So, quitting this province and city of Linju, you travel three days more towards the south, constantly finding numbers of rich towns and villages. These still belong to Cathay; and the people are all Idolaters, burning their dead, and using paper-money, that I mean of their Lord the Great Kaan, whose subjects they are. This is the finest country for game, whether in beasts or birds, that is anywhere to be found, and all the necessaries of life are in profusion.
At the end of those three days you find the city of Piju, a great, rich, and noble city, with large trade and manufactures, and a great production of silk. This city stands at the entrance to the great province of Manzi, and there reside at it a great number of merchants who despatch carts from this place loaded with great quantities of goods to the different towns of Manzi. The city brings in a great revenue to the Great Kaan.[{2}]
[Note 1.]—Murray suggests that Lingiu is a place which appears in D’Anville’s Map of Shan-tung as Lintching-y, and in Arrowsmith’s Map of China (also in those of Berghaus and Keith Johnston) as Lingchinghien. The position assigned to it, however, on the west bank of the canal, nearly under the 35th degree of latitude, would agree fairly with Polo’s data. [Lin-ch’ing, Lin-tsing, lat. 37° 03′, Playfair’s Dict. No. 4276; Biot, p. 107.—H. C.]
In any case, I imagine Lingiu (of which, perhaps, Lingin may be the correct reading) to be the Lenzin of Odoric, which he reached in travelling by water from the south, before arriving at Sinjumatu. (Cathay, p. 125.)
[Note 2.]—There can be no doubt that this is Pei-chau on the east bank of the canal. The abundance of game about here is noticed by Nieuhoff (in Astley, III. 417). [See D. Gandar, Canal Impérial, 1894.—H. C.]
CHAPTER LXIV.
Concerning the City of Siju, and the Great River Caramoran.
When you leave Piju you travel towards the south for two days, through beautiful districts abounding in everything, and in which you find quantities of all kinds of game. At the end of those two days you reach the city of Siju, a great, rich, and noble city, flourishing with trade and manufactures. The people are Idolaters, burn their dead, use paper-money, and are subjects of the Great Kaan. They possess extensive and fertile plains producing abundance of wheat and other grain.[{1}] But there is nothing else to mention, so let us proceed and tell you of the countries further on.
On leaving Siju you ride south for three days, constantly falling in with fine towns and villages and hamlets and farms, with their cultivated lands. There is plenty of wheat and other corn, and of game also; and the people are all Idolaters and subjects of the Great Kaan.
At the end of those three days you reach the great river Caramoran, which flows hither from Prester John’s country. It is a great river, and more than a mile in width, and so deep that great ships can navigate it. It abounds in fish, and very big ones too. You must know that in this river there are some 15,000 vessels, all belonging to the Great Kaan, and kept to transport his troops to the Indian Isles whenever there may be occasion; for the sea is only one day distant from the place we are speaking of. And each of these vessels, taking one with another, will require 20 mariners, and will carry 15 horses with the men belonging to them, and their provisions, arms, and equipments.[{2}]