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| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.2 |
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Citation Information
230
MARCO POLO tool( II.
have been six days from Hokezz to the Wu-e-shan and then five and a half days by water (but in stormy weather) to Fu-chau. (Chinese Recorder, as above.)
NOTE 8.—Pauthier supposes Unken, or Vuguen as he reads it, to be Hukwan, one of the hiens under the immediate administration of Fu-chau city. This cannot be, according to the lucid reading of the G. T., making Unken 15 miles from the chief city. The only place which the maps show about that position is Min-ts'ing hien. And the Dutch mission of 1664-1665 names this as "Binkin, by some called Min-sing." (Astley, III. 461.)
[Mr. Phillips writes (T. Pao, I. 224-225) : " Going down stream from Kien-Ning, we arrive first at Yen-Ping on the Min Main River. Eighty-seven li further down is the mouth of the Yiu-Ki River, up which stream, at a distance of eighty li, is Yiu-Ki city, where travellers disembark for the land journey to Yung-chun and Chinchew. This route is the highway from the town of Yiu-Ki to the seaport of Chinchew. This I consider to have been Polo's route, and Ramusio's Unguen I believe to be Yungchun, locally known as Eng-chun or Ung-chun, a name greatly resembling Polo's Unguen. I look upon this mere resemblance of name as of small moment in comparison with the weighty and important statement, that ` this place is remarkable for a great manufacture of sugar.' Going south from the Min River towards Chin-chew, this is the first district in which sugar-cane is seen growing in any quantity. Between Kien-Ning-Foo and Fuchau I do not know of any place remarkable for the great manufacture of sugar. Pauthier makes How-Kuan do service for Unken or Unguen, but this is inadmissible, as there is no such place as How-Kuan ; it is simply one of the divisions of the city of Fuchau, which is divided into two districts, viz. the Min-Hien and the How-Kuan-Hien. A small quantity of sugar-cane is, I admit, grown in the How-Kuan division of Fuchau-foo, but it is not extensively made into sugar. The cane grown there is usually cut into short pieces for chewing and hawked about the streets for sale. The nearest point to Foochow where sugar is made in any great quantity is Yung-Foo, a place quite out of Polo's route. The great sugar manufacturing districts of Fuh-Kien are Hing-hwa, Yung-chun, Chinchew, and Chang-chau."—H. C.]
The Babylonia of the passage from Ramusio is Cairo,—Babylon of Egypt, the sugar of which was very famous in the Middle Ages. Zucchero di Bamzbellonia is repeatedly named in Pegolotti's Handbook (210, 311, 362, etc.).
The passage as it stands represents the Chinese as not knowing even how to get sugar in the granular form : but perhaps the fact was that they did not know how to refine it. Local Chinese histories acknowledge that the people of Fo-kien did not know how to make fine sugar, till, in the time of the Mongols, certain men from the West taught the art.* It is a curious illustration of the passage that in India coarse sugar is commonly called Chíní, " the produce of China," and sugar candy or fine sugar Misri, the produce of Cairo (Babylonia) or Egypt. Nevertheless, fine Misri has long been exported from Fo-kien to India, and down to 1862 went direct from Amoy. It is now, Mr. Phillips states, sent to India by steamers via Ilong-Kong. I see it stated, in a late Report by Mr. Consul Medhurst, that the sugar at this day commonly sold and consumed throughout China is excessively coarse and repulsive
in appearance. (See Academy, February, 1874, p. 229.) [We note from the
Returns of Trade for 1900, of the Chinese Customs, p. 467, that during that year 1900, the following quantities of sugar were exported from Amov : Brown, 89,116 piculs, value 204,969 Ilk. taels ; white, 3,708 piculs, 20,024 Ilk. taels ; candy, 53,504 piculs, 304,970 Hk. taels.—II. C.]
[Dr. Bretschneider (Hist. of Bot. Disc. I. p. 2) remarks that " the sugar cane although not indigenous in China, was known to the Chinese in the 2nd century B.C. It is largely cultivated in the Southern provinces."—H. C.]
* Note by 1111r. C. I'IcilliZss. I omit a corroborative quotation about sugar from the Turkish Geography, copied from Klaproth in the former edition ; because the author, Hajji Khalfa, used European sources ; and I have no doubt the passage was derived indirectly from Marco Polo.
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