Marco Polo
translation: Henry Yule, Henri Cordier

THE TRAVELS OF MARCO POLO
Volume II.
complete book, e-book

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CHAPTER LXXIX.

OF THE CITY OF TANPIJU AND OTHERS.

When you leave Kinsay and travel a day's journey to the south-east, through a plenteous region, passing a succession of dwellings and charming gardens, you reach the city of TANPIJU, a great, rich, and fine city, under Kinsay. The people are subject to the Kaan, and have paper-money, and are Idolaters, and burn their dead in the way described before. They live by trade and manufactures and handicrafts, and have all necessaries in great plenty and cheapness.[NOTE 1]

But there is no more to be said about it, so we proceed, and I will tell you of another city called VUJU at three days' distance from Tanpiju. The people are Idolaters, &c., and the city is under Kinsay. They live by trade and manufactures.

Travelling through a succession of towns and villages that look like one continuous city, two days further on to the south-east, you find the great and fine city of GHIUJU which is under Kinsay. The people are Idolaters, &c. They have plenty of silk, and live by trade and handicrafts, and have all things necessary in abundance. At this city you find the largest and longest canes that are in all Manzi; they are full four palms in girth and 15 paces in length.[NOTE 2]

When you have left Ghiuju you travel four days S.E. through a beautiful country, in which towns and villages are very numerous. There is abundance of game both in beasts and birds; and there are very large and fierce lions. After those four days you come to the great and fine city of CHANSHAN. It is situated upon a hill which divides the River, so that the one portion flows up country and the other down.[1] It is still under the government of Kinsay.

I should tell you that in all the country of Manzi they have no sheep, though they have beeves and kine, goats and kids and swine in abundance. The people are Idolaters here, &c.

When you leave Changshan you travel three days through a very fine country with many towns and villages, traders and craftsmen, and abounding in game of all kinds, and arrive at the city of CUJU. The people are Idolaters, &c., and live by trade and manufactures. It is a fine, noble, and rich city, and is the last of the government of Kinsay in this direction.[NOTE 3] The other kingdom which we now enter, called Fuju, is also one of the nine great divisions of Manzi as Kinsay is.

NOTE 1.—The traveller's route proceeds from Kinsay or Hang-chau southward to the mountains of Fo-kien, ascending the valley of the Ts'ien T'ang, commonly called by Europeans the Green River. The general line, directed as we shall see upon Kien-ning fu in Fo-kien, is clear enough, but some of the details are very obscure, owing partly to vague indications and partly to the excessive uncertainty in the reading of some of the proper names.

No name resembling Tanpiju (G.T., Tanpigui; Pauthier, Tacpiguy, Carpiguy, (...)

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