here in large quantities, and also many kinds of drugs; but, being an inland country, distant from the sea, there is little opportunity of vending them. There are elephants in abundance, and other beasts. The inhabitants live upon flesh, rice, and milk. They have no wine made from grapes, but prepare it from rice and a mixture of drugs. Both men and women have their bodies punctured all over, in figures of beasts and birds; and there are among them practitioners whose sole employment it is to trace out these ornaments with the point of a needle, upon the hands, the legs, and the breast. When a black colouring stuff has been rubbed over these punctures, it is impossible, either by water or otherwise, to efface the marks. The man or woman who exhibits the greatest profusion of these figures, is esteemed the most handsome.

CHAPTER XLVII.

OF THE PROVINCE OF AMU.

AMU, also, is situated towards the east,1 and its inhabitants are subjects of the grand khan. They are idolaters, and live upon the flesh of their cattle and the fruits of the earth. They have a peculiar language. The country produces many horses and oxen, which are sold to the itinerant merchants, and conveyed to India. Buffaloes also, as well as oxen, are numerous, in consequence of the extent and excellence of the pastures. Both men and women wear rings, of gold and silver, upon their wrists, arms, and legs; but those of the females are the more costly. The distance between this province and that of Kangigu is twenty-five days' journey, and thence to Bangala is twenty days' journey. We shall now speak of a province named Tholoman, situated eight days' journey from the former.

more adequate to the maintenance of a haram of such magnitude, than they are at the present day. The epitome reduces the number to one hundred: "Lo re ha ben cento moiere."

1 Amu appears to correspond in situation with Bamu, which is described by Symes as a frontier province between the kingdom of the Birmahs and Yun-nan in China.

2 These are the bos bubalus and bos gavaus. See note 2, p. 280. 3 [The Paris Latin text reads fifteen.]

PROVINCE OF THOLOMAN.

283

CHAPTER XLVIII.

OF THOLOMAN.

THE province of Tholoman lies towards the east,1 and its inhabitants are idolaters. They have a peculiar language, and are subjects of the grand khan. The people are tall and good-looking; their complexions inclining rather to brown than fair. They are just in their dealings, and brave in war. Many of their towns and castles are situated upon lofty mountains. They burn the bodies of their dead; and the bones that are not reduced to ashes, they put into wooden boxes, and carry them to the mountains, where they conceal them in caverns of the rocks, in order that no wild animal may disturb them.2 Abundance of gold is found here. For the ordinary small currency they use the porcelain shells that come from India; and this sort of money prevails also in the two before-mentioned provinces of Kangigu and Amu. Their food and drink are the same that has been already mentioned.

1 No name resembling Tholoman, Toloman, or Coloman, as the word appears in different versions, is to be found in any map or description of these parts; but as the circumstances stated render it probable that the country spoken of is that of the people variously called Birmahs, Burmahs, Bomans, and Burmans, we may conjecture that the word was intended for Po-lo-man, which is known to be the mode in which the Chinese pronounce Burman and Brahman, and by which they often designate the people of India in general.

2 The ceremonies practised by certain mountaineers of Ava or the Burmah country, named Kayn, bear a strong resemblance to what is here described: "They burn their dead," says Symes, "and afterwards collect their ashes in an urn, which they convey to a house, where, if the urn contains the relics of a man, they keep it six days, if of a woman, five; after which it is carried to the place of interment and deposited in a grave, and on the sod that covers it is laid a wooden image of the deceased to pray to the mounzing (deity) and protect the bones and ashes." He added, "that the mounzing resided on the great mountain Gnowa, where the images of the dead are deposited.”—Embassy to Ava, p. 447.

CHAPTER XLIX.

OF THE CITIES OF CHINTIGUI, SIDINFU, GINGUI, AND PAZANFU.

2

LEAVING the province of Tholoman, and pursuing a course towards the east,1 you travel for twelve days by a river, on each side of which lie many towns and castles; when at length you reach the large and handsome city of Chintigui, the inhabitants of which are idolaters, and are the subjects of the grand khan. They are traders and artisans. They make cloth of the bark of certain trees, which looks well, and is the ordinary summer clothing of both sexes. The men are brave warriors. They have no other kind of money than the stamped paper of the grand khan.3

In this province the tigers are so numerous, that the inha

1 The countries last spoken of appear indubitably to have belonged to that region which geographers term "India extra Gangem." These our author's route now leaves behind, and what follows in the remaining chapters of this book applies only to China or its immediate dependencies.

We cannot discover in the southern part of Yun-nan (towards which he might be supposed to have returned) any city resembling Chinti-gui or Chinti-giu in name; but a material difference between the text of Ramusio and those of the other versions occurs here, which might be hoped to afford a clue for tracing the progress of the route. According to the former our author prosecutes his journey from Tholoman by the course of a river (whether wholly or in part only, is not clearly expressed) to the city above mentioned. In the Basle edition, on the contrary, it is said: "A provincia Tholoman ducit iter versus orientem ad provinciam Gingui, iturque duodecim diebus juxta fluvium quendam, donec perveniatur ad civitatem grandem Sinuglu :" and in the early Italian epitome, "Cuigui sie una provincia verso oriente laqual ello trovo l'homo quando se parti da Toloman tu vai su per uno fiume per xii. zornade trovando cita e castelli: e trovi la cita de Similgu grande e nobile;" to which city of Sinulgu or Similgu are attributed all the circumstances above related of Cintigui. [The name in the Paris Latin text is Funilgul.] If the reading of Cui-gui or Kuigiu be more correct than the others, we might conjecture it to be intended for the Chinese province of Koei-cheu or Quei-cheu, which, adjoining to that of Yun-nan on the eastern side, would be in point of direction no unlikely road to the capital.

3 The circumstance of the emperor's paper money being current, shows that the country here spoken of was an integral part of the empire, and not one of its remote dependencies, where the sovereignty was more nominal than real.

A

ABUNDANCE OF TIGERS.

285

bitants, from apprehension of their ravages, cannot venture to sleep at night out of their towns; and those who navigate the river dare not go to rest with their boats moored near the banks; for these animals have been known to plunge into the water, swim to the vessel, and drag the men from thence; but find it necessary to anchor in the middle of the stream, where, in consequence of its great width, they are in safety.1 In this country are likewise found the largest and fiercest dogs that can be met with: so courageous and powerful are they, that a man, with a couple of them, may be an overmatch for a tiger. Armed with a bow and arrows, and thus attended, should he meet a tiger, he sets on his intrepid dogs, who instantly advance to the attack. The animal instinctively seeks a tree, against which to place himself, in order that the dogs may not be able to get behind him, and that he may have his enemies in front. With this intent, as soon as he perceives the dogs, he makes towards the tree, but with a slow pace, and by no means running, that he may not show any signs of fear, which his pride would not allow. During this deliberate movement, the dogs fasten upon him, and the man plies him with his arrows. He, in his turn, endeavours to seize the dogs, but they are too nimble for him, and draw back, when he resumes his slow march; but before he can gain his position, he has been wounded by so many arrows, and so often bitten by the dogs, that he falls through weakness and from loss of blood. By these means it is that he is at length taken.2

There is here an extensive manufacture of silks, which are exported in large quantities to other parts3 by the navigation

1 Numerous instances are recorded of boats being attacked at night by tigers, amongst the alluvial islands at the mouth of the Ganges, called the Sunderbunds, and sometimes it happens that whole crews are destroyed whilst sleeping on board.

2 If the beast here spoken of be actually the tiger and not the lion (of which latter none are found in China), it must be confessed that the manners ascribed to him in this story are very different from those which usually mark his feline character. In the old English version of 1579 (from the Spanish), it is not the lion or tiger, but the elephant that is said to be the subject of this mode of baiting with "mastiedogges." I am assured, however, that dogs do attack both tigers and leopards.

3 The trade in wrought silks denotes this to be a place in China, and to the south of the Yellow River, beyond which the silkworm is not reared for the purposes of manufacture.

of the river, which continues to pass amongst towns and castles; and the people subsist entirely by trade. At the end of twelve days, you arrive at the city of Sidin-fu, of which an account has been already given. From thence, in twenty days, you reach Gin-gui, in which we were, and in four days more the city of Pazan-fu, which belongs to Cathay, and lies

1 From the context we might be led to infer that the Si-din-fu here spoken of should be the same place as the Chinti-gui mentioned at the commencement of this chapter, inasmuch as the journey of twelve days from Tholoman is here again referred to; but on the other hand we are much more clearly given to understand that it is the city before described (in chap. xxxvi.) by the name of Sin-din-fu, and which was shown (in note 1, p. 251) to be intended for Ching-tu-fu, the capital of the province of Se-chuen. This would lie in the route from Ava and the province of Yun-nan towards the city of Pekin.

2 In this part of the work, indeed, we perceive a more than usual degree of perplexity in the geographical matter, which is increased by a want of agreement in the several versions, not merely in orthography, but in the entire names of places as well as in circumstances. The journey of twenty days stated in Ramusio's text is not mentioned either in the Latin version or early Italian epitome, and it appears in the first instance uncertain whether by Gin-gui is here meant that southern province which in the latter is named Cui-gui, and has been conjectured to be Koci-cheu, or whether it may have been intended for Kin-cheu on the Kiang, or (admitting a large hiatus in the journal) for another Kin-cheu in the province of Pe-che-li. For the city, likewise, which Ramusio names Pazan-fu, the other versions speak of Caucasu or Cancasu. But in addition to the confusion of names, we have, at this point, a new difficulty to contend with; for as the general course of the journey has latterly been to the east, as expressed in the text, or to the north-east, as inferred from positions, so at this place, and from henceforward, we find it described as tending to the south; although from the preceding chapters it might seem that the southern provinces of China had been but just entered from the side of Mien or Ava. Our author's want of accuracy in bearings, as they respect the intermediate points of the compass, has often required the exercise of indulgence: but this cannot be extended to the mistaking north for south; nor would even a correction of this nature in one or two instances avail us; for we shall presently find him approaching the Yellow River from the northern side, crossing that river, and, in the continuance of his southerly course, describing well-known places between it and the Kiang, which he likewise crosses in his way to the province of Fo-kien. It is consequently in one or other of the most northern provinces that we should make our search for Pazan-fu, and we shall be fully justified in drawing the conclusion, that a fresh itinerary, hitherto unnoticed, as it would seem, by any editor or commentator, has commenced from some place in the vicinity of the capital; and that the fruitless attempt to connect this with the former route, as