RME, É2H+A ARE E
See also Journal of the China Branch of the R. A. S. for 1886. p. 42. so) ME PL fée M APE DE A JU AE IR VE BE NÉ s0 A A AA
44) Yules Marco Polo, Vol. 2, page 220 seq. (2nd edition).
THE IDENTITY OF MARCO POLO’S ZAITUN WITH CHANGCHAU. 231
I am not acquainted with Persian, but it seems pretty certain that froun the Persian pronunciation or corruption of the sound of these characters we shall have to look for Zait-hun.
Ignorance of Persian compels me to leave it to others to follow up this derivation of the name.
The other readings of Zaitun as set forth in Yule’s Cathay, Vol. 2, appendix p. XXIV, can be more easily traced to their Chinese originals. For example we are therein informed that in the copy of Odoric of Pordenone’s travels in the Latin MS. formerly in the Farsetti collection, Zaitun is called Caicham, and in the Latin manuseript in the Arundel collection in the British Museum of the same travels Zaitun is called Kaycon. These readings of Zaitun most undoubtedly point to the port of Gay-cong, which is the local pronunciation of Yueh-kiang, the port of Changchau. Such being the case, we have every reason to believe that Odoric’s Port Kaycon and Caicham are one and the same as the Chinese mediæval port Gaycong, and as there is undoubted evidence that Odoric’s Kaycon was also called Zaitun, we cannot be wrong in coneluding that Ramusio’s port of Zaitun on the sea-board was identical with Gaycong or Yueh-kiang, the great mediæval port of Changchau.
The Arabs, according to d’'Herbelot, called the place Shangiou and Scheïikhoun. The former appears to point to Changchau, and Scheïkhoun I think is Yueh-kiang or Gaycong in another corrupted form. Abulfeda calls the place Shenju, and Dr. Douglas gives the following valuable note, in the Journal of the Royal Geographical Society for 1874, p. 116, concerning it «The Arabian expression of the Chinese name of Zayton, namely: Shanju, Shangiou, Shengiu, is à very strong argument for Changchau. For, both in mandarin and in the local vernacular, the name of Ts‘wan-chau begins with Ts; the spelling with Ch is an English blunder; the sound of Ts is
unmistakable, and that is a sound quite familiar to Arabs, and
easily expressed by their alphabet. On the other hand, the Ch of Changchau (exactly the same as the English c.) would perplex them, and be naturally expressed by SA.
We have, therefore, the distinct contemporaneous statement that Zagton is Changchau».
It is somewhat eurious that in the various readings of the name Zaitun, the final syllable Kong is always present in some form or the other such as chan, con, am, an, on and hun.
To those unacquainted with Chinese, the various readings would be liable to be put down as clerical errors. [ do not think they are so, for the people met with at Zaitun would give it many names, according to the dialect spoken at the place they came from. Take Amoy for example, which is an English corruption of Emoui, called Emung by the natives, Emuy by the Changchau people, Hsiamun and Heamun by the Mandarins, in fact a host of other names according to the patois of the speaker. A friend of mine once declared, that the people he met with at Amoy did not speak the same language on both sides of the street, which, although an exaggeration, was not, however, far from the truth; of course the written characters representing Amoy are the same, and this unity of the written character throughout China appears not to have escaped Marco Polo's attention, for he mentions in Ramusio’s edition: «You must know throughout all Manzi they employ one speech and one kind of writing only, but yet there are local differences of dialect as you might say of Genoese, Milanese, Florentines, and Neapolitans, who though they speak different dialects can understand one another» #).
These views of mine regarding what I have now said about
Zaitun are by no means new, but I have not hitherto brought
45) Yule’s Marco Polo, p. 218, Vol, 2. Marsden’s Marco Polo, p. 560
st ie till
THE IDENTITY OF MARCO POLO’S ZAITUN WITH CHANGCHAU. 2833
all of them forward, as 1 knew it would be useless to do s0, until I was able to bring historical evidence to show that Changchau had been one of the capitals of Fuhkien in Mongol times, for Colonel Yule had always urged the identity of Zaitun with Chinchew on the ground that Rashid-uddin, in enumerating the sings, or great provincial governments of the Empire, has the following: «<Fuchû — This is a city of Manzi. The Sing was formerly located at Zaitun, but afterwards established here, where it still remains. Zaitun is a great shipping-port, and the commandant there 1s Bohauddin Kandari». Colonel Yule proceeds to say that <Pauthier's Chinese extracts show us that the seat of the Sing was in 1281 at Ts‘wanchau, but was then transferred to Fuchau. In 1282 it was removed back to Ts‘wanchau, and in 1283 recalled to Fuchau. That is to say, what the Persian writer tells us of Fuju and Zayton, the chinese annalists tells us of Fuchau and Ts‘wanchau. Therefore Fuju and Zayton were respectively Fuchau and Ts‘wanchau». (Yule’s Marco Polo, Vol. 2, p. 221.)
This statement of Rashid had puzzied me for many years, for I was sure, with the very many strong and weighty arguments that Dr. Douglas and I had brought forward in favor of Changchau being Zaitun, that it admitted of rational explanation.
It was not, however, till Ï unearthed in a second-hand chinese bookshop in this city (Fuchau), a copy of the History of Fuhkien, published in 1492, that I arrived at anything like a solution of the problem, and which would seem to upset the statement made in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, that Changchau had never been the capital of Fuhkien. This History of Fuhkien contains a quotation from The Supplementary Record of the Three Hills #), a book
46) — [1] 5 KR. The city of the 3 Hills is Foochow, which has 3 Hills
enclosed within the walls.
234 j GEO. PHILLIPS.
revised in 1328, and considered by the Author of the History of Fuhkien as a trustworthy authority, on account of its having been compiled while the Mongol dynasty was still in existence. The quotation alluded to reads as follows: «It will be seen in the annals of the Yuan dynasty, that in the fifteenth year of Chih-Yuan, there was added to the Sing, at Kauchow, the post of criminal judge, and that in the seventeenth year of Chih-Yuan, the seat of the Sing was removed to Chinchew, and in the twentieth year of Chih-Yuan, the post of eriminal judge was altered to that of Taotai Superinteudent of the Fuhkien sea-board, which, with the seat of the provincial capital, then at Chinchew, was removed to Fuchau. The post of Commissioner of Public Order of Fuhkien was abolished, and the seat of the provincial capital was again established at Changchau #)». Not content to rely solely on this book, I searched through an abridgement of the Mongol Dynasty, published in 1693, and came across the same fact in the following words:
«In the twentieth year, third month, twenty-sixth day of Chih- Yuan, the post of Commissioner of Public Order in Fuhkien was
abolished, and the seat of the provincial government was again
ut in |
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THE IDENTITY OF MARCO POLO’'S ZAITUN WITH CHANGCHAU. 235
established at Changchau, or in other words, Changchau for the second time became the official capital of Fuhkien #). None of the histories that I had by me, gave me any clue as to the time when Changchau had first been the capital, but bn the Fuhkien Gazetteer I found that it had been so far a short time in the seventeenth year of Chih-Yuan, and was so in the eighth month of that year, when it was besiesed and taken by the Chinese patriot Chen-Tiaoyen who had succeeded in raising the standard of rebellion in that province. It remained in his possession till the eleventh month of the same year, when it was retaken hy the Mongol General Ta-li-chih»> “#).
With the extracts I have now given, [I think I have (historically) shewn that the claim of Changchau to be the mediæval Zaitun, is at least as strong historically as the proof brought forward by Colonel Yule in favor of Chinchew, for both our arguments are founded on the same theory, that the cities we each believe to be Zaitun did alternate with Fuchau as the capital city of the province.
Independent of this historical evidence, Î consider that there are other claims, equally strong, to be brought forward in favor of
Changchau being Zaitun, which no one as yet has been able to
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adduce in favor of Chinchew. I will refer only to two, viz: The finding of various christian remains, such as crosses and images of the Virgin at Changchau, in the early part of the seventeenth century, indicating that city as the probable site of the Franciscan establishment; and the manufacture of damasks of velvet, as well as those of satin, (kimkha and atlas), mentioned by Ibn Batuta, which are called from the name of the city <Zaitunia», and were considered to be superior to the stuffs of Khansà and Khanbalik.
With regard to the first of these facts, we learn from the history of the Franciscan missions that two churches were built in Zaitun, one in the city and the other in a forest not far from the town. Martini makes mention of relics being found in the city of Changchau, and also of a missal which he tried in vain to purchase from its owner, who gave as a reason for not parting with it, that it had been in his family for several generations. According to the history of the Spanish Dominicans in China, ruins of churches were used in rebuilding the city walls, many of the stones having crosses cut on them.
Another singular discovery relating to these missions, is one mentioned by Father Vittorio Ricci, which would seem to point distinctly to the remains of the Franciscan church built by André de Perouse outside the city of Zaitun:
«The heathen of Changchau», says Ricci, «found buried im a neighbouring hill called Sayson °’) another cross of a most beautiful form eut out of a single block of stone, which I had the pleasure of placing in my church in that city. The heathen were alike ignorant of the time when it was made and how it came to be buried there».
Let us now turn our attention to the second statement viz. that
50) Probably Sai-Soa (14 ar ) West hill.
THE IDENTITY OF MARCO POLO’S ZAITUN WITH CHANGCHAU. Dar
of the manufacture of Kimkha and Atlas in the city of Zaitun. Changchau in the middle ages was the seat of à great silk manufacture, aud the productions of its looms, such stuffs as gauzes, satins and velvets, were said to exceed in beauty those of Soochow and Hangchow. According to the Fuhkien Gazetteer, silk goods under the name of Æinki°'), and porcelain were, at the end of the Sung-dynasty, ordered to be taken abroad to be bartered for foreign wares (treasure having been prohibited to leave the country). In this Xinki I think we may recognize the Æimkha of Ibn Batuta of which silken stuff he tells us the King of China sent five-hundred pieces to the Sultan of which 100 pieces were made in the city of Zaitun.
This Kinki is called ÆXhimkhi and Khimkhia im the Amoy and Changchau dialects. It is called Xhim khi in old Chinese.
This article is now only produced by one firm in Changchau, but formerly many firms made it. It is also made in Japan in the city of Kioto, and is called in Japanese Ni-shi-ki. The Japanese Consul here showed me a small piece, which he said he believed to be 500 years old. It was a beautiful flowered damasked texture. The manufacture of silken goods at Changchau in olden times connects it strongly with Zaïtun, which, as [ have stated, was formerly the seat of an extensive silk manufacture. In conclusion, I trust Ï have been sufficiently explicit in showing that Ramusio’s text is quite reliable as far as Fuhkien is concerned, and fully capable of lucid explanation, while Yule and Pauthier’s text, by reading Fuju in the place of Kangiu, make it impossible to give a commentary consistent with the facts contained in the texts.
With regard to the name Cangiu or Kangiu, as Marsden truly
says, <it could not have been introduced into Ramusio’s version
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