THE PROVINCE OF CHINGINTALAS.
Prof. E. H. Parker writes in the Journ. of the North China Branch of the Royal As. Soc., XXXVII., 1906, p. 195: “On p. 215 of Yule’s vol. I. some notes of Palladius’ are given touching Chingkintalas, but it is not stated that Palladius supposed the word Ch’ih kin to date after the Mongols, that is, that Palladius felt uncertain about his identification. But Palladius is mistaken in feeling thus uncertain: in 1315 and 1326 the Mongol History twice mentions the garrison starts at Ch’ih kin, and in such a way that the place must be where Marco Polo puts it, i.e. west of Kia-yüh Kwan.”
OF THE PROVINCE OF SUKCHUR.
XLIII., p. 217. “Over all the mountains of this province rhubarb is found in great abundance, and thither merchants come to buy it, and carry it thence all over the world. Travellers, however, dare not visit those mountains with any cattle but those of the country, for a certain plant grows there which is so poisonous that cattle which eat it loose their hoofs. The cattle of the country know it and eschew it.”
During his crossing of the Nan Shan, Sir Aurel Stein had the same experience, five of his ponies being “benumbed and refusing to touch grass or fodder.” The traveller notes that, Ruins of Desert Cathay, II., p. 303: “I at once suspected that they had eaten of the poisonous grass which infests certain parts of the Nan Shan, and about which old Marco has much to tell in his chapter on ‘Sukchur’ or Su-chou. The Venetian’s account had proved quite true; for while my own ponies showed all the effects of this inebriating plant, the local animals had evidently been wary of it. A little bleeding by the nose, to which Tila Bai, with the veterinary skill of an old Ladak ‘Kirakash,’ promptly proceeded, seemed to afford some relief. But it took two or three days before the poor brutes were again in full possession of their senses and appetites.”
“Wild rhubarb, for which the Nan-shan was famous in Marco Polo’s days, spread its huge fleshy leaves everywhere.” (Stein, Ruins of Desert Cathay, II., p. 305.)
XLIII., p. 218.
SUKCHUR.
The first character of Suchau was pronounced Suk at the time of the T’ang; we find a Sughčiu in von Le Coq’s MSS. from Turkestan and Sughču in the runnic text of W. Thomsen; cf. Pelliot, J. As., Mai–Juin, 1912, p. 591; the pronunciation Suk-chau was still used by travellers coming from Central Asia—for instance, by the envoys of Shah Rukh. See Cathay, III., p. 126 n.