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| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.2 |
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Citation Information
220 MARCO POLO BOOK II.
are Idolaters, &c., and live by trade and manufactures.
It is a fine, noble, and rich city, and is the last of the
government of Kinsay in this direction.3 The other
kingdom which we now enter, called Fuju, is also one of
the nine great divisions of Manzi as Kinsay is.
NOTE r.—The traveller's route proceeds from Kinsay or Hang-chau southward to the mountains of Fo-kien, ascending the valley of the Ts'ien T'ang, commonly called by Europeans the Green River. The general line, directed as we shall see upon Kien-ning fu in Fo-kien, is clear enough, but some of the details are very obscure, owing partly to vague indications and partly to the excessive uncertainty in the reading of some of the proper names.
No name resembling Tanpiju (G. T., Tan/5i(ui; Pauthier, Tacpiguy, Carpiguy, Capiguy; Ram., Tapinzu) belongs, so far as has yet been shown, to any considerable town in the position indicated.* Both Pauthier and Mr. Kingsmill identify the place with Shao-hing fu, a large and busy town, compared by Fortune, as regards population, to Shang-hai. Shao-hing is across the broad river, and somewhat further down than Hang-chau : it is out of the traveller's general direction ; and it seems unnatural that he should commence his journey by passing this wide river, and yet not mention it.
For these reasons I formerly rejected Shao-hing, and looked rather to Fu-yang as the representative of Tanpiju. But my opinion is shaken when I find both Mr. Elias and Baron Richthofen decidedly opposed to Fu-yang, and the latter altogether in favour of Shao-hing. " The journey through a plenteous region, passing a succession of dwellings and charming gardens ; the epithets ` great, rich, and fine city' ; the
trade, manufactures, and handicrafts,' and the ` necessaries in great plenty and cheapness,' appear to apply rather to the populous plain and the large city of ancient fame, than to the small Fu-yang hien . . . shut in by a spur from the hills, which would hardly have allowed it in former days to have been a great city." (Note by Baron R.) The after route, as elucidated by the same authority, points with even more force to Shao-hing.
[Mr. G. Phillips has made a special study of the route from Kinsay to Zaytun in the To'ung Pao, I. p. 218 seq. ( The Identity of Marco Polo's 7aitun with Changchau). He says (p. 222) : " Leaving Hangchau by boat for Fuhkien, the first place of importance is Fuyang, at loo li from Hangchau. This name does not in any way resemble Polo's Ta Pin Zu, but I think it can be no other." Mr. Phillips writes (pp. 221-222) that by the route he describes, he " intends to follow the highway which has been used by travellers for centuries, and the greater part of which is by water." He adds : " I may mention that the boats used on this route can be luxuriously fitted up, and the traveller can go in them all the way from Hangchau to Chinghu, the head of the navigation of the Ts'ien-t'ang River. At this Chinghu, they disembark and hire coolies and chairs to take them and their luggage across the Sienhia pass to Puching in Fuhkien. This route is described by Fortune in an opposite direction, in his Wanderings in China, vol. ii. p. 139. I am inclined to think that Polo followed this route, as the one given by Yule, by way of Shao-hing and Kin-hua by land, would be unnecessarily tedious for the ladies Polo was escorting, and there was no necessity to take it ; more especially as there was a direct water route to the point for which they were making. I further incline to this route, as I can find no city at all fitting in with Yenchau, Ramusio's Gengiu, along the route given by Yule."
* One of the Hien, forming the special districts of Hang-chau itself, now called Tsien-tang, was formerly called Tan,--wei-tang. But it embraces the eastern part of the district, and can, I think, have nothing to do with Tanpiju. (See Biot, p. 257, and Chin. Reßos. for February, 1842, p. 109.)
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