Volume II Part 162 (2/2)

[9] _Ancient Khotan_, Vol. I., p. 134.

[10] _Mikroskopische Untersuchung alter ostturkestanischer Papiere_, p. 9 (Vienna, 1902). I cannot pa.s.s over in silence a curious error of this scholar when he says (p. 8) that it is not proved that _Cannabis sativa_ (called by him ”genuine hemp”) is cultivated in China, and that the so-called Chinese hemp-paper should be intended for China gra.s.s. Every tyro in things Chinese knows that hemp (_Cannabis sativa_) belongs to the oldest cultivated plants of the Chinese, and that hemp-paper is already listed among the papers invented by Ts'ai Lun in A.D. 105 (cf. CHAVANNES, _Les livres chinois avant l'invention du papier, Journal Asiatique_, 1905, p. 6 of the reprint).

[11] Ch. B., p. 10b (ed. of _Pie hia chai ts'ung shu_).

[12] The Persian word for the mulberry, _tud_, is supposed to be a loan-word from Aramaic. (HORN, _Grundriss iran. Phil._, Vol. I., pt. 2, p. 6.)

BOOK SECOND.

PART II.--JOURNEY TO THE WEST AND SOUTH-WEST OF CATHAY.

x.x.xVII, p. 13. ”There grow here [Taianfu] many excellent vines, supplying great plenty of wine; and in all Cathay this is the only place where wine is produced. It is carried hence all over the country.”

Dr. B. Laufer makes the following remarks to me: ”Polo is quite right in ascribing vines and wine to T'ai Yuan-fu in Shan Si, and is in this respect upheld by contemporary Chinese sources. The _Yin shan cheng yao_ written in 1330 by Ho Se-hui, contains this account[1]: 'There are numerous brands of wine: that coming from Qara-Khodja[2] (Ha-la-hwo) is very strong, that coming from Tibet ranks next. Also the wines from P'ing Yang and T'a Yuan (in Shan Si) take the second rank. According to some statements, grapes, when stored for a long time, will develop into wine through a natural process. This wine is fragrant, sweet, and exceedingly strong: this is the genuine grape-wine.' _Ts'ao mu tse_, written in 1378 par Ye Tse-k'i,[3]

contains the following information: 'Under the Yuan Dynasty grape-wine was manufactured in Ki-ning and other circuits of Shan Si Province. In the eighth month they went to the T'ai hang Mountain,[4] in order to test the genuine and adulterated brands: the genuine kind when water is poured on it, will float; the adulterated sort, when thus treated, will freeze.[5]

In wine which has long been stored, there is a certain portion which even in extreme cold will never freeze, while all the remainder is frozen: this is the spirit and fluid secretion of wine.[6] If this is drunk, the essence will penetrate into a man's armpits, and he will die. Wine kept for two or three years develops great poison.” For a detailed history of grape-wine in China, see Laufer's _Sino-Iranica_.

x.x.xVII., p. 16.

VINE.

Chavannes (_Chancellerie chinoise de l'epoque mongole_, II., pp. 66-68, 1908) has a long note on vine and grape wine-making in China, from Chinese sources. We know that vine, according to Sze-ma Ts'ien, was imported from Farghanah about 100 B.C. The Chinese, from texts in the _T'ai p'ing yu lan_ and the _Yuan Kien lei han_, learned the art of wine-making after they had defeated the King of Kao ch'ang (Turfan) in 640 A.D.

XLI., p. 27 seq.

CHRISTIAN MONUMENT AT SI-NGAN FU.

The slab _King kiao pei_, bearing the inscription, was found, according to Father Havret, 2nd Pt., p. 71, in the sub-prefecture of Chau Chi, a dependency of Si-ngan fu, among ancient ruins. Prof. Pelliot says that the slab was not found at Chau Chi, but in the western suburb of Si-ngan, at the very spot where it was to be seen some years ago, before it was transferred to the _Pei lin_, in fact at the place where it was erected in the seventh century inside the monastery built by Olopun. (_Chretiens de l'Asie centrale, T'oung pao_, 1914, p. 625.)

In 1907, a Danish gentleman, Mr. Frits V. Holm, took a photograph of the tablet as it stood outside the west gate of Si-ngan, south of the road to Kan Su; it was one of five slabs on the same spot; it was removed without the stone pedestal (a tortoise) into the city on the 2nd October 1907, and it is now kept in the museum known as the _Pei lin_ (Forest of Tablets).

Holm says it is ten feet high, the weight being two tons; he tried to purchase the original, and failing this he had an exact replica made by Chinese workmen; this replica was deposited in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the City of New York, as a loan, on the 16th of June, 1908. Since, this replica was purchased by Mrs. George Leary, of 1053, Fifth Avenue, New York, and presented by this lady, through Frits Holm, to the Vatican.

See the November number (1916) of the _Boll, della R. Soc. Geog.

Italiana_. ”The Original Nestorian Tablet of A.D. 781, as well as my replica, made in 1907,” Holm writes, ”are both carved from the stone quarries of Fu Ping Hien; the material is a black, sub-granular limestone with small oolithes scattered through it” (Frits V. Holm, _The Nestorian Monument_, Chicago, 1900). In this pamphlet there is a photograph of the tablet as it stands in the Pei lin.

Prof. Ed. Chavannes, who also visited Si-ngan in 1907, saw the Nestorian Monument; in the alb.u.m of his _Mission archeologique dans la Chine Septentrionale_, Paris, 1909, he has given (Plate 445) photographs of the five tablets, the tablet itself, the western gate of the western suburb of Si-ngan, and the entrance of the temple _Kin Sheng Sze_.

Cf. Notes, pp. 105-113 of Vol. I, of the second edition of _Cathay and the Way thither_.

II., p. 27.

KHUMDAN.

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