The Travels of Marco Polo — Volume 2 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 1,335 pages of information about The Travels of Marco Polo — Volume 2.

The Travels of Marco Polo — Volume 2 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 1,335 pages of information about The Travels of Marco Polo — Volume 2.

According to the Yuen Shi and Deveria, Journ.  Asiat., Nov.-Dec., 1896, 432, in 1229 and 1241, when Okkodai’s army reached the country of the Aas (Alans), their chief submitted at once and a body of one thousand Alans were kept for the private guard of the Great Khan; Mangu enlisted in his bodyguard half the troops of the Alan Prince, Arslan, whose younger son Nicholas took a part in the expedition of the Mongols against Karajang (Yun Nan).  This Alan imperial guard was still in existence in 1272, 1286, and 1309, and it was divided into two corps with headquarters in the Ling pei province (Karakorum).  See also Bretschneider, Mediaeval Researches, II., pp. 84-90.

The massacre of a body of Christian Alans related by Marco Polo (II., p. 178) is confirmed by Chinese sources.

LXXIV., p. 180, n. 3.

ALANS.

See Notes in new edition of Cathay and the Way thither, III., pp. 179 seq., 248.

The massacre of the Alans took place, according to Chinese sources, at Chen-ch’ao, not at Ch’ang chau.  The Sung general who was in charge of the city, Hung Fu, after making a faint submission, got the Alans drunk at night and had them slaughtered.  Cf.  PELLIOT, Chretiens d’Asie centrale et d’Extreme-Orient, T’oung Pao, Dec., 1914, p. 641.

LXXVI., pp. 184-5.

VUJU, VUGHIN, CHANGAN.

The Rev. A.C.  Moule has given in the T’oung Pao, July, 1915, pp. 393 seq., the Itinerary between Lin Ngan (Hang Chau) and Shang Tu, followed by the Sung Dynasty officials who accompanied their Empress Dowager to the Court of Kublai after the fall of Hang Chau in 1276; the diary was written by Yen Kwang-ta, a native of Shao King, who was attached to the party.

The Rev. A.C.  Moule in his notes writes, p. 411:  “The connexion between Hu-chou and Hang-chou is very intimate, and the north suburb of the latter, the Hu-shu, was known in Marco Polo’s day as the Hu-chou shih.  The identification of Vughin with Wu-chiang is fairly satisfactory, but it is perhaps worth while to point out that there is a place called Wu chen about fifty li north of Shih-men; and for Ciangan there is a tempting place called Ch’ang-an chen just south of Shih-men on a canal which was often preferred to the T’ang-hsi route until the introduction of steam boats.”

LXXVI., p. 192.  “There is one church only [at Kinsay], belonging to the Nestorian Christians.”

It was one of the seven churches built in China by Mar Sarghis, called Ta p’u hing sze (Great Temple of Universal Success), or Yang yi Hu-mu-la, near the Tsien k’iao men.  Cf. Marco Polo, II., p. 177; VISSIERE, Rev. du Monde Musulman, March, 1913, p. 8.

LXXVI., p. 193.

KINSAY.

Chinese Atlas in the Magliabecchian Library.

The Rev. A.C.  Moule has devoted a long note to this Atlas in the Journ.  R. As.  Soc., July, 1919, pp. 393-395.  He has come to the conclusion that the Atlas is no more nor less than the Kuang yue t’u, and that it seems that Camse stands neither for Ching-shih, as Yule thought, nor for Hang chau as he, Moule, suggested in 1917, but simply for the province of Kiangsi. (A Note on the Chinese Atlas in the Magliabecchian Library, with reference to Kinsay in Marco Polo.)

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