country of Rhubarb (Rheum palmaturn), but no species of Rheum has hitherto been gathered by our botanists as far south as Kiang-Su, indeed, not even in Shan-tung." (Bretschneider, Hist. of
Bot. Disc., I. p. 5.)—H. C. ]
,NOTE 4.—The meanings ascribed by Polo to the names of Su-chau and King-szé k1Iang-chau) show plainly enough that he was ignorant of Chinese, Odoric does not
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