Kinsay

Chinese Atlas in the Magliabecchian Library.

The Rev. A. C. Moule has devoted a long note to this Atlas in the Journ. R. As. Soc., July, 1919, pp. 393–395. He has come to the conclusion that the Atlas is no more nor less than the Kuang yü t’u, and that it seems that Camse stands neither for Ching-shih, as Yule thought, nor for Hang chau as he, Moule, suggested in 1917, but simply for the province of Kiangsi. (A Note on the Chinese Atlas in the Magliabecchian Library, with reference to Kinsay in Marco Polo.)

Mr. P. von Tanner, Commissioner of Customs at Hang chau, wrote in 1901 in the Decennial Reports, 1892–1901, of the Customs, p. 4: “While Hangchow owes its fame to the lake on the west, it certainly owes its existence towards the south-west to the construction of the sea wall, called by the Chinese by the appropriate name of bore wall. The erection of this sea wall was commenced about the year A.D. 915, by Prince Ts’ien Wu-su; it extends from Hang Chau to Chuan sha, near the opening of the Hwang pu.... The present sea wall, in its length of 180 miles, was built. The wall is a stupendous piece of work, and should take an equal share of fame with the Grand Canal and the Great Wall of China, as its engineering difficulties were certainly infinitely greater.... The fact that Marco Polo does not mention it shows almost conclusively that he never visited Hang Chau, but got his account from a Native poet. He must have taken it, besides, without the proverbial grain of salt, and without eliminating the over-numerous ‘thousands’ and ‘myriads’ prompted less by facts than by patriotic enthusiasm and poetical licence.”

LXXVI., p. 194 n.