National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

46

MARCO POLO.   VOL. L BK. I.

Hedin, the distances from Khotān to Keriya and from Keriya

to Niya, according to Hwen Tsiang, become 91 and 55 miles

instead of 86 and 52 as given in the table, which is not far from

the true distances, 97 and 64.

" If, however, Pimo is identical with Kenan, as Stein thinks,

the distances which Hwen Tsiang gives as 86 and 52 miles

become respectively 6o and 89, which is evidently quite wrong.

" Strong confirmation of the identification of Keriya with

Pimo is found in a comparison of extracts from Marco Polo's

and Hwen Tsiang's accounts of that city with passages from my

note-book, written long before I had read the comments of the

ancient travellers. Marco Polo says that the people of Pein, or

Pima, as he also calls it, have the peculiar custom ` that if a

married man goes to a distance from home to be about twenty

days, his wife has a right, if she is so inclined, to take another

husband ; and the men, on the same principle, marry wherever

they happen to reside.' The quotation from my notes runs as

follows : ` The women of the place are noted for their attractive-

ness and loose character. It is said that many men coming to

Keriya for a short time become enamoured of the women here,

and remain permanently, taking new wives and abandoning their

former wives and families.'

" Hwen Tsiang observed that thirty ` li,' seven or eight miles,

west of Pimo, there is ` a great desert marsh, upwards of several

acres in extent, without any verdure whatever. The surface is

reddish black.' The natives explained to the pilgrim that it was

the blood-stained site of a great battle fought many years

before. Eighteen miles north-west of Keriya bazaar, or ten

miles from the most westerly village of the oasis, I observed that

some areas which are flooded part of the year are of a deep rich

red colour, due to a small plant two or three inches high.' I saw

such vegetation nowhere else and apparently it was an equally

unusual sight to Hwen Tsiang.

" In addition to these somewhat conclusive observations,

Marco Polo says that jade is found in the river of Pimo, which

is true of the Keriya, but not of the Chira, or the other rivers

near Kenan." (Ellsworth HUNTINGTON, The Pulse of Asia,

PP. 387-8.)

XXVIII., p. 194. " The whole of the Province [of Charchan] is

sandy, and so is the road all the way from Pein, and much of the water

that you find is bitter and bad. However, at some places you do find

fresh and sweet water."

OE