The Travels of Marco Polo
Chapter 76 : Kamul stands on an oasis carefully cultivated by aid of reservoirs for irrigation, and

Kamul stands on an oasis carefully cultivated by aid of reservoirs for irrigation, and is noted in China for its rice and for some of its fruits, especially melons and grapes. It is still a place of some consequence, standing near the bifurcation of two great roads from China, one pa.s.sing north and the other south of the Thian Shan, and it was the site of the Chinese Commissariat depots for the garrisons to the westward. It was lost to the Chinese in 1867.

Kamul appears to have been the see of a Nestorian bishop. A Bishop of Kamul is mentioned as present at the inauguration of the Catholicos Denha in 1266. (_Russians in Cent. Asia_, 129; _Ritter_, II. 357 seqq.; _Cathay, pa.s.sim_; _a.s.semani_, II. 455-456.)

[_Kamul_ is the Turkish name of the province called by the Mongols _Khamil_, by the Chinese _Hami_; the latter name is found for the first time in the _Yuen s.h.i.+_, but it is first mentioned in Chinese history in the 1st century of our Era under the name of _I-wu-lu_ or _I-wu_ (_Bretschneider, Med. Res._ II. p. 20); after the death of Chinghiz, it belonged to his son Chagata. From the Great Wall, at the Pa.s.s of Kia Yu, to Hami there is a distance of 1470 _li_. (_C. Imbault-Huart. Le Pays de Hami ou Khamil_ ... d'apres les auteurs chinois, _Bul. de Geog. hist. et desc._, Paris, 1892, pp. 121-195.) The Chinese general Chang Yao was in 1877 at Hami, which had submitted in 1867 to the Athalik Ghazi, and made it the basis of his operations against the small towns of Chightam and Pidjam, and Yakub Khan himself stationed at Turfan. The Imperial Chinese Agent in this region bears the t.i.tle of _K'u lun Pan She Ta Ch'en_ and resides at K'urun (Urga); of lesser rank are the agents (_Pan She Ta Ch'en_) of Kashgar, Kharashar, Kuche, Aksu, Khotan, and Hami. (See a description of Hami by Colonel M. S. Bell, _Proc. R. G. S._ XII. 1890, p.

213.)--H. C.]

NOTE 2.--Expressed almost in the same words is the character attributed by a Chinese writer to the people of Kuche in the same region. (_Chin.

Repos._ IX. 126.) In fact, the character seems to be generally applicable to the people of East Turkestan, but sorely kept down by the rigid Islam that is now enforced. (See _Shaw, pa.s.sim_, and especially the Mahrambas.h.i.+'s lamentations over the jolly days that were no more, pp. 319, 376.)

NOTE 3.--Pauthier's text has "_sont si_ honni _de leur moliers comme vous avez ouy_." Here the Crusca has "_sono_ bozzi _delle loro moglie_," and the Lat. Geog. "_sunt_ bezzi _de suis uxoribus_." The Crusca Vocab. has inserted _bozzo_ with the meaning we have given, on the strength of this pa.s.sage. It occurs also in Dante (_Paradiso_, XIX. 137), in the general sense of _disgraced_.

The shameful custom here spoken of is ascribed by Polo also to a province of Eastern Tibet, and by popular report in modern times to the Hazaras of the Hindu-Kush, a people of Mongolian blood, as well as to certain nomad tribes of Persia, to say nothing of the like accusation against our own ancestors which has been drawn from Laonicus Chalcondylas. The old Arab traveller Ibn Muhalhal (10th century) also relates the same of the Hazlakh (probably _Kharlikh_) Turks: "Ducis alicujus uxor vel filia vel soror, quum mercatorum agmen in terram venit, eos adit, eorumque l.u.s.trat faciem.

Quorum siquis earum afficit admiratione hunc domum suam ducit, eumque apud se hospitio excipit, eique benigne facit. Atque marito suo et filio fratrique rerum necessariarum curam demandat; neque dum hospes apud eam habitat, nisi necessarium est, maritus eam adit." A like custom prevails among the Chukchis and Koryaks in the vicinity of Kamtchatka.

(_Elphinstone's Caubul; Wood_, p. 201; _Burnes_, who discredits, II. 153, III. 195; _Laon. Chalcond._ 1650, pp. 48-49; _Kurd de Schloezer_, p. 13; _Erman_, II. 530.)

["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]

We will now quit this subject, and I will proceed with my account of the countries lying in the direction between north-east and east.

NOTE 1.--The identification of this province is a difficulty, because the geographical definition is vague, and the name a.s.signed to it has not been traced in other authors. It is said to lie _between north-west and north_, whilst Kamul was said to lie _towards the north-west_. The account of both provinces forms a digression, as is clear from the last words of the present chapter, where the traveller returns to take up his regular route "in the direction between north-east and east." The point from which he digresses, and to which he reverts, is Shachau, and 'tis presumably from Shachau that he a.s.signs bearings to the two provinces forming the subject of the digression. Hence, as Kamul lies _vers maistre_, i.e. north-west, and Chingintalas _entre maistre et tramontaine_, i.e. nor'-nor'-west, Chingintalas can scarcely lie due west of Kamul, as M. Pauthier would place it, in identifying it with an obscure place called _Saiyintala_, in the territory of Urumtsi. Moreover, the province is said to belong to the Great Kaan. Now, _Urumtsi_ or Bishbalik seems to have belonged, not to the Great Kaan, but to the empire of Chagatai, or possibly at this time to Kaidu. Ras.h.i.+duddin, speaking of the frontier between the Kaan and Kaidu, says:--"From point to point are posted bodies of troops under the orders of princes of the blood or other generals, and they often come to blows with the troops of Kaidu. Five of these are cantoned on the verge of the Desert; a sixth in Tangut, near Chagan-Nor (White Lake); a seventh in the vicinity of Karakhoja, a city of the Uighurs, which lies between the two States, and maintains neutrality."

Karakhoja, this neutral town, is near Turfan, to the south-east of Urumtsi, which thus would lie _without_ the Kaan's boundary; Kamul and the country north-east of it would lie within it. This country, to the north and north-east of Kamul, has remained till quite recently unexplored by any modern traveller, unless we put faith in Mr. Atkinson's somewhat hazy narrative. But it is here that I would seek for Chingintalas.

Several possible explanations of this name have suggested themselves or been suggested to me. I will mention two.

1. Klaproth states that the Mongols applied to Tibet the name of _Baron-tala_, signifying the "Right Side," i.e. the south-west or south quarter, whilst Mongolia was called _Dzohn_ (or _Dzegun_) _Tala_, i.e. the "Left," or north-east side. It is possible that _Chigin-talas_ might represent _Dzegun Tala_ in some like application. The etymology of _Dzungaria_, a name which in modern times covers the territory of which we are speaking, is similar.

2. Professor Vambery thinks that it is probably _Chingin Tala_, "The Vast Plain." But nothing can be absolutely satisfactory in such a case except historical evidence of the application of the name.

I have left the ident.i.ty of this name undecided, though pointing to the general position of the region so-called by Marco, as indicated by the vicinity of the Tangnu-Ola Mountains (p. 215). A pa.s.sage in the Journey of the Taouist Doctor, Changchun, as translated by Dr. Bretschneider (_Chinese Recorder and Miss. Journ._, Shanghai, Sept.-Oct., 1874, p. 258), suggests to me the strong probability that it may be the _Kem-kem-jut_ of Ras.h.i.+duddin, called by the Chinese teacher _Kien-kien_-chau.

Ras.h.i.+duddin couples the territory of the Kirghiz with Kemkemjut, but defines the country embracing both with some exactness: "On one side (south-east?), it bordered on the Mongol country; on a second (north-east?), it was bounded by the Selenga; on a third (north), by the 'great river called Angara, which flows on the confines of Ibir-Sibir'

(i.e. of Siberia); on a fourth side by the territory of the Naimans. This great country contained _many towns and villages_, as well as many nomad inhabitants." Dr. Bretschneider's Chinese Traveller speaks of it as a country where _good iron was found_, where (grey) squirrels abounded, and wheat was cultivated. Other notices quoted by him show that it lay to the south-east of the Kirghiz country, and had its name from the _Kien_ or _Ken_ R. (i.e. the Upper Yenisei).

The name (_Kienkien_), the general direction, the existence of good iron ("steel and ondanique"), the many towns and villages in a position where we should little look for such an indication, all point to the ident.i.ty of this region with the Chingintalas of our text. The only alteration called for in the Itinerary Map (No. IV.) would be to spell the name _Hinkin_, or _Ghinghin_ (as it _is_ in the Geographic Text), and to s.h.i.+ft it a very little further to the north.

(See _Chingin_ in _Kovalevski's Mongol Dict._, No. 2134; and for _Baron-tala_, etc., see _Della Penna, Breve Notizia del Regno del Thibet_, with Klaproth's notes, p. 6; _D'Avezac_, p. 568; _Relation_ prefixed to D'Anville's Atlas, p. 11; _Alphabetum Tibetanum_, 454; and _Kircher, China Ill.u.s.trata_, p. 65.)

Since the first edition was published, Mr. Ney Elias has traversed the region in question from east to west; and I learn from him that at Kobdo he found the most usual name for that town among Mongols, Kalmaks, and Russians to be SANKIN-hoto. He had not then thought of connecting this name with Chinghin-talas, and has therefore no information as to its origin or the extent of its application. But he remarks that Polo's bearing of between north and north-west, if understood to be _from Kamul_, would point exactly to Kobdo. He also calls attention to the Lake _Sankin_-dalai, to the north-east of Uliasut'ai, of which Atkinson gives a sketch. The recurrence of this name over so wide a tract may have something to do with the Chinghin-talas of Polo. But we must still wait for further light.[1]

["Supposing that M. Polo mentions this place on his way from Sha-chow to Su-chow, it is natural to think that it is _Chi-kin-talas_, i.e. 'Chi-kin plain' or valley; Chi-kin was the name of a lake, called so even now, and of a defile, which received its name from the lake. The latter is on the way from Kia-yu kwan to Ansi chow." (_Palladius_, l.c. p. 7.) "_Chikin_, or more correctly _Chigin_, is a Mongol word meaning 'ear.'" (Ibid.) Palladius (p. 8) adds: "The Chinese accounts of Chi-kin are not in contradiction to the statements given by M. Polo regarding the same subject; but when the distances are taken into consideration, a serious difficulty arises; Chi-kin is two hundred and fifty or sixty _li_ distant from Su-chow, whilst, according to M. Polo's statement, ten days are necessary to cross this distance. One of the three following explanations of this discrepancy must be admitted: either Chingintalas is not Chi-kin, or the traveller's memory failed, or, lastly, an error crept into the number of days' journey. The two last suppositions I consider the most probable; the more so that similar difficulties occur several times in Marco Polo's narrative." (L.c. p. 8.)--H. C.]

NOTE 2.--[_Ondanique_.--We have already referred to this word, _Kerman_, p. 90. _Cobinan_, p. 124. La Curne de Sainte-Palaye (_Dict._), F. G.o.defroy (_Dict._), Du Cange (_Gloss._), all give to _andain_ the meaning of _enjambee_, from the Latin _andare_. G.o.defroy, _s.v. andaine_, calls it _sorte d'acier ou de fer_, and quotes besides Marco Polo:

"I. espiel, ou ot fer d'andaine, Dont la lamele n'iert pas trouble."

(Huon de Mery, _Le Tornoiement de l'Antechrist_, p. 3, Tarbe.)

There is a forest in the department of Orne, arrondiss.e.m.e.nt of Domfront, which belonged to the Crown before 1669, and is now State property, called Foret d'Andaine; it is situated near some bed of iron. Is this the origin of the name?--H. C.]

NOTE 3.--The Altai, or one of its ramifications, is probably the mountain of the text, but so little is known of this part of the Chinese territory that we can learn scarcely anything of its mineral products. Still Martini does mention that asbestos is found "in the Tartar country of _Tangu_,"

which probably is the _Tangnu Oola_ branch of the Altai to the south of the Upper Yenisei, and in the very region we have indicated as Chingintalas. Mr. Elias tells me he inquired for asbestos by its Chinese name at Uliasut'ai, but without success.

NOTE 4.--

"Degli elementi quattro princ.i.p.ali, Che son la Terra, e l'Acqua, e l'Aria, e'l Foco, Composti sono gli universi Animali, Pigliando di ciascuno a.s.sai o poco."

(_Dati_, _La Sfera_, p. 9.)

_Zurficar_ in the next sentence is a Mahomedan name, _Zu'lfikar_, the t.i.tle of [the edge of] Ali's sword.

NOTE 5.--Here the G. Text adds: "_Et je meisme le vi_," intimating, I conceive, his having himself seen specimens of the asbestos--not to his having been at the place.

NOTE 6.--The story of the Salamander pa.s.sing unhurt through fire is at least as old as Aristotle. But I cannot tell when the fable arose that asbestos was a substance derived from the animal. This belief, however, was general in the Middle Ages, both in Asia and Europe. "The fable of the Salamander," says Sir Thomas Browne, "hath been much promoted by stories of incombustible napkins and textures which endure the fire, whose materials are called by the name of Salamander's wool, which many, too literally apprehending, conceive some investing part or integument of the Salamander.... Nor is this Salamander's wool desumed from any animal, but a mineral substance, metaphorically so called for this received opinion."

Those who knew that the Salamander was a lizard-like animal were indeed perplexed as to its woolly coat. Thus the Cardinal de Vitry is fain to say the creature "_profert ex cute_ quasi quamdam lanam _de qua zonae contextae comburi non possunt igne._" A Bestiary, published by Cahier and Martin, says of it: "_De lui naist une cose qui n'est ne soie ne lin ne laine._" Jerome Cardan looked in vain, he says, for hair on the Salamander! Albertus Magnus calls the incombustible fibre _pluma Salamandri_; and accordingly Bold Bauduin de Sebourc finds the Salamander in the Terrestrial Paradise _a kind of bird covered with the whitest plumage_; of this he takes some, which he gets woven into a cloth; this he presents to the Pope, and the Pontiff applies it to the purpose mentioned in the text, viz. to cover the holy napkin of St. Veronica.

Gervase of Tilbury writes: "I saw, when lately at Rome, a broad strap of Salamander skin, like a girdle for the loins, which had been brought thither by Cardinal Peter of Capua. When it had become somewhat soiled by use, I myself saw it cleaned perfectly, and without receiving harm, by being put in the fire."

In Persian the creature is called _Samandar, Samandal_, etc., and some derive the word from _Sam_, "fire," and _Andar_, "within." Doubtless it is a corruption of the Greek [Greek: Salamandra], whatever be the origin of that. Bakui says the animal is found at Ghur, near Herat, and is _like a mouse_. Another author, quoted by D'Herbelot, says it is _like a marten_.

[Sir T. Douglas Forsyth, in his _Introductory Remarks_ to Prjevalsky's _Travels to Lob-nor_ (p. 20), at Aksu says: "The asbestos mentioned by Marco Polo as a utilized product of this region is not even so known in this country."--H. C.]

+ Interesting details regarding the fabrication of cloth and paper from amianth or asbestos are contained in a report presented to the French Inst.i.tute by M. Sage (_Mem. Ac. Sciences_, 2e Sem., 1806, p. 102), of which large extracts are given in the _Diction. general des Tissus_, par M. Bezon, 2e ed. vol. ii. Lyon, 1859, p. 5. He mentions that a _Sudarium_ of this material is still shown at the Vatican; we hope it is the cover which Kublai sent.

[This hope is not to be realized. Mgr. d.u.c.h.esne, of the Inst.i.tut de France, writes to me from Rome, from information derived from the keepers of the Vatican Museum, that there is no sudarium from the Great Khan, that indeed part of a sudarium made of asbestos is shown (under gla.s.s) in this Museum, about 20 inches long, but it is ancient, and was found in a Pagan tomb of the Appian Way.--H. C.]

M. Sage exhibited incombustible paper made from this material, and had himself seen a small furnace of Chinese origin made from it. Madame Perpente, an Italian lady, who experimented much with asbestos, found that from a crude ma.s.s of that substance threads could be elicited which were ten times the length of the ma.s.s itself, and were indeed sometimes several metres in length, the fibres seeming to be involved, like silk in a coc.o.o.n. Her process of preparation was much like that described by Marco.

She succeeded in carding and reeling the material, made gloves and the like, as well as paper, from it, and sent to the Inst.i.tute a work printed on such paper.

The Rev. A. Williamson mentions asbestos as found in Shantung. The natives use it for making stoves, crucibles, and so forth.