Chapter LXXII: Concerning the City of Caiju

Caiju is a small city towards the south-east. The people are subject to the Great Kaan and have paper-money. It stands upon the river before mentioned.{1} At this place are collected great quantities of corn and rice to be transported to the great city of Cambaluc for the use of the Kaan’s Court; for the grain for the Court all comes from this part of the country. You must understand that the Emperor hath caused a water-communication to be made from this city to Cambaluc, in the shape of a wide and deep channel dug between stream and stream, between lake and lake, forming as it were a great river on which large vessels can ply. And thus there is a communication all the way from this city of Caiju to Cambaluc; so that great vessels with their loads can go the whole way. A land road also exists, for the earth dug from those channels has been thrown up so as to form an embanked road on either side.{2}

Just opposite to the city of Caiju, in the middle of the River, there stands a rocky island on which there is an idol-monastery containing some 200 idolatrous friars, and a vast number of idols. And this Abbey holds supremacy over a number of other idol-monasteries, just like an archbishop’s see among Christians.{3}

Now we will leave this and cross the river, and I will tell you of a city called Chinghianfu.

NOTE 1.—No place in Polo’s travels is better identified by his
local indications than this. It is on the Kiang; it is at the
extremity of the Great Canal from Cambaluc; it is opposite the
Golden Island and Chin-kiang fu. Hence it is KWA-CHAU, as Murray
pointed out. Marsden here misunderstands his text, and puts the
place on the south side of the Kiang.

Here Van Braam notices that there passed in the course of the day
more than fifty great rice-boats, most of which could easily carry
more than 300,000 lbs. of rice. And Mr. Alabaster, in 1868, speaks
of the canal from Yang-chau to Kwa-chau as “full of junks.”

[Sir J. F. Davis writes (_Sketches of China_, II. p. 6): “Two ...
days ... were occupied in exploring the half-deserted town of
_Kwa-chow_, whose name signifies ‘the island of gourds,’ being
completely insulated by the river and canal. We took a long walk
along the top of the walls, which were as usual of great thickness,
and afforded a broad level platform behind the parapet: the parapet
itself, about six feet high, did not in thickness exceed the length
of a brick and a half, and the embrasures were evidently not
constructed for cannon, being much too high. A very considerable
portion of the area within the walls consisted of burial-grounds
planted with cypress; and this alone was a sufficient proof of the
decayed condition of the place, as in modern or fully inhabited
cities no person can be buried within the walls. Almost every spot
bore traces of ruin, and there appeared to be but one good street
in the whole town; this, however, was full of shops, and as busy as
Chinese streets always are.”—H. C.]

NOTE 2.—Rashiduddin gives the following account of the Grand Canal
spoken of in this passage. “The river of Khanbaligh had,” he says,
“in the course of time, become so shallow as not to admit the
entrance of shipping, so that they had to discharge their cargoes
and send them up to Khanbaligh on pack-cattle. And the Chinese
engineers and men of science having reported that the vessels
from the provinces of Cathay, from Machin, and from the cities of
Khingsai and Zaitún, could no longer reach the court, the Kaan gave
them orders to dig a great canal into which the waters of the said
river, and of several others, should be introduced. This canal
extends for a distance of 40 days’ navigation from Khanbaligh to
Khingsai and Zaitún, the ports frequented by the ships that come
from India, and from the city of Machin (Canton). The canal is
provided with many sluices ... and when vessels arrive at these
sluices they are hoisted up by means of machinery, whatever be
their size, and let down on the other side into the water. The
canal has a width of more than 30 ells. Kúblái caused the sides of
the embankments to be revetted with stone, in order to prevent the
earth giving way. Along the side of the canal runs the high road
to Machin, extending for a space of 40 days’ journey, and this has
been paved throughout, so that travellers and their animals may get
along during the rainy season without sinking in the mud.... Shops,
taverns, and villages line the road on both sides, so that dwelling
succeeds dwelling without intermission throughout the whole space
of 40 days’ journey.” (_Cathay_, 259–260.)

The canal appears to have been [begun in 1289 and to have been
completed in 1292.—H. C.] though large portions were in use
earlier. Its chief object was to provide the capital with food.
Pauthier gives the statistics of the transport of rice by this
canal from 1283 to the end of Kúblái’s reign, and for some
subsequent years up to 1329. In the latter year the quantity
reached 3,522,163 _shi_ or 1,247,633 quarters. As the supplies of
rice for the capital and for the troops in the Northern Provinces
always continued to be drawn from Kiang-nan, the distress and
derangement caused by the recent rebel occupation of that province
must have been enormous. (_Pauthier_, p. 481–482; _De Mailla_, p.
439.) Polo’s account of the formation of the canal is exceedingly
accurate. Compare that given by Mr. Williamson (I. 62).

NOTE 3.—“On the Kiang, not far from the mouth, is that remarkably
beautiful little island called the ‘Golden Isle,’ surmounted by
numerous temples inhabited by the votaries of Buddha or Fo, and
very correctly described so many centuries since by Marco Polo.”
(_Davis’s Chinese_, I. 149.) The monastery, according to Pauthier,
was founded in the 3rd or 4th century, but the name _Kin-Shan_, or
“Golden Isle,” dates only from a visit of the Emperor K’ang-hi in
1684.

The monastery contained one of the most famous Buddhist libraries
in China. This was in the hands of our troops during the first
China war, and, as it was intended to remove the books, there
was no haste made in examining their contents. Meanwhile peace
came, and the library was restored. It is a pity _now_ that
the _jus belli_ had not been exercised promptly, for the whole
establishment was destroyed by the T’ai-P’ings in 1860, and, with
the exception of the Pagoda at the top of the hill, which was left
in a dilapidated state, not one stone of the buildings remained
upon another. The rock had also then ceased to be an island; and
the site of what not many years before had been a channel with four
fathoms of water separating it from the southern shore, was covered
by flourishing cabbage-gardens. (_Gützlaff_ in _J. R. A. S._ XII.
87; _Mid. Kingd._ I. 84, 86; _Oliphant’s Narrative_, II. 301; _N.
and Q. Ch. and Jap._ No. 5, p. 58.)