however, is favourable to agriculture and produces everything abundantly. From this country are got woollen carpets, fine felts, well woven taffetas, white and black jade." Chinese authors of the 10th century speak of the abundant grapes and excellent wine of Khotan.

Chinese annals of the 7th and 8th centuries tell us that the people of Khotan had chronicles of their own,-a glimpse of a lost branch of history. Their writing, laws, and literature were modelled upon those of India.

Ilchi, the modern capital, was visited by Mr. Johnson of the Indian Survey in 1865. The country, after the revolt against the Chinese in 1863, came first under the rule of Habib-ullah, an aged chief calling himself Khan Badshah of Khotan; and since the treacherous seizure and murder of Habib-ullah by Ya'kúb Beg of Kashgar in January 1867, it has formed a part of the kingdom of the latter.

Mr. Johnson says: "The chief grains of the country are Indian corn, wheat, barley of two kinds, bajra, jowár (two kinds of holcus), buckwheat and rice, all of which are superior to the Indian grains, and are of a very fine quality. . . . . The country is certainly superior to India, and in every respect equal to Kashmir, over which it has the advantage of being less humid, and consequently better suited to the growth of fruits. Olives (?), pears, apples, peaches, apricots, mulberries, grapes, currants, and melons, all exceedingly large in size and of a delicious flavour, are produced in great variety and abundance. . . . . Cotton of valuable quality, and raw silk are produced in very large quantities."

Mr. Johnson reports the whole country to be rich in soil and very much under-peopled. Ilchi, the capital, has a population of about 40,000, and is a great place for manufactures. The chief articles produced are silks, felts, carpets (both silk and woollen), coarse cotton cloths, and paper from the mulberry fibre. The people are strict Mahomedans, and speak a Turki dialect. Both sexes are good-looking, with a slightly Tartar cast of countenance. (V. et V. de H. T. 278 ; Rémusat, H. de la V. de Khotan, 37, 73-84; Chin. Repos. IX. 128; J. R. G. S. XXXVII. 6 seqq.

PEIN is a province five days in length, lying between east and north-east. The people are worshippers o Mahommet, and subjects of the Great Kaan. There are a good number of towns and villages, but the most noble

is PEIN, the capital of the kingdom.' There are rivers in this country, in which quantities of Jasper and Chalcedony are found. The people have plenty of all products, including cotton. They live by manufactures and trade. But they have a custom that I must relate. If the husband of any woman go away upon a journey and remain away for more than 20 days, as soon as that term is past the woman may marry another man, and the husband also then marry whom he pleases.3

may

I should tell you that all the provinces that I have been speaking of, from Cascar forward, and those I am going to mention [as far as the city of Lop] belong to GREAT TURKEY.

NOTE 1.—" In old times," says the Haft-Iklim, " travellers used to go from Khotan to Cathay in 14 (?) days, and found towns and villages all along the road [excepting, it may be presumed, on the terrible Gobi], so that there was no need to travel in caravans. In later days the fear of the Kalmaks caused this line to be abandoned, and the circuitous one occupied 100 days." This directer route between Khotan and China must have been followed by Fahian on his way to India; by Hwen Thsang on his way back; and by Shah Rukh's ambassadors on their return from China in 1421. The circuitous route alluded to appears to have gone north from Khotan, crossed the Tarimgol, and fallen into the road along the base of the Thian Shan, eventually crossing the Desert southward from Komul.

Former commentators differed very widely as to the position of Pein, and as to the direction of Polo's route from Khotan. The information acquired of late years leaves the latter no longer open to doubt. It must have been nearly coincident with that of Hwen Thsang.

The perusal of Johnson's Report of his Journey to Khotan, and the itineraries attached to it, enabled me to feel tolerable certainty as to the position of Charchan (see next chapter), and as to the fact that Marco followed a direct route from Khotan to the vicinity of Lake Lop. Pein, then, was identical with PIMA,* which was the first city reached by Hwen Thsang on his return to China after quitting Khotan, and which lay 330 li east of the latter city. Other notices of Pima appear

Pein may easily have been miscopied for Pem, which is indeed the reading of some MSS. Ramusio has Peym.

†M. Vivien de St. Martin, in his map of Hwen Thsang's travels, places Pima to the west of Khotan. Though one sees how the mistake originated, there is no real ground for this in either of the versions of the Chinese pilgrim's journey. (See Vie et Vovages, p. 288, and Mémoires, Vol. II. 242-243.)

in Rémusat's history of Khotan; some of these agree exactly as to the distance from the capital, adding that it stood on the banks of a river flowing from the east and entering the sandy Desert; whilst one account seems to place it at 500 li from Khotan. And in the Turkish map of Central Asia, printed in the Jahán Numá, as we learn from Sir H. Rawlinson, the town of Pim is placed a little way north of Khotan. Johnson found Khotan rife with stories of former cities overwhelmed by the shifting sands of the Desert, and these sands appear to have been advancing for ages; for far to the north-east of Pima, even in the 7th century, were to be found the deserted and ruined cities of the ancient kingdoms of Tuholo and Shemathona. "Where anciently were the seats of flourishing cities and prosperous communities," says a Chinese author speaking of this region, "is nothing now to be seen but a vast desert; all has been buried in the sands, and the wild camel is hunted on those arid plains."

Pima cannot have been very far from Kiria, visited by Johnson. This is a town of 7000 houses lying east of Ilchi, and about 69 miles distant from it. The road for the most part lies through a highly culti vated and irrigated country, flanked by the sandy desert at 3 or 4 miles to the left. After passing eastward by Kiria it is said to make a great elbow, turning north; and within this elbow lie the sands that have buried cities and fertile country. Here Mr. Shaw supposes Pima lay (perhaps upon the river of Kiria). At Pima itself, in A.D. 644, there was a story of the destruction of a city lying further north, a judgment on the luxury and impiety of the people and their king, who, shocked at the eccentric aspect of a holy man, had caused him to be buried in sand up to the mouth.

(N. et E. XIV. 477; H. de la Ville de Khotan, 63-66; Klap. Tabl Historiques, p. 182; Proc. R. G. S. XVI. 243-)

NOTE 2. The Jasper and Chalcedony of our author are probably only varieties of the semi-precious mineral called by us popularly Jade, by the Chinese Yu, by the Eastern Turks Kásh, by the Persians Yashm, which last is no doubt the same word with laois and therefore with Jasper. The Greek Jaspis was in reality, according to Mr. King, a green Chalcedony.

The Jade of Turkestan is largely derived from water-rolled boulders fished up by divers in the rivers of Khotan, but it is also got from mines in the valley of the Karákásh River. "Some of the Jade," says Timkowski, "is as white as snow, some dark green, like the most beautiful emerald (?), others yellow, vermilion, and jet black. The rarest and most esteemed varieties are the white speckled with red and the green veined with gold" (I. 395). The Jade of Khotan appears to be first mentioned by Chinese authors in the time of the Han Dynasty under Wuti (B.C. 14086.) In A.D. 541 an image of Buddha sculptured in Jade was sent as an offering from Khotan; and in 632 the process of fishing for the material in the rivers of Khotan, as practised down to modern times, is

mentioned. The importation of Jade or Yu from this quarter probably gave the name of Kia-yu-Kwan or "Jade Gate" to the fortified Pass looking in this direction on the extreme N.W. of China Proper, between Shachau and Suchau. Since the detachment from China the Jade industry has ceased; the Mussulmans having no taste for that kind of virtù. (H. de la V. de Khotan, 2, 17, 23; also see J. R. G. S. XXXVI. 165, and Cathay, 130, 564; Ritter, II. 213; Shaw's High Tartary, pp. 98, 473.)

NOTE 3.-Possibly this may refer to the custom of temporary marriages which seems to prevail in most towns of Central Asia which are the halting-places of caravans, and the morals of which are much on a par with those of seaport towns, from analogous causes. Thus at Meshid Khanikoff speaks of the large population of young and pretty women ready, according to the accommodating rules of Shiah Mahomedanism, to engage in marriages which are perfectly lawful, for a month, a week, or even twenty-four hours. Kashgar is also noted in the East for its chaukans, young women with whom the traveller may readily form an alliance for the period of his stay, be it long or short. (Khan. Mém. p. 98; Russ. in Central Asia, 52; J. A. S. B. XXVI. 262; Burnes, III. 195; Vigne, II. 201.)

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

OF THE PROVINCE OF CHARCHAN.

CHARCHAN is a Province of Great Turkey, lying between north-east and east. The people worship Mahommet. There are numerous towns and villages, and the chief city of the kingdom bears its name, Charchan. The Province contains rivers which bring down Jasper and Chalcedony, and these are carried for sale into Cathay, where they fetch great prices. The whole of the Province is sandy, and so is the road all the way from Pein, and much of the water that you find is bitter and bad. However, at some places you do find fresh and sweet water. When an army passes

through the land, the people escape with their wives, children, and cattle a distance of two or three days' journey into the sandy waste; and knowing the spots where water is to be had they are able to live there, and to keep their

cattle alive, whilst it is impossible to discover them; for the wind immediately blows the sand over their track.

Quitting Charchan, you ride some five days through the sands, finding none but bad and bitter water, and then you come to a place where the water is sweet. And now I will tell you of a province called Lop, in which there is a city, also called Lop, which you come to at the end of those five days. It is at the entrance of the great Desert, and it is here that travellers repose before entering on the Desert.'

NOTE 1.-Though the Lake of Lob or Lop appears on all our maps, from Chinese authority, the latter does not seem to have supplied information as to a town so called. We have, however, indications of the existence of such a place, both medieval and recent. The History of Mirza Haidar, called the Táríkh-i-Rashidí, already referred to, in describing the Great Basin of Eastern Turkestan, says: "Formerly there were several large cities in this plain; the names of two have survived-Lob and Kank, but of the rest there is no trace or tradition; all is buried under the sand." In another place the same history says that a boy heir of the house of Chaghatai, to save him from an usurper, was sent away to Sárígh Uighur and Lob-Kank, far in the East. Again, in the short notices of the cities of Turkestan which Mr. Wathen collected at Bombay from pilgrims of those regions on their way to Mecca, we find the following: "Lopp.-Lopp is situated at a great distance from Yarkand. The inhabitants are principally Chinese; but a few Uzbeks reside there. Lopp is remarkable for a salt-water lake in its vicinity." Johnson, speaking of a road from Tibet into Khotan, says: "This route leads not only to Ilchi and Yarkand, but also viâ Lob to the large and important city of Karashahr." And among the routes attached to Mr. Johnson's original Report, we have:

"Route No. VII. Kiria (see note 1 to last chapter) to CHACHAN and LOB (from native information)."

This first revealed to me the continued existence of Marco's Charchan; for it was impossible to doubt that in the CHACHAN and LOB of this itinerary we had his Charchan and Lop; and his route to the verge of the Great Desert was thus made clear.

Mr. Johnson's information made the journey from Kiria to Charchan to be 9 marches, estimated by him to amount to 154 miles, and adding 69 miles from Ilchi to Kiria (which he actually traversed) we have 13 marches or 223 miles for the distance from Ilchi to Charchan. Mr. Shaw has since obtained a route between Ilchi and Lob on very good authority. This makes the distance to Charchan, or Charchand as it is called, 22 marches, which Mr. Shaw estimates at 293 miles. Both