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CHAP. LXXXII. THE CITY AND HAVEN OF ZAYTON

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there. We meet further the names of Wen-chou and Kuang-chou as seaports for foreign trade in the Mongol time. But Ts'iian-chou in this article on the sea-trade

seems to be considered as the most important of the seaports, and it is repeatedly referred to. I have, therefore, no doubt that the port of Zayton of Western medixval travellers can only be identified with Ts'uäin-chou, not with Chang-chou. . . . There are many other reasons found in Chinese works in favour of this view. Gan-p'u of the Yuen-slii is the seaport Ganfu of Marco Polo." (Bretschneider, Med. Res. I. pp. 186-187.)

In his paper on Chan chow, the Capital of FuhZ'ien in Mongol Times, printed in the Jour. China B. R. A. Soc. 1888, pp. 22-3o, Mr. Geo. Phillips from Chinese works has shown that the Port of Chang-chau did, in Mongol times, alternate with Chinchew and Fu-chau as the capital of Fuh-kien.—H. C.]

Further, Zayton was, as we see from this chapter, and from the 2nd and 5th of Bk. III., in that age the great focus and harbour of communication with India and

the Islands. From Zayton sailed Kúblái's ill-fated expedition against Japan. From Zayton Marco Polo seems to have sailed on his return to the West, as did John Marignolli some half century later. At Layton Ibn Batuta first landed in China, and from it he sailed on his return.

All that we find quoted from Chinese records regarding T'swan-chau corresponds to these Western statements regarding Zayton. For centuries T'swan-chau was the

seat of the Customs Department of Fo-kien, nor was this finally removed till 1473.

In all the historical notices of the arrival of ships and missions from India and the Indian Islands during the reign of Kúblái, T'swan-chau, and T'swan-chau almost

alone, is the port of debarkation ; in the notices of Indian regions in the annals of the

same reign it is from T'swan-chau that the distances are estimated ; it was from T'swan-chau that the expeditions against Japan and Java were mainly fitted out.

(See quotations by Pauthier, pp. 559, 57o, 604, 653, 603, 643 ; Gaubil, 205, 217 Deguignes, III. 169, 175, i8o, 187 ; Chinese Recorder (Foochow), 187o, pp. 45 segq. )

When the Portuguese, in the 16th century, recovered China to European knowledge, Zayton was no longer the great haven of foreign trade ; but yet the old

name was not extinct among the mariners of Western Asia. Giovanni d'Empoli, in 1515, writing about China from Cochin, says : " Ships carry spices thither from these parts. Every year there go thither from Sumatra 6o,000 cantars of pepper, and 15,000 or 20,000 from Cochin and Malabar, worth 15 to 20 ducats a cantar ; besides ginger (?), mace, nutmegs, incense, aloes, velvet, European goldwire, coral, woollens, etc. The Grand Can is the King of China, and he dwells at ZEIT'oN." Giovanni hoped to get to Zeiton before he died.*

The port of T'swan-chau is generally called in our modern charts Chinchew. Now Chincheo is the name given by the old Portuguese navigators to the coast of Fo-kien, as well as to the port which they frequented there, and till recently I supposed this to be T'swan-chau. But Mr. Phillips, in his paper alluded to at p. 232,

asserted that by Chincheo modern Spaniards and Portuguese designated (not T'swan-chau but) Chang -chau, a great city 6o miles W.S.W. of T'swan-chau, on a

river entering Amoy Harbour. On turning, with this hint, to the old maps of the

17th century, I found that their Chincheo is really Chang- chau. But Mr. Phillips also maintains that Chang-chau, or rather its port, a place formerly called Gehkong and

now Haiteng, is Zayton. Mr. Phillips does not adduce any precise evidence to show that this place was known as a port in Mongol times, far less that it was

* Giovanni did not get to Zayton ; but two years later he got to Canton with Ferndo Perez, was sent ashore as Factor, and a few days after died of fever. (De I3arros, II[. II. viii.) The way in which Botero, a compiler in the latter part of the 16th century, speaks of Zayton as between Canton and Liampo (Singpo), and exporting immense quantities of porcelain, salt and sugar, looks as if he had before him modern information as to the place. He likewise observes, "All the moderns note the port of Zaiton between Canton and Liampo." Yet I know no other modern allusion except Giovanni d'Empoli's ; and that was printed only a few years ago. (Bolero, Relazione Uniz'ersale, pp. 97, 228.)