Chapter XLII

CONCERNING THE PROVINCE OF CUNCUN, WHICH IS RIGHT WEARISOME TO
TRAVEL THROUGH.

On leaving the Palace of Mangalai, you travel westward for three days, finding a succession of cities and boroughs and beautiful plains, inhabited by people who live by trade and industry, and have great plenty of silk. At the end of those three days, you reach the great mountains and valleys which belong to the province of CUNCUN.{1} There are towns and villages in the land, and the people live by tilling the earth, and by hunting in the great woods; for the region abounds in forests, wherein are many wild beasts, such as lions, bears, lynxes, bucks and roes, and sundry other kinds, so that many are taken by the people of the country, who make a great profit thereof. So this way we travel over mountains and valleys, finding a succession of towns and villages, and many great hostelries for the entertainment of travellers, interspersed among extensive forests.

NOTE 1.—The region intended must necessarily be some part of the
southern district of the province of Shen-si, called HAN-CHUNG,
the axis of which is the River Han, closed in by exceedingly
mountainous and woody country to north and south, dividing it on
the former quarter from the rest of Shen-si, and on the latter from
Sze-ch’wan. Polo’s _C_ frequently expresses an _H_, especially the
Guttural _H_ of Chinese names, yet _Cuncun_ is not satisfactory as
the expression of _Hanchung_.

The country was so ragged that in ancient times travellers from
Si-ngan fu had to make a long circuit eastward by the frontier of
Ho-nan to reach Han-chung; but, at an early date, a road was made
across the mountains for military purposes; so long ago indeed that
various eras and constructors are assigned to it. Padre Martini’s
authorities ascribed it to a general in the service of Liu Pang,
the founder of the first Han Dynasty (B.C. 202), and this date
is current in Shan-si, as Baron v. Richthofen tells me. But in
Sze-ch’wan the work is asserted to have been executed during the
3rd century, when China was divided into several states, by Liu
Pei, of the Han family, who, about A.D. 226, established himself
as Emperor [Minor Han] of Western China at Ch’êng-tu fu.[1] This
work, with its difficulties and boldness, extending often for
great distances on timber corbels inserted in the rock, is vividly
described by Martini. Villages and rest-houses were established
at convenient distances. It received from the Chinese the name of
_Chien-tao_, or the “Pillar Road.” It commenced on the west bank
of the Wei, opposite Pao-ki h’ien, 100 miles west of Si-ngan fu,
and ended near the town of Paoching-h’ien, some 15 or 20 miles
north-west from Han-chung.

We are told that Tului, the son of Chinghiz, when directing his
march against Ho-nan in 1231 by this very line from Paoki, had
to _make_ a road with great difficulty; but, as we shall see
presently, this can only mean that the ancient road had fallen
into decay, and had to be repaired. The same route was followed
by Okkodai’s son Kutan, in marching to attack the Sung Empire in
1235, and again by Mangku Kaan on his last campaign in 1258. These
circumstances show that the road from Paoki was in that age the
usual route into Han-chung and Sze-ch’wan; indeed there is no other
road in that direction that is more than a mere jungle-track, and
we may be certain that this was Polo’s route.

This remarkable road was traversed by Baron v. Richthofen in
1872. To my questions, he replies: “The entire route is a work
of tremendous engineering, and all of this was done by Liu Pei,
who first ordered the construction. The hardest work consisted in
cutting out long portions of the road from solid rock, chiefly
where ledges project on the verge of a river, as is frequently the
case on the He-lung Kiang.... It had been done so thoroughly from
the first, that scarcely any additions had to be made in after
days. Another kind of work which generally strikes tourists like
Father Martini, or Chinese travellers, is the poling up of the road
on the sides of steep cliffs[2].... Extensive cliffs are frequently
rounded in this way, and imagination is much struck with the
perils of walking on the side of a precipice, with the foaming
river below. When the timbers rot, such passages of course become
obstructed, and thus the road is said to have been periodically
in complete disuse. The repairs, which were chiefly made in the
time of the Ming, concerned especially passages of this sort.”
Richthofen also notices the abundance of game; but inhabited places
appear to be rarer than in Polo’s time. (See _Martini_ in _Blaeu_;
_Chine Ancienne_, p. 234; _Ritter_, IV. 520; _D’Ohsson_, II. 22,
80, 328; _Lecomte_, II. 95; _Chin. Rep._ XIX. 225; _Richthofen_,
_Letter_ VII. p. 42, and MS. Notes).

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[1] The last is also stated by Klaproth. Ritter has overlooked the
discrepancy of the dates (B.C. and A.D.) and has supposed Liu Pei
and Liu Pang to be the same. The resemblance of the names, and the
fact that both princes were founders of Han Dynasties, give ample
room for confusion.

[2] See cut from Mr. Cooper’s book at p. 51 below. This so exactly
illustrates Baron R.’s description that I may omit the latter.