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road to which the digression has been attached. It is not even certain that, in such cases, the men-
tions of « south-east » are due to Polo at all, and « yseloc » is not given in connection with « Singiu »
in all Mss. Whatever the case may be, Polo's real itinerary was certainly from Yang-chou to Kua-
chou, with a textual digression from Yang-chou made in order to speak of «Singiu» (= I-chêng).

I-chêng received the name of Chên-chou in 1013, became a chün in 1117, but was again made
a chou a little later; it was always under the name of Chên-chou that the place was the seat of various
administrations during the Yüan dynasty. The name of 儀 貝 I-chên (changed to 儀 徵 I-chêng
in 1723 on account of a taboo), with the lower status of hsien, dates only from 1369 (YS, 59, 9 b;
Ta-Ch'ing i-t'ung chih, 66, map, 2 a; text, 1 b).

It is at «Singiu» (= I-chêng) that Polo gives his description of the navigation on the Yang-
tzŭ, and this can be accounted for by the fact that I-chêng was in itself a much more important
centre than Kua-chou where Polo's party, with « Cocacin », actually crossed the river. But the real
motive of Polo's digression was the importance of the salt gabelle at I-chêng. So we have three
cases in which, between Cho-chou and the Yang-tzŭ, Polo goes out of his way to speak of other
places of which he plainly has personal knowledge, « Cianglu » (Ch'ang-lu), « Cingiu » (< *Caigiu,
Hai-chou = Hai-mên) and « Singiu » (Chên-chou = I-chêng), these three places being important
gabelle centres. From this fact, the inference may be drawn that Polo's services with Qubilai
were in all probability, for a great and perhaps for the greatest part, connected with the salt gabelle.
And when Polo speaks of his three years' tenure of office at Yang-chou, I should not be surprised
if his had been indeed an office in the salt administration.

Some details about the salt-trade at I-chêng in the Mongol period are given in Ch, III, 45.


339. SINGIU MATU—SINGIU (c. 135)

cinguy matu, siguy matu FA singiu F, Ft singuimatu VL; R
sainguy matu FAt singiu matu F, L, VA singuinatu, singul VB
segui V singni TA¹ singuy FB, FBt
sighui TA³ singrimata P singuy matu FA, FB
sigumatu VBr singui Fr, LT ymgay G
sinçumatu, singcumatu Z singuimata Pr

This is certainly 新 州 馬 頭 Hsin-chou ma-t'ou, « the Port of Hsin-chou »; the long adverse
argument in Ch, III, 15-21, is sheer nonsense. It may be also, as generally assumed, Odoric's
« Suçumato », etc. (read « *Sinçumato »?); cf. Y¹, II, 214-215; Wy, 471. Ma-t'ou means « quay »,
« river-port », and is of common use; Rašidu-'d-Dîn knows of it and says that in China, ports and
quays are called ﻣﺎﺗﻮ matu (Bl, II, 469; batu in JA, XI, 1824, 352, is merely a misreading); for the
use of names with ma-t'ou in Yüan nomenclature, cf. for instance TP, 1915, 398, or YS, 64, 6 b.
Roughly speaking, Hsin-chou ma-t'ou corresponds to the modern Chi-ning; it is, and was already