Plan of the City of Si-ngan-fu
Reduced from one published under the Mongol Dynasty
(See Book II. [Chap. XLI.])

“la très nobilissime cité de Quinsay

sans faille la plus noble cité et la

meillor qe soit au monde.”

And I must tell you that every hosteler who keeps an hostel for travellers is bound to register their names and surnames, as well as the day and month of their arrival and departure. And thus the sovereign hath the means of knowing, whenever it pleases him, who come and go throughout his dominions. And certes this is a wise order and a provident.

[Note 1.]—Kinsay represents closely enough the Chinese term King-sze, “capital,” which was then applied to the great city, the proper name of which was at that time Lin-ngan and is now Hang-chau, as being since 1127 the capital of the Sung Dynasty. The same term King-sze is now on Chinese maps generally used to designate Peking. It would seem, however, that the term adhered long as a quasi-proper name to Hang-chau; for in the Chinese Atlas, dating from 1595, which the traveller Carletti presented to the Magliabecchian Library, that city appears to be still marked with this name, transcribed by Carletti as Camse; very near the form Campsay used by Marignolli in the 14th century.

The ancient Lun-ho-ta Pagoda at Hang-chau.

[Note 2.]—✛The Ramusian version says: “Messer Marco Polo was frequently at this city, and took great pains to learn everything about it, writing down the whole in his notes.” The information being originally derived from a Chinese document, there might be some ground for supposing that 100 miles of circuit stood for 100 li. Yet the circuit of the modern city is stated in the official book called Hang-chau Fu-Chi, or topographical history of Hang-chau, at only 35 li. And the earliest record of the wall, as built under the Sui by Yang-su (before A.D. 606), makes its extent little more (36 li and 90 paces.)[1] But the wall was reconstructed by Ts’ien Kiao, feudal prince of the region, during the reign of Chao Tsung, one of the last emperors of the T’ang Dynasty (892), so as to embrace the Luh-ho-ta Pagoda, on a high bluff over the Tsien-tang River,[2] 15 li distant from the present south gate, and had then a circuit of 70 li. Moreover, in 1159, after the city became the capital of the Sung emperors, some further extension was given to it, so that, even exclusive of the suburbs, the circuit of the city may have been not far short of 100 li. When the city was in its glory under the Sung, the Luh-ho-ta Pagoda may be taken as marking the extreme S.W. Another known point marks approximately the chief north gate of that period, at a mile and a half or two miles beyond the present north wall. The S.E. angle was apparently near the river bank. But, on the other hand, the waist of the city seems to have been a good deal narrower than it now is. Old descriptions compare its form to that of a slender-waisted drum (dice-box or hour-glass shape).

Under the Mongols the walls were allowed to decay; and in the disturbed years that closed that dynasty (1341–1368) they were rebuilt by an insurgent chief on a greatly reduced compass, probably that which they still retain. Whatever may have been the facts, and whatever the origin of the estimate, I imagine that the ascription of 100 miles of circuit to Kinsay had become popular among Westerns. Odoric makes the same statement. Wassáf calls it 24 parasangs, which will not be far short of the same amount. Ibn Batuta calls the length of the city three days’ journey. Rashiduddin says the enceinte had a diameter of 11 parasangs, and that there were three post stages between the two extremities of the city, which is probably what Ibn Batuta had heard. The Masálak-al-Absár calls it one day’s journey in length, and half a day’s journey in breadth. The enthusiastic Jesuit Martini tries hard to justify Polo in this as in other points of his description. We shall quote the whole of his remarks at the end of the chapters on Kinsay.

[Dr. F. Hirth, in a paper published in the T’oung Pao, V. pp. 386–390 (Ueber den Schiffsverkehr von Kinsay zu Marco Polo’s Zeit), has some interesting notes on the maritime trade of Hang-chau, collected from a work in twenty books, kept at the Berlin Royal Library, in which is to be found a description of Hang-chau under the title of Mêng-liang-lu, published in 1274 by Wu Tzu-mu, himself a native of this city: there are various classes of sea-going vessels; large boats measuring 5000 liao and carrying from five to six hundred passengers; smaller boats measuring from 2 to 1000 liao and carrying from two to three hundred passengers; there are small fast boats called tsuan-fêng, “wind breaker,” with six or eight oarsmen, which can carry easily 100 passengers, and are generally used for fishing; sampans are not taken into account. To start for foreign countries one must embark at Ts’wan-chau, and then go to the sea of Ts’i-chau (Paracels), through the Tai-hsü pass; coming back he must look to Kwen-lun (Pulo Condor).—H. C.]

The 12,000 bridges have been much carped at, and modern accounts of Hang-chau (desperately meagre as they are) do not speak of its bridges as notable. “There is, indeed,” says Mr. Kingsmill, speaking of changes in the hydrography about Hang-chau, “no trace in the city of the magnificent canals and bridges described by Marco Polo.” The number was no doubt in this case also a mere popular saw, and Friar Odoric repeats it. The sober and veracious John Marignolli, alluding apparently to their statements, and perhaps to others which have not reached us, says: “When authors tell of its ten thousand noble bridges of stone, adorned with sculptures and statues of armed princes, it passes the belief of one who has not been there, and yet peradventure these authors tell us no lie.” Wassáf speaks of 360 bridges only, but they make up in size what they lack in number, for they cross canals as big as the Tigris! Marsden aptly quotes in reference to this point excessively loose and discrepant statements from modern authors as to the number of bridges in Venice. The great height of the arches of the canal bridges in this part of China is especially noticed by travellers. Barrow, quoted by Marsden, says: “Some have the piers of such an extraordinary height that the largest vessels of 200 tons sail under them without striking their masts.”

Plan of the Imperial City of Hangchow in the 13th Century. (From the Notes of the Right Rev. G. E. Moule.)
1–17, Gates; 18, Ta-nuy; 19, Woo-Foo; 20, T’aï Miao; 21, Fung-hwang shan; 22, Shĭh fŭh she; 23, Fan t’ien she; 24, Koo-shing Kwo she.

Mr. Moule has added up the lists of bridges in the whole department (or Fu) and found them to amount to 848, and many of these even are now unknown, their approximate sites being given from ancient topographies. The number represented in a large modern map of the city, which I owe to Mr. Moule’s kindness, is 111.

[Note 3.]—Though Rubruquis (p. 292) says much the same thing, there is little trace of such an ordinance in modern China. Père Parrenin observes: “As to the hereditary perpetuation of trades, it has never existed in China. On the contrary, very few Chinese will learn the trade of their fathers; and it is only necessity that ever constrains them to do so.” (Lett. Edif. XXIV. 40.) Mr. Moule remarks, however, that P. Parrenin is a little too absolute. Certain trades do run in families, even of the free classes of Chinese, not to mention the disfranchised boatmen, barbers, chair-coolies, etc. But, except in the latter cases, there is no compulsion, though the Sacred Edict goes to encourage the perpetuation of the family calling.

[Note 4.]—This sheet of water is the celebrated Si-hu, or “Western Lake,” the fame of which had reached Abulfeda, and which has raised the enthusiasm even of modern travellers, such as Barrow and Van Braam. The latter speaks of three islands (and this the Chinese maps confirm), on each of which were several villas, and of causeways across the lake, paved and bordered with trees, and provided with numerous bridges for the passage of boats. Barrow gives a bright description of the lake, with its thousands of gay, gilt, and painted pleasure boats, its margins studded with light and fanciful buildings, its gardens of choice flowering shrubs, its monuments, and beautiful variety of scenery. None surpasses that of Martini, whom it is always pleasant to quote, but here he is too lengthy. The most recent description that I have met with is that of Mr. C. Gardner, and it is as enthusiastic as any. It concludes: “Even to us foreigners ... the spot is one of peculiar attraction, but to the Chinese it is as a paradise.” The Emperor K’ien Lung had erected a palace on one of the islands in the lake; it was ruined by the T’ai-P’ings. Many of the constructions about the lake date from the flourishing days of the T’ang Dynasty, the 7th and 8th centuries.

Polo’s ascription of a circumference of 30 miles to the lake, corroborates the supposition that in the compass of the city a confusion had been made between miles and li, for Semedo gives the circuit of the lake really as 30 li. Probably the document to which Marco refers at the beginning of the chapter was seen by him in a Persian translation, in which li had been rendered by míl. A Persian work of the same age, quoted by Quatremère (the Nuzhát al-Ḳulúb), gives the circuit of the lake as six parasangs, or some 24 miles, a statement which probably had a like origin.

Polo says the lake was within the city. This might be merely a loose way of speaking, but it may on the other hand be a further indication of the former existence of an extensive outer wall. The Persian author just quoted also speaks of the lake as within the city. (Barrow’s Autobiog., p. 104; V. Braam, II. 154; Gardner in Proc. of the R. Geog. Soc., vol. xiii. p. 178; Q. Rashid, p. lxxxviii.) Mr. Moule states that popular oral tradition does enclose the lake within the walls, but he can find no trace of this in the Topographies.

Elsewhere Mr. Moule says: “Of the luxury of the (Sung) period, and its devotion to pleasure, evidence occurs everywhere. Hang-chow went at the time by the nickname of the melting-pot for money. The use, at houses of entertainment, of linen and silver plate appears somewhat out of keeping in a Chinese picture. I cannot vouch for the linen, but here is the plate.... ‘The most famous Tea-houses of the day were the Pa-seen (“8 genii”), the “Pure Delight,” the “Pearl,” the “House of the Pwan Family,” and the “Two and Two” and “Three and Three” houses (perhaps rather “Double honours” and “Treble honours”). In these places they always set out bouquets of fresh flowers, according to the season.... At the counter were sold “Precious thunder Tea,” Tea of fritters and onions, or else Pickle broth; and in hot weather wine of snow bubbles and apricot blossom, or other kinds of refrigerating liquor. Saucers, ladles, and bowls were all of pure, silver!’ (Si-Hu-Chi.)”

Plan of the Metropolitan City of Hangchow in the 13th Century. (From the Notes of the Right Rev. G. E. Moule.)
1–17, Gates; 18, Ta-nuy, Central Palace; 19, Woo-Foo, The Five Courts; 20, T’aï Miao, The Imperial Temple; 21, Fung-hwang shan, Phœnix Hill; 22, Shĭh fŭh she, Monastery of the Sacred Fruit; 25–30, Gates; 31, T’ien tsung yen tsang, T’ien tsung Salt Depot; 2, T’ien tsung tsew koo, T’ien tsung Wine Store; 33, Chang she, The Chang Monastery; 34, Foo che, Prefecture; Foo hio, Prefectural Confucian Temple.

[Note 5.]—This is still the case: “The people of Hang-chow dress gaily, and are remarkable among the Chinese for their dandyism. All, except the lowest labourers and coolies, strutted about in dresses composed of silk, satin, and crape.... ‘Indeed’ (said the Chinese servants) ‘one can never tell a rich man in Hang-chow, for it is just possible that all he possesses in the world is on his back.’” (Fortune, II. 20.) “The silk manufactures of Hang-chau are said to give employment to 60,000 persons within the city walls, and Hu-chau, Kia-hing, and the surrounding villages, are reputed to employ 100,000 more.” (Ningpo Trade Report, January 1869, comm. by Mr. N. B. Dennys.) The store-towers, as a precaution in case of fire, are still common both in China and Japan.

[Note 6.]—Mr. Gardner found in this very city, in 1868, a large collection of cottages covering several acres, which were “erected, after the taking of the city from the rebels, by a Chinese charitable society for the refuge of the blind, sick, and infirm.” This asylum sheltered 200 blind men with their families, amounting to 800 souls; basket-making and such work was provided for them; there were also 1200 other inmates, aged and infirm; and doctors were maintained to look after them. “None are allowed to be absolutely idle, but all help towards their own sustenance.” (Proc. R. G. Soc. XIII. 176–177.) Mr. Moule, whilst abating somewhat from the colouring of this description, admits the establishment to be a considerable charitable effort. It existed before the rebellion, as I see in the book of Mr. Milne, who gives interesting details on such Chinese charities. (Life in China, pp. 46 seqq.)

[Note 7.]—The paved roads of Manzi are by no means extinct yet. Thus, Mr. Fortune, starting from Chang-shan (see below, [ch. lxxix.]) in the direction of the Black-Tea mountains, says: “The road on which we were travelling was well paved with granite, about 12 feet in width, and perfectly free from weeds.” (II. 148). Garnier, Sladen, and Richthofen speak of well-paved roads in Yun-Nan and Sze-ch’wan.

The Topography quoted by Mr. Moule says that in the year 1272 the Governor renewed the pavement of the Imperial road (or Main Street), “after which nine cars might move abreast over a way perfectly smooth, and straight as an arrow.” In the Mongol time the people were allowed to encroach on this grand street.

[Note 8.]—There is a curious discrepancy in the account of these baths. Pauthier’s text does not say whether they are hot baths or cold. The latter sentence, beginning, “They are hot baths” (estuves), is from the G. Text. And Ramusio’s account is quite different: “There are numerous baths of cold water, provided with plenty of attendants, male and female, to assist the visitors of the two sexes in the bath. For the people are used from their childhood to bathe in cold water at all seasons, and they reckon it a very wholesome custom. But in the bath-houses they have also certain chambers furnished with hot water, for foreigners who are unaccustomed to cold bathing, and cannot bear it. The people are used to bathe daily, and do not eat without having done so.” This is in contradiction with the notorious Chinese horror of cold water for any purpose.

A note from Mr. C. Gardner says: “There are numerous public baths at Hang-chau, as at every Chinese city I have ever been in. In my experience natives always take hot baths. But only the poorer classes go to the public baths; the tradespeople and middle classes are generally supplied by the bath-houses with hot water at a moderate charge.”

[Note 9.]—The estuary of the Ts’ien T’ang, or river of Hang-chau, has undergone great changes since Polo’s day. The sea now comes up much nearer the city; and the upper part of the Bay of Hang-chau is believed to cover what was once the site of the port and town of Kanp’u, the Ganpu of the text. A modern representative of the name still subsists, a walled town, and one of the depôts for the salt which is so extensively manufactured on this coast; but the present port of Hang-chau, and till recently the sole seat of Chinese trade with Japan, is at Chapu, some 20 miles further seaward.

It is supposed by Klaproth that Kanp’u was the port frequented by the early Arab voyagers, and of which they speak under the name of Khánfú, confounding in their details Hang-chau itself with the port. Neumann dissents from this, maintaining that the Khanfu of the Arabs was certainly Canton. Abulfeda, however, states expressly that Khanfu was known in his day as Khansá (i.e. Kinsay), and he speaks of its lake of fresh water called Sikhu (Si-hu). [Abulfeda has in fact two Khânqû (Khanfû): Khansâ with the lake which is Kinsay, and one Khanfû which is probably Canton. (See Guyard’s transl., II., ii., 122–124.)—H. C.] There seems to be an indication in Chinese records that a southern branch of the Great Kiang once entered the sea at Kanp’u; the closing of it is assigned to the 7th century, or a little later.

[Dr. F. Hirth writes (Jour. Roy. As. Soc., 1896, pp. 68–69): “For centuries Canton must have been the only channel through which foreign trade was permitted; for it is not before the year 999 that we read of the appointment of Inspectors of Trade at Hang-chou and Ming-chou. The latter name is identified with Ning-po.” Dr. Hirth adds in a note: “This is in my opinion the principal reason why the port of Khanfu, mentioned by the earliest Muhammadan travellers, or authors (Soleiman, Abu Zeid, and Maçoudi), cannot be identified with Hang-chou. The report of Soleiman, who first speaks of Khanfu, was written in 851, and in those days Canton was apparently the only port open to foreign trade. Marco Polo’s Ganfu is a different port altogether, viz. Kan-fu, or Kan-pu, near Hang-chou, and should not be confounded with Khanfu.”—H. C.]

The changes of the Great Kiang do not seem to have attracted so much attention among the Chinese as those of the dangerous Hwang-Ho, nor does their history seem to have been so carefully recorded. But a paper of great interest on the subject was published by Mr. Edkins, in the Journal of the North China Branch of the R. A. S. for September 1860 [pp. 77–84], which I know only by an abstract given by the late Comte d’Escayrac de Lauture. From this it would seem that about the time of our era the Yang-tzŭ Kiang had three great mouths. The most southerly of these was the Che-Kiang, which is said to have given its name to the Province still so called, of which Hang-chau is the capital. This branch quitted the present channel at Chi-chau, passed by Ning-Kwé and Kwang-té, communicating with the southern end of a great group of lakes which occupied the position of the T’ai-Hu, and so by Shih-men and T’ang-si into the sea not far from Shao-hing. The second branch quitted the main channel at Wu-hu, passed by I-hing (or I-shin) communicating with the northern end of the T’ai-Hu (passed apparently by Su-chau), and then bifurcated, one arm entering the sea at Wu-sung, and the other at Kanp’u. The third, or northerly branch is that which forms the present channel of the Great Kiang. These branches are represented hypothetically on the [sketch-map] attached to ch. lxiv. supra.

(Kingsmill, u.s. p. 53; Chin. Repos. III. 118; Middle Kingdom, I. 95–106; Bürck. p. 483; Cathay, p. cxciii.; J. N. Ch. Br. R. A. S., December 1865, p. 3 seqq.; Escayrac de Lauture, Mém. sur la Chine, H. du Sol, p. 114.)

[Note 10.]—Pauthier’s text has: “Chascun Roy fait chascun an le compte de son royaume aux comptes du grant siège,” where I suspect the last word is again a mistake for sing or scieng. (See supra, Bk. II. ch. xxv., note 1.) It is interesting to find Polo applying the term king to the viceroys who ruled the great provinces; Ibn Batuta uses a corresponding expression, sultán. It is not easy to make out the nine kingdoms or great provinces into which Polo considered Manzi to be divided. Perhaps his nine is after all merely a traditional number, for the “Nine Provinces” was an ancient synonym for China proper, just as Nau-Khanda, with like meaning, was an ancient name of India. (See Cathay, p. cxxxix. note; and Reinaud, Inde, p. 116.) But I observe that on the portage road between Chang-shan and Yuh-shan (infra, p. 222) there are stone pillars inscribed “Highway (from Che-kiang) to Eight Provinces,” thus indicating Nine. (Milne, p. 319.)

[Note 11.]—We have in Ramusio: “The men levied in the province of Manzi are not placed in garrison in their own cities, but sent to others at least 20 days’ journey from their homes; and there they serve for four or five years, after which they are relieved. This applies both to the Cathayans and to those of Manzi.

“The great bulk of the revenue of the cities, which enters the exchequer of the Great Kaan, is expended in maintaining these garrisons. And if perchance any city rebel (as you often find that under a kind of madness or intoxication they rise and murder their governors), as soon as it is known, the adjoining cities despatch such large forces from their garrisons that the rebellion is entirely crushed. For it would be too long an affair if troops from Cathay had to be waited for, involving perhaps a delay of two months.”

[Note 12.]—“The sons of the dead, wearing hempen clothes as badges of mourning, kneel down,” etc. (Doolittle, p. 138.)

[Note 13.]—These practices have been noticed, supra, Bk. I. ch. xl.

[Note 14.]—This custom has come down to modern times. In Pauthier’s Chine Moderne, we find extracts from the statutes of the reigning dynasty and the comments thereon, of which a passage runs thus: “To determine the exact population of each province the governor and the lieutenant-governor cause certain persons who are nominated as Pao-kia, or Tithing-Men, in all the places under their jurisdiction, to add up the figures inscribed on the wooden tickets attached to the doors of houses, and exhibiting the number of the inmates” (p. 167).

Friar Odoric calls the number of fires 89 tomans; but says 10 or 12 households would unite to have one fire only!

[1] In the first edition, my best authority on this matter was a lecture on the city by the late Rev. D. D. Green, an American Missionary at Ningpo, which is printed in the November and December numbers for 1869 of the (Fuchau) Chinese Recorder and Missionary Journal. In the present (second) edition I have on this, and other points embraced in this and the following chapters, benefited largely by the remarks of the Right Rev. G. E. Moule of the Ch. Mission. Soc., now residing at Hang-chau. These are partly contained in a paper (Notes on Colonel Yule’s Edition of Marco Polo’s ‘Quinsay’) read before the North China Branch of the R. A. Soc. at Shang-hai in December 1873 [published in New Series, No. IX. of the Journal N. C. B. R. A. Soc.], of which a proof has been most kindly sent to me by Mr. Moule, and partly in a special communication, both forwarded through Mr. A. Wylie. [See also Notes on Hangchow Past and Present, a paper read in 1889 by Bishop G. E. Moule at a Meeting of the Hangchau Missionary Association, at whose request it was compiled, and subsequently printed for private circulation.—H. C.]

[2] The building of the present Luh-ho-ta (“Six Harmonies Tower”), after repeated destructions by fire, is recorded on a fine tablet of the Sung period, still standing (Moule).