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

76

MARCO POLO.   VOL. II. BK. II.

3

kind when water is poured on it, will float ; the adulterated sort,

when thus treated, will freeze.1 In wine which has long been

stored, there is a certain portion which even in extreme cold will

never freeze, while all the remainder is frozen : this is the spirit

and fluid secretion of wine. 2 If this is drunk, the essence will

penetrate into a man's armpits, and he will die. Wine kept for

two or three years develops great poison." For a detailed history

of grape-wine in China, see Laufer's Sino-Iranica.

XXXV I I., p. 16.

VINE.

Chavannes (Chancellerie chinoise de l'époque mongole, II.,

pp. 66-68, 1908) has a long note on vine and grape wine-making

in China, from Chinese sources. We know that vine, according

to Sze-ma Ts'ien, was imported from Farghânah about Too B.C.

The Chinese, from texts in the T'ai p'ing yu lan and the Yuan

Kien lei han, learned the art of wine-making after they had

defeated the King of Kao ch'ang (Turfan) in 640 A.D.

XLI., p. 27 seq.

CHRISTIAN MONUMENT AT SI-NGAN FU.

The slab King kiao pei, bearing the inscription, was found,

according to Father Havret, 2nd Pt., p. 71, in the sub-prefecture

of Chau Chi, a dependency of Si-ngan fu, among ancient ruins.

Prof. Pelliot says that the slab was not found at Chau Chi, but in

the western suburb of Si-ngan, at the very spot where it was to

be seen some years ago, before it was transferred to the Pei lin,

in fact at the place where it was erected in the seventh century

inside the monastery built by Olopun. (C7zrétiens de l'Asie

centrale, T'oung pao, 1914, p. 62 5.)

In 1907, a Danish gentleman, Mr. Frits V. Holm, took a

photograph of the tablet as it stood outside the west gate of

Si-ngan, south of the road to Kan Su ; it was one of five slabs on

the same spot ; it was removed without the stone pedestal

(a tortoise) into the city on the 2nd October 1907, and it is now

kept in the museum known as the Pei lin (Forest of Tablets).

Holm says it is ten feet high, the weight being two tons ; he

tried to purchase the original, and failing this he had an exact

replica made by Chinese workmen ; this replica was deposited in

1 This is probably a phantasy. We can make nothing of it, as it is not stated how the adulterated wine was made.

2 This possibly is the earliest Chinese allusion to alcohol.