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| 0101 |
Notes on Marco Polo : vol.1 |
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The objection to locating «Sanang Setsen»'s Bars-köl in Mongolia proper, on account of its
Turkish character, holds good also, and even more so, for a Bars-köl = «Barscol» which would
be situated on the borders of Manchuria. Unfortunately no such name has been found in works
of the Mongol period. The Pa-li-hun of YS, 15, 1 a, may perhaps be the Barkul, but it is not
likely from the phonetic point of view, as it supposes *Barqun or *Baryul, not Barkol (Barkul),
and we have here probably to do with a transcription Barqun = Baryu (see «Bargu»). A
granary Barstu, «Place of Tigers», in the dependency of Shang-tu, is named in YS, 19, 6 a, and
a «land of Bars» occurs under 1365 in YS, 46, 7 b. But all these names simply show the
current use of bars, «tiger», in Turko-Mongolian nomenclature; they do not lead to an identifi-
cation of «Barscol».
For the present, I see only two solutions : either to suppose that the place is on the
borders of Manchuria, and then to restore it as a Mongolian Bars-yol, «Tiger River», otherwise
unknown; or to take the name as a Turkish Bars-köl, in which case it must have been in a
Turkish-speaking region. We know of a great many cases in which Mongol princes had appanages
scattered in different regions of the empire. Nayan, though settled in Manchuria, may have
also inherited rights in the Barkul region. Without laying too much stress on the point, I may
add that the Bäkrin, many of whom were Christians, lived in the region of Lake Barkul in the
Mongol period; if Nayan had power in Barkul, he may have drawn from the Bäkrin at least a
part of his Christian contingents.
But, in favour of a location in Manchuria, some other arguments have been brought
forward. In 1293, Qubilai is supposed to have said to Qara-baturu (YS, 169, 4 b) : «North from
here, there is the ancient land of Nayan called 阿 八 剌忽 A-pa-la-hu, which produces fish; I
am founding there a city... to which I give the name of 肇州 Chao-chou...». PALLADIUS
(Kommentarit, 33; Y, I, 345), in agreement with the former Chinese opinion which made Nayan
a descendant of Bälgütäi, identified «A-ba-la-hu» with the modern Butha on the Nomin River
(south-west of Mergen and north of Tsitsihar). It is this «A-ba-la-hu» which PALLADIUS sup-
posed to be phonetically connected with Polo's «Barscol», together with P'u-yü-lu or Pu-lo-ho.
In fact, Bälgütäi was appanaged more to the west (north of the Kerulen) and had also the region
of Kuang-ning on the northern side of the Gulf of Liao-tung. We do not know who had the
region of the present Butha, and moreover, there is, as far as I can see, no reason to place there
the region of A-pa-la-hu, a name which occurs only once in YS. This name must be kept in
mind as having a certain phonetic analogy with «Barscol»; but it may be fortuitous, and A-pa-
la-hu, a fish-producing region, may be some nominal form derived from Mong. abala-, «to
hunt» and «to fish».
We ought to be able to locate A-pa-la-hu, since in 1293 Qubilai established there a certain
city of Chao-chou, which is also mentioned in YS, 18, 7 b, under the year 1295; but the
geographical section of YS, 59, 1 b, notes that the name is not registered in the official compila-
tions of the dynasty and mentions it under Kuang-ning-fu simply because Kuang-ning-fu was
Bälgütäi's appanage and the compilers took Nayan (though wrongly) to be a descendant of
Bälgütäi. There is, however, a Chao-chou which already existed under the Chin (Chin shih,
24, 1 b-2 a) and seems to be correctly identified with 朱 家 城 子 Chu-chia-ch'êng-tzŭ, a place
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631
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