Chapter XXXV

HERE BEGINS THE DESCRIPTION OF THE INTERIOR OF CATHAY,
AND FIRST OF THE RIVER PULISANGHIN.

Now you must know that the Emperor sent the aforesaid Messer Marco Polo, who is the author of this whole story, on business of his into the Western Provinces. On that occasion he travelled from Cambaluc a good four months’ journey towards the west.{1} And so now I will tell you all that he saw on his travels as he went and returned.

When you leave the City of Cambaluc and have ridden ten miles, you come to a very large river which is called PULISANGHIN, and flows into the ocean, so that merchants with their merchandise ascend it from the sea. Over this River there is a very fine stone bridge, so fine indeed, that it has very few equals. The fashion of it is this: it is 300 paces in length, and it must have a good eight paces of width, for ten mounted men can ride across it abreast. It has 24 arches and as many water-mills, and ’tis all of very fine marble, well built and firmly founded. Along the top of the bridge there is on either side a parapet of marble slabs and columns, made in this way. At the beginning of the bridge there is a marble column, and under it a marble lion, so that the column stands upon the lion’s loins, whilst on the top of the column there is a second marble lion, both being of great size and beautifully executed sculpture. At the distance of a pace from this column there is another precisely the same, also with its two lions, and the space between them is closed with slabs of grey marble to prevent people from falling over into the water. And thus the columns run from space to space along either side of the bridge, so that altogether it is a beautiful object.{2}

“=—et desus cest flum a un mout biaus pont de pieres: car sachiez qe
pont n’a en tout le monde de si biaus ne son pareil.=”]

NOTE 1.—[When Marco leaves the capital, he takes the main road,
the “Imperial Highway,” from Peking to Si-ngan fu, _viâ_ Pao-ting,
Cheng-ting, Hwai-luh, Taï-yuan, Ping-yang, and T’ung-kwan, on the
Yellow River. Mr. G. F. Eaton, writing from Han-chung (_Jour.
China Br. R. As. Soc._ XXVIII. No. 1) says it is a cart-road,
except for six days between Taï-yuan and Hwai-luh, and that it
takes twenty-nine days to go from Peking to Si-ngan, a figure
which agrees well with Polo’s distances; it is also the time which
Dr. Forke’s journey lasted; he left Peking on the 1st May, 1892,
reached Taï-yuan on the 12th, and arrived at Si-ngan on the 30th
(_Von Peking nach Ch’ang-an_). Mr. Rockhill left Peking on the
17th December, 1888, reached T’aï-yuan on the 26th, crossed the
Yellow River on the 5th January, and arrived at Si-ngan fu on the
8th January, 1889, in twenty-two days, a distance of 916 miles.
(_Land of the Lamas_, pp. 372–374.) M. Grenard left Si-ngan on
the 10th November and reached Peking on the 16th December, 1894 =
thirty-six days; he reckons 1389 kilometres = 863 miles. (See _Rev.
C. Holcombe, Tour through Shan-hsi and Shen-hsi_ in _Jour. North
China Br. R. A. S._ N. S. X. pp. 54–70.)—H. C.]

NOTE 2.—_Pul-i-Sangín_, the name which Marco gives the _River_,
means in Persian simply (as Marsden noticed) “The Stone Bridge.” In
a very different region the same name often occurs in the history
of Timur applied to a certain bridge, in the country north of
Badakhshan, over the Wakhsh branch of the Oxus. And the Turkish
admiral Sidi ’Ali, travelling that way from India in the 16th
century, applies the name, as it is applied here, to the river;
for his journal tells us that beyond Kuláb he crossed “the _River
Pulisangin_.”

The Bridge of Pulisanghin. (From the _Livre des Merveilles_.)]

We may easily suppose, therefore, that near Cambaluc also,
the Bridge, first, and then the River, came to be known to
the Persian-speaking foreigners of the court and city by this
name. This supposition is however a little perplexed by the
circumstance that Rashiduddin calls the _River_ the _Sangín_, and
that _Sangkan_-Ho appears from the maps or citations of Martini,
Klaproth, Neumann, and Pauthier to have been one of the _Chinese_
names of the river, and indeed, Sankang is still the name of one of
the confluents forming the Hwan Ho.

[“By _Sanghin_, Polo renders the Chinese _Sang-kan_, by which name
the River Hun-ho is already mentioned, in the 6th century of our
era. _Hun-ho_ is also an ancient name; and the same river in
ancient books is often called _Lu-Kou_ River also. All these names
are in use up to the present time; but on modern Chinese maps, only
the upper part of the river is termed _Sang-Kan ho_, whilst south
of the inner Great Wall, and in the plain, the name of _Hun-ho_ is
applied to it. _Hun ho_ means “Muddy River,” and the term is quite
suitable. In the last century, the Emperor K’ien-lung ordered the
Hun-ho to be named _Yung-ting ho_, a name found on modern maps, but
the people always call it _Hun ho_.” (_Bretschneider, Peking_, p.
54.)—H. C.]

The River is that which appears in the maps as the Hwan Ho,
Hun-ho, or Yongting Ho, flowing about 7 miles west of Peking
towards the south-east and joining the Pe-Ho at Tientsin; and the
Bridge is that which has been known for ages as the _Lu-kou-K’iao_
or Bridge of Lukou, adjoining the town which is called in the
Russian map of Peking _Feuchen_, but in the official Chinese Atlas
_Kung-Keih-cheng_. (See Map at ch. xi. of Bk. II. in the first
Volume.) [“Before arriving at the bridge the small walled city
of _Kung-ki cheng_ is passed. This was founded in the first half
of the 17th century. The people generally call it _Fei-ch’eng_.”
(_Bretschneider, Peking_, p. 50.)—H. C.] It is described both by
Magaillans and Lecomte, with some curious discrepancies, whilst
each affords particulars corroborative of Polo’s account of the
character of the bridge. The former calls it the finest bridge in
China. Lecomte’s account says the bridge was the finest he had yet
seen. “It is above 170 geometrical paces (850 feet) in length.
The arches are small, but the rails or side-walls are made of a
hard whitish stone resembling marble. These stones are more than 5
feet long, 3 feet high, and 7 or 8 inches thick; supported at each
end by pilasters adorned with mouldings and bearing the figures
of lions.... The bridge is paved with great flat stones, so well
joined that it is even as a floor.”

Magaillans thinks Polo’s memory partially misled him, and that
his description applies more correctly to another bridge on the
same road, but some distance further west, over the Lieu-li Ho.
For the bridge over the Hwan Ho had really but _thirteen_ arches,
whereas that on the Lieu-li had, as Polo specifies, twenty-four.
The engraving which we give of the Lu-kou K’iao from a Chinese work
confirms this statement, for it shows but thirteen arches. And
what Polo says of the navigation of the river is almost conclusive
proof that Magaillans is right, and that our traveller’s memory
confounded the two bridges. For the navigation of the Hwan Ho, even
when its channel is full, is said to be impracticable on account of
rapids, whilst the Lieu-li Ho, or “Glass River,” is, as its name
implies, smooth, and navigable, and it is largely navigated by
boats from the coal-mines of Fang-shan. The road crosses the latter
about two leagues from Cho-chau. (See next chapter.)

[The Rev. W. S. Ament (_M. Polo in Cambaluc_, p. 116–117) remarks
regarding Yule’s quotation from Magaillans that “a glance at
Chinese history would have explained to these gentlemen that there
was no stone bridge over the Liu Li river till the days of Kia
Tsing, the Ming Emperor, 1522 A.D., or more than one hundred and
fifty years after Polo was dead. Hence he could not have confounded
bridges, one of which he never saw. The Lu Kou Bridge was first
constructed of stone by She Tsung, fourth Emperor of the Kin, in
the period Ta Ting 1189 A.D., and was finished by Chang Tsung 1194
A.D. Before that time it had been constructed of wood, and had been
sometimes a stationary and often a floating bridge. The oldest
account [end of 16th century] states that the bridge was pu 200
in length, and specifically states that each pu was 5 feet, thus
making the bridge 1000 feet long. It was called the Kuan Li Bridge.
The Emperor, Kia Tsing of the Ming, was a great bridge builder. He
reconstructed this bridge, adding strong embankments to prevent
injury by floods. He also built the fine bridge over the Liu Li Ho,
the Cho Chou Bridge over the Chü Ma Ho. What cannot be explained
is Polo’s statement that the bridge had twenty-four arches, when
the oldest accounts give no more than thirteen, there being eleven
at the present time. The columns which supported the balustrade in
Polo’s time rested upon the loins of sculptured lions. The account
of the lions after the bridge was repaired by Kia Tsing says that
there are so many that it is impossible to count them correctly,
and gossip about the bridge says that several persons have lost
their minds in making the attempt. The little walled city on the
east end of the bridge, rightly called Kung Chi, popularly called
Fei Ch’eng, is a monument to Ts’ung Chêng, the last of the Ming,
who built it, hoping to check the advance of Li Tzu ch’eng, the
great robber chief who finally proved too strong for him.”—H. C.]

The Bridge of Lu-kou is mentioned more than once in the history
of the conquest of North China by Chinghiz. It was the scene of a
notable mutiny of the troops of the _Kin_ Dynasty in 1215, which
induced Chinghiz to break a treaty just concluded, and led to his
capture of Peking.

This bridge was begun, according to Klaproth, in 1189, and was five
years a-building. On the 17th August, 1688, as Magaillans tells
us, a great flood carried away two arches of the bridge, and the
remainder soon fell. [Father Intorcetta, quoted by Bretschneider
(_Peking_, p. 53), gives the 25th of July, 1668, as the date of
the destruction of the bridge, which agrees well with the Chinese
accounts.—H. C.] The bridge was renewed, but with only nine arches
instead of thirteen, as appears from the following note of personal
observation with which Dr. Lockhart has favoured me:

“At 27 _li_ from Peking, by the western road leaving the gate of
the Chinese city called Kwang-’an-măn, after passing the old walled
town of Feuchen, you reach the bridge of _Lo-Ku-Kiao_. As it now
stands it is a very long bridge of nine arches (real _arches_)
spanning the valley of the Hwan Ho, and surrounded by beautiful
scenery. The bridge is built of green sandstone, and has a good
balustrade with short square pilasters crowned by small lions. It
is in very good repair, and has a ceaseless traffic, being on the
road to the coal-mines which supply the city. There is a pavilion
at each end of the bridge with inscriptions, the one recording
that K’ang-hi (1662–1723) _built_ the bridge, and the other that
Kienlung (1736–1796) _repaired_ it.” These circumstances are
strictly consistent with Magaillans’ account of the destruction of
the mediæval bridge. Williamson describes the present bridge as
about 700 feet long, and 12 feet wide in the middle part.

[Dr. Bretschneider saw the bridge, and gives the following
description of it: “The bridge is 350 ordinary paces long and 18
broad. It is built of sandstone, and has on either side a stone
balustrade of square columns, about 4 feet high, 140 on each
side, each crowned by a sculptured lion over a foot high. Beside
these there are a number of smaller lions placed irregularly on
the necks, behind the legs, under the feet, or on the back of the
larger ones. The space between the columns is closed by stone
slabs. Four sculptured stone elephants lean with their foreheads
against the edge of the balustrades. The bridge is supported
by eleven arches. At each end of the bridge two pavilions with
yellow roofs have been built, all with large marble tablets in
them; two with inscriptions made by order of the Emperor K’ang-hi
(1662–1723); and two with inscriptions of the time of K’ien-lung
(1736–1796). On these tablets the history of the bridge is
recorded.” Dr. Bretschneider adds that Dr. Lockhart is also right
in counting nine arches, for he counts only the waterways, not the
arches resting upon the banks of the river. Dr. Forke (p. 5) counts
11 arches and 280 stone lions.—H. C.]

(_P. de la Croix_, II. 11, etc.; _Erskine’s Baber_, p. xxxiii.;
_Timour’s Institutes_, 70; _J. As._ IX. 205; _Cathay_, 260;
_Magaillans_, 14–18, 35; _Lecomte_ in _Astley_, III. 529; _J. As._
sér. II. tom. i. 97–98; _D’Ohsson_, I. 144.)