Tch’eng Tu was the capital of the Kingdom of Shu. The first Shu Dynasty was the Minor Han Dynasty which lasted from A.D. 221 to A.D. 263; this Shu Dynasty was one of the Three Kingdoms (San Kwo chi); the two others being Wei (A.D. 220–264) reigning at Lo Yang, and Wu (A.D. 222–277) reigning at Kien Kang (Nan King). The second was the Ts’ien Shu Dynasty, founded in 907 by Wang Kien, governor of Sze Chw’an since 891; it lasted till 925, when it submitted to the Hau T’ang; in 933 the Hau T’ang were compelled to grant the title of King of Shu (Hau Shu) to Mong Chi-siang, governor of Sze Chw’an, who was succeeded by Mong Ch’ang, dethroned in 965; the capital was also Ch’eng Tu under these two dynasties.
TIBET.
XLV., [p. 44.] No man of that country would on any consideration take to wife a girl who was a maid; for they say a wife is nothing worth unless she has been used to consort with men. And their custom is this, that when travellers come that way, the old women of the place get ready, and take their unmarried daughters or other girls related to them, and go to the strangers who are passing, and make over the young women to whomsoever will accept them; and the travellers take them accordingly and do their pleasure; after which the girls are restored to the old women who brought them....
Speaking of the Sifan village of Po Lo and the account given by Marco Polo of the customs of these people, M. R. Logan Jack (Back Blocks, 1904, pp. 145–6) writes: “I freely admit that the good looks and modest bearing of the girls were the chief merits of the performance in my eyes. Had the danseuses been scrubbed and well dressed, they would have been a presentable body of débutantes in any European ballroom. One of our party, frivolously disposed, asked a girl (through an interpreter) if she would marry him and go to his country. The reply, ‘I do not know you, sir,’ was all that propriety could have demanded in the best society, and worthy of a pupil ‘finished’ at Miss Pinkerton’s celebrated establishment.... Judging from our experience, no idea of hospitalities of the kind [Marco’s experience] was in the people’s minds.”
XLV., [p. 45.] Speaking of the people of Tibet, Polo says: “They are very poorly clad, for their clothes are only of the skins of beasts, and of canvas, and of buckram.”
Add to the note, I., p. 48, n. 5:—
“Au XIVe siècle, le bougran [buckram] était une espèce de tissu de lin: le meilleur se fabriquait en Arménie et dans le royaume de Mélibar, s’il faut s’en rapporter à Marco Polo, qui nous apprend que les habitants du Thibet, qu’il signale comme pauvrement vêtus, l’étaient de canevas et de bougran, et que cette dernière étoffe se fabriquait aussi dans la province d’Abasce. Il en venait également de l’île de Chypre. Sorti des manufactures d’Espagne ou importé dans le royaume, à partir de 1442, date d’une ordonnance royale publiée par le P. Saez, le bougran le plus fin payait soixante-dix maravédis de droits, sans distinction de couleur” (Francisque-Michel, Recherches sur le commerce, la fabrication et l’usage des étoffes de soie, d’or et d’argent.... II., 1854, pp. 33–4). Passage mentioned by Dr. Laufer.
Referring to Dr. E. Bretschneider, Prof. E. H. Parker gives the following notes in the Asiatic Quart. Review, Jan., 1904, p. 131: “In 1251 Ho-êrh-t’ai was appointed to the command of the Mongol and Chinese forces advancing on Tibet (T’u-fan). [In my copy of the Yüan Shï there is no entry under the year 1254 such as that mentioned by Bretschneider; it may, however, have been taken by Palladius from some other chapter.] In 1268 Mang-ku-tai was ordered to invade the Si-fan (outer Tibet) and Kien-tu [Marco’s Caindu] with 6000 men. Bretschneider, however, omits Kien-tu, and also omits to state that in 1264 eighteen Si-fan clans were placed under the superintendence of the an-fu-sz (governor) of An-si Chou, and that in 1265 a reward was given to the troops of the decachiliarch Hwang-li-t’a-rh for their services against the T’u-fan, with another reward to the troops under Prince Ye-suh-pu-hwa for their successes against the Si-fan. Also that in 1267 the Si-fan chieftains were encouraged to submit to Mongol power, in consequence of which A-nu-pan-ti-ko was made Governor-General of Ho-wu and other regions near it. Bretschneider’s next item after the doubtful one of 1274 is in 1275, as given by Cordier, but he omits to state that in 1272 Mang-ku-tai’s eighteen clans and other T’u-fan troops were ordered in hot haste to attack Sin-an Chou, belonging to the Kien-tu prefecture; and that a post-station called Ning-ho Yih was established on the T’u-fan and Si-Ch’wan [= Sz Ch’wan] frontier. In 1275 a number of Princes, including Chi-pi T’ie-mu-r, and Mang-u-la, Prince of An-si, were sent to join the Prince of Si-p’ing [Kúblái’s son] Ao-lu-ch’ih in his expedition against the Tu-fan. In 1276 all Si-fan bonzes (lamas) were forbidden to carry arms, and the Tu-fan city of Hata was turned into Ning-yüan Fu [as it now exists]; garrisons and civil authorities were placed in Kien-tu and Lo-lo-sz [the Lolo country]. In 1277 a Customs station was established at Tiao-mên and Li-Chou [Ts’ing-k’i Hien in Ya-chou Fu] for the purposes of Tu-fan trade. In 1280 more Mongol troops were sent to the Li Chou region, and a special officer was appointed for T’u-fan [Tibetan] affairs at the capital. In 1283 a high official was ordered to print the official documents connected with the süan-wei-sz [governorship] of T’u-fan. In 1288 six provinces, including those of Sz Chw’an and An-si, were ordered to contribute financial assistance to the süan-wei-shï [governor] of U-sz-tsang [the indigenous name of Tibet proper]. Every year or two after this, right up to 1352, there are entries in the Mongol Annals amply proving that the conquest of Tibet under the Mongols was not only complete, but fully narrated; however, there is no particular object in carrying the subject here beyond the date of Marco’s departure from China. There are many mentions of Kien-tu (which name dates from the Sung Dynasty) in the Yüan-shï; it is the Kien-ch’ang Valley of to-day, with capital at Ning-yüan, as clearly marked on Bretschneider’s Map. Baber’s suggestion of the Chan-tui tribe of Tibetans is quite obsolete, although Baber was one of the first to explore the region in person. A petty tribe like the Chan-tui could never have given name to Caindu; besides, both initials and finals are impossible, and the Chan-tui have never lived there. I have myself met Si-fan chiefs at Peking; they may be described roughly as Tibetans not under the Tibetan Government. The T’u-fan, T’u-po, or Tubot, were the Tibetans under Tibetan rule, and they are now usually styled ‘Si-tsang’ by the Chinese. Yaci [Ya-ch’ih, Ya-ch’ï] is frequently mentioned in the Yüan-shï, and the whole of Devéria’s quotation given by Cordier on p. 72 appears there [chap. 121, p. 5], besides a great deal more to the point, without any necessity for consulting the Lei pien. Cowries, under the name of pa-tsz, are mentioned in both Mongol and Ming history as being in use for money in Siam and Yung-ch’ang [Vociam]. The porcelain coins which, as M. Cordier quotes from me on p. 74, I myself saw current in the Shan States or Siam about ten years ago, were of white China, with a blue figure, and about the size of a Keating’s cough lozenge, but thicker. As neither form of the character pa appears in any dictionary, it is probably a foreign word only locally understood. Regarding the origin of the name Yung-ch’ang, the discussions upon p. 105 are no longer necessary; in the eleventh moon of 1272 [say about January 1, 1273] Kúblái ‘presented the name Yung-ch’ang to the new city built by Prince Chi-pi T’ie-mu-r.’”
XLVI., [p. 49.] They have also in this country [Tibet] plenty of fine woollens and other stuffs, and many kinds of spices are produced there which are never seen in our country.