NOTE 7.—­There is much about the exposure of children, and about Chinese foundling hospitals, in the Lettres Edifiantes, especially in Recueil xv. 83, seqq.  It is there stated that frequently a person not in circumstances to pay for a wife for his son, would visit the foundling hospital to seek one.  The childless rich also would sometimes get children there to pass off as their own; adopted children being excluded from certain valuable privileges.

Mr. Milne (Life in China), and again Mr. Medhurst (Foreigner in Far Cathay), have discredited the great prevalence of infant exposure in China; but since the last work was published, I have seen the translation of a recent strong remonstrance against the practice by a Chinese writer, which certainly implied that it was very prevalent in the writer’s own province.  Unfortunately, I have lost the reference. [See Father G. Palatre, L’Infanticide et l’Oeuvre de la Ste. Enfance en Chine, 1878.  —­H.C.]

CHAPTER LXVI.

CONCERNING THE CITY OF COIGANJU.

Coiganju is, as I have told you already, a very large city standing at the entrance to Manzi.  The people are Idolaters and burn their dead, and are subject to the Great Kaan.  They have a vast amount of shipping, as I mentioned before in speaking of the River Caramoran.  And an immense quantity of merchandize comes hither, for the city is the seat of government for this part of the country.  Owing to its being on the river, many cities send their produce thither to be again thence distributed in every direction.  A great amount of salt also is made here, furnishing some forty other cities with that article, and bringing in a large revenue to the Great Kaan.[NOTE 1]

NOTE 1.—­Coiganju is HWAI-NGAN CHAU, now _-Fu_ on the canal, some miles south of the channel of the Hwang-Ho; but apparently in Polo’s time the great river passed close to it.  Indeed, the city takes its name from the River Hwai, into which the Hwang-Ho sent a branch when first seeking a discharge south of Shantung.  The city extends for about 3 miles along the canal and much below its level. [According to Sir J.F.  Davis, the situation of Hwai-ngan “is in every respect remarkable.  A part of the town was so much below the level of the canal, that only the tops of the walls (at least 25 feet high) could be seen from our boats....  It proved to be, next to Tien-tsin, by far the largest and most populous place we had yet seen, the capital itself excepted.” (Sketches of China, I. pp. 277-278.)—­H.C.]

The headquarters of the salt manufacture of Hwai-ngan is a place called Yen-ching ("Salt-Town"), some distance to the S. of the former city (Pauthier).

CHAPTER LXVII.

OF THE CITIES OF PAUKIN AND CAYU.