Marco Polo
translation: Henry Yule, Henri Cordier

THE TRAVELS OF MARCO POLO
Volume II.
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CHAPTER LXXII.

CONCERNING THE CITY OF CAIJU.

Caiju is a small city towards the south-east. The people are subject to the Great Kaan and have paper-money. It stands upon the river before mentioned.[NOTE 1] At this place are collected great quantities of corn and rice to be transported to the great city of Cambaluc for the use of the Kaan's Court; for the grain for the Court all comes from this part of the country. You must understand that the Emperor hath caused a water-communication to be made from this city to Cambaluc, in the shape of a wide and deep channel dug between stream and stream, between lake and lake, forming as it were a great river on which large vessels can ply. And thus there is a communication all the way from this city of Caiju to Cambaluc; so that great vessels with their loads can go the whole way. A land road also exists, for the earth dug from those channels has been thrown up so as to form an embanked road on either side.[NOTE 2]

Just opposite to the city of Caiju, in the middle of the River, there stands a rocky island on which there is an idol-monastery containing some 200 idolatrous friars, and a vast number of idols. And this Abbey holds supremacy over a number of other idol-monasteries, just like an archbishop's see among Christians.[NOTE 3]

Now we will leave this and cross the river, and I will tell you of a city called Chinghianfu.

NOTE 1.—No place in Polo's travels is better identified by his local indications than this. It is on the Kiang; it is at the extremity of the Great Canal from Cambaluc; it is opposite the Golden Island and Chin-kiang fu. Hence it is KWA-CHAU, as Murray pointed out. Marsden here misunderstands his text, and puts the place on the south side of the Kiang.

Here Van Braam notices that there passed in the course of the day more than fifty great rice-boats, most of which could easily carry more than 300,000 lbs. of rice. And Mr. Alabaster, in 1868, speaks of the canal from Yang-chau to Kwa-chau as "full of junks."

[Sir J.F. Davis writes (Sketches of China, II. p. 6): "Two … days … were occupied in exploring the half-deserted town of Kwa-chow, whose name signifies 'the island of gourds,' being completely insulated by the river and canal. We took a long walk along the top of the walls, which were as usual of great thickness, and afforded a broad level platform behind the parapet: the parapet itself, about six feet high, did not in thickness exceed the length of a brick and a half, and the embrasures were evidently not constructed for cannon, being much too high. A very considerable portion of the area within the walls consisted of burial-grounds planted with cypress; and this alone was a sufficient proof of the decayed condition of the place, as in modern or fully inhabited cities no person can be buried within the walls. Almost every spot bore traces of ruin, and there (...)

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