["It is remarkable that the Chinese author, Hung Hao, who lived a century before M. Polo, makes mention in his memoirs nearly in the same words of this custom of the Uighurs, with whom he became acquainted during his captivity in the kingdom of the Kin.  According to the chronicle of the Tangut kingdom of Si-hia, Hami was the nursery of Buddhism in Si-hia, and provided this kingdom with Buddhist books and monks.” (Palladius, l.c. p. 6.)—­H.  C.]

NOTE 4.—­So the Jewish rabble to Jeremiah:  “Since we left off to burn incense to the Queen of Heaven, and to pour out drink-offerings to her, we have wanted all things, and have been consumed by the sword and by famine.” (Jerem. xliv. 18.)

CHAPTER XLII.

OF THE PROVINCE OF CHINGINTALAS.

Chingintalas is also a province at the verge of the Desert, and lying between north-west and north.  It has an extent of sixteen days’ journey, and belongs to the Great Kaan, and contains numerous towns and villages.  There are three different races of people in it—­Idolaters, Saracens, and some Nestorian Christians.[NOTE 1] At the northern extremity of this province there is a mountain in which are excellent veins of steel and ondanique.[NOTE 2] And you must know that in the same mountain there is a vein of the substance from which Salamander is made.[NOTE 3] For the real truth is that the Salamander is no beast, as they allege in our part of the world, but is a substance found in the earth; and I will tell you about it.

Everybody must be aware that it can be no animal’s nature to live in fire, seeing that every animal is composed of all the four elements.[NOTE 4] Now I, Marco Polo, had a Turkish acquaintance of the name of Zurficar, and he was a very clever fellow.  And this Turk related to Messer Marco Polo how he had lived three years in that region on behalf of the Great Kaan, in order to procure those Salamanders for him.[NOTE 5] He said that the way they got them was by digging in that mountain till they found a certain vein.  The substance of this vein was then taken and crushed, and when so treated it divides as it were into fibres of wool, which they set forth to dry.  When dry, these fibres were pounded in a great copper mortar, and then washed, so as to remove all the earth and to leave only the fibres like fibres of wool.  These were then spun, and made into napkins.  When first made these napkins are not very white, but by putting them into the fire for a while they come out as white as snow.  And so again whenever they become dirty they are bleached by being put in the fire.

Now this, and nought else, is the truth about the Salamander, and the people of the country all say the same.  Any other account of the matter is fabulous nonsense.  And I may add that they have at Rome a napkin of this stuff, which the Grand Kaan sent to the Pope to make a wrapper for the Holy Sudarium of Jesus Christ.[NOTE 6]