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Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

72   MARCO POLO.   VOL. I. BK. II.

like many other institutions, adopted this practice from their

predecessors, the Mongols. Klaproth 1 is wrong is saying that the

assignats of the Sung, Kin, and Mongols were all made from the

bark of the tree cu (Broussonetia), and those of the Ming from

all sorts of plants.

" In the Hui kiang chi, an interesting description of Turkistan

by two Manchu officials, Surde and Fusambô, published in 1772,2

the following note headed ` Mohamedan Paper ' occurs :

" ` There are two sorts of Turkistan paper, black and white,

made from mulberry bark, cotton and silk refuse equally mixed,

resulting in a coarse, thick, strong, and tough material. It is cut

into small rolls fully a foot long, which are burnished by means

of stones, and then are fit for writing.'

" Sir Aurel Stein 3 reports that paper is still manufactured

from mulberry trees in Khotan. Also J. Wiesner,4 the

meritorious investigator of ancient papers, has included the fibres

of Morus alba and M. nigra among the material to which his

researches extended.

" Mulberry-bark paper is ascribed to Bengal in the Si yang

ch'ao kung tien lu by Wu Kiën-hwang, published in 1520.6

".As the mulberry tree is eagerly cultivated in Persia in

connection with the silk industry, it is possible also that the

Persian paper in the banknotes of the Mongols was a product

of the mulberry.6 At any rate, good Marco Polo is cleared, and

his veracity and exactness have been established again."

XXIV., p. 427.

VALUE OF GOLD.

" L'or valait quatre fois son poids d'argent au commencement

de la dynastie Ming (1375), sept ou huit fois sous l'empereur

1 Mémoires relatifs á l'Asie, Vol. I., p. 387.

2 A. WYLIE, Notes on Chinese Literature, p. 64. The copy used by me (in the John Crerar Library of Chicago) is an old manuscript clearly written in 4 vols. and chapters, illustrated by nine ink-sketches of types of Mohammedans and a map. The volumes are not paged.

3 Ancient Khotan, Vol. I., p. 134.

4 Mikroskopische Untersuchung alter ostturkestanischer Papiere, p. 9 (Vienna, 1902). I cannot pass over in silence a curious error of this scholar when he says (p. 8) that it is not proved that Cannabis sativa (called by him " genuine hemp ") is cultivated in China, and that the so-called Chinese hemp-paper should be intended for China grass. Every tyro in things Chinese knows that hemp ( Cannabis saliva) belongs to the oldest cultivated plants of the Chinese, and that hemp-paper is already listed among the papers invented by Ts'ai Lun in A.D. 105 (cf. CHAVANNES, Les livres chinois avant l'invention du papier, Journal Asiatique, 1905, p. 6 of the reprint).

5 Ch. B., p. lob (ed. of Pie hia chai ts'ung shu).

6 The Persian word for the mulberry, hid, is supposed to be a loan-word from Aramaic. (HORN, Grundriss iran. Phil., Vol. I., pt. 2) p. 6.)