Chapter XL

CONCERNING THE GREAT RIVER CARAMORAN AND THE CITY OF CACHANFU.

When you leave the castle, and travel about 20 miles westward, you come to a river called CARAMORAN,{1} so big that no bridge can be thrown across it; for it is of immense width and depth, and reaches to the Great Ocean that encircles the Universe,—I mean the whole earth. On this river there are many cities and walled towns, and many merchants too therein, for much traffic takes place upon the river, there being a great deal of ginger and a great deal of silk produced in the country.{2}

Game birds here are in wonderful abundance, insomuch that you may buy at least three pheasants for a Venice groat of silver. I should say rather for an _asper_, which is worth a little more.{3}

[On the lands adjoining this river there grow vast quantities of great canes, some of which are a foot or a foot and a half (in girth), and these the natives employ for many useful purposes.]

After passing the river and travelling two days westward you come to the noble city of CACHANFU, which we have already named. The inhabitants are all Idolaters. And I may as well remind you again that all the people of Cathay are Idolaters. It is a city of great trade and of work in gold-tissues of many sorts, as well as other kinds of industry.

There is nothing else worth mentioning, and so we will proceed and tell you of a noble city which is the capital of a kingdom, and is called Kenjanfu.

NOTE 1.—_Ḳará-Muren_, or Black River, is one of the names applied
by the Mongols to the Hwang Ho, or Yellow River, of the Chinese,
and is used by all the mediæval western writers, _e.g._ Odoric,
John Marignolli, Rashiduddin.

The River, where it skirts Shan-si, is for the most part difficult
both of access and of passage, and ill adapted to navigation, owing
to the violence of the stream. Whatever there is of navigation is
confined to the transport of coal down-stream from Western Shan-si,
in large flats. Mr. Elias, who has noted the River’s level by
aneroid at two points 920 miles apart, calculated the fall over
that distance, which includes the contour of Shan-si, at 4 feet per
mile. The best part for navigation is above this, from Ning-hia
to Chaghan Kuren (in about 110° E. long.), in which Captain
Prjevalski’s observations give a fall of less than 6 inches per
mile. (_Richthofen_, _Letter_ VII. 25; _Williamson_, I. 69; _J. R.
G. S._ XLIII. p. 115; _Petermann_, 1873, pp. 89–91.)

[On 5th January, 1889, Mr. Rockhill coming to the Yellow River from
P’ing-yang, found (_Land of the Lamas_, p. 17) that “the river was
between 500 and 600 yards wide, a sluggish, muddy stream, then
covered with floating ice about a foot thick.... The Yellow River
here is shallow, in the main channel only is it four or five feet
deep.” The Rev. C. Holcombe, who crossed in October, says (p. 65):
that “it was nowhere more than 6 feet deep, and on returning, three
of the boatmen sprang into the water in midstream and waded ashore,
carrying a line from the ferry-boat to prevent us from rapidly
drifting down with the current. The water was just up to their
hips.”—H. C.]

NOTE 2.—It is remarkable that the abundance of silk in Shan-si and
Shen-si is so distinctly mentioned in these chapters, whereas now
there is next to no silk at all grown in these districts. Is this
the result of a change of climate, or only a commercial change?
Baron Richthofen, to whom I have referred the question, believes
it to be due to the former cause: “No tract in China would appear
to have suffered so much by a change of climate as Shen-si and
Southern Shan-si.” [See pp. 11–12.]

NOTE 3.—The _asper_ or _akché_ (both meaning “white”) of the
Mongols at Tana or Azov I have elsewhere calculated, from
Pegolotti’s data (_Cathay_, p. 298), to have contained about 0_s._
2·8_d._ worth of silver, which is _less_ than the grosso; but the
name may have had a loose application to small silver coins in
other countries of Asia. Possibly the money intended may have been
the 50 _tsien_ note. (See note 1, ch. xxiv. _supra_.)