[There are at many places on this river hills and rocky eminences on which the idol-monasteries and other edifices are built; and you find on its shores a constant succession of villages and inhabited places.[NOTE 6]]

NOTE 1.—­The traveller’s diversion from his direct course—­sceloc or south-east, as he regards it—­towards Fo-kien, in order to notice Ngan-king (as we have supposed) and Siang-yang, has sadly thrown out both the old translators and transcribers, and the modern commentators.  Though the G. Text has here “quant l’en se part de la cite de Angui,” I cannot doubt that Iangui (Yanju) is the reading intended, and that Polo here comes back to the main line of his journey.

[Illustration:  ’Sono sopiaquesto frumern molti luoghi, colline e monticelli sassosi, sopia quali sono edificati monasteir d’Edoli, e altre stanze...’]

I conceive Sinju to be the city which was then called CHEN-CHAU, but now I-CHING HIEN,[1] and which stands on the Kiang as near as may be 15 miles from Yang-chau.  It is indeed south-west instead of south-east, but those who have noted the style of Polo’s orientation will not attach much importance to this.  I-ching hien is still the great port of the Yang-chau salt manufacture, for export by the Kiang and its branches to the interior provinces.  It communicates with the Grand Canal by two branch canals.  Admiral Collinson, in 1842, remarked the great numbers of vessels lying in the creek off I-ching. (See note 1 to ch. lxviii. above; and J.R.G.S. XVII. 139.)

["We anchored at a place near the town of Y-ching-hien, distinguished by a pagoda.  The most remarkable objects that struck us here were some enormously large salt-junks of a very singular shape, approaching to a crescent, with sterns at least thirty feet above the water, and bows that were two-thirds of that height.  They had ‘bright sides’, that is, were varnished over the natural wood without painting, a very common style in China.” (Davis, Sketches, II. p. 13.)—­H.C.]

NOTE 2.—­The river is, of course, the Great Kiang or Yang-tzu Kiang (already spoken of in ch. xliv. as the Kiansui), which Polo was justified in calling the greatest river in the world, whilst the New World was yet hidden.  The breadth seems to be a good deal exaggerated, the length not at all.  His expressions about it were perhaps accompanied by a mental reference to the term Dalai, “The Sea,” which the Mongols appear to have given the river. (See Fr. Odoric, p. 121.) The Chinese have a popular saying, “Hai vu ping, Kiang vu ti,” “Boundless is the Ocean, bottomless the Kiang!”