The Travels of Marco Polo — Volume 1 by Marco Polo and da Pisa Rusticiano
CHAPTER XLI.
1399 words | Chapter 299
OF THE PROVINCE OF CAMUL.
Camul is a province which in former days was a kingdom. It contains
numerous towns and villages, but the chief city bears the name of
CAMUL. The province lies between the two deserts; for on the one side
is the Great Desert of Lop, and on the other side is a small desert
of three days’ journey in extent.{1} The people are all Idolaters, and
have a peculiar language. They live by the fruits of the earth, which
they have in plenty, and dispose of to travellers. They are a people
who take things very easily, for they mind nothing but playing and
singing, and dancing and enjoying themselves.{2}
And it is the truth that if a foreigner comes to the house of one of
these people to lodge, the host is delighted, and desires his wife to
put herself entirely at the guest’s disposal, whilst he himself gets
out of the way, and comes back no more until the stranger shall have
taken his departure. The guest may stay and enjoy the wife’s society as
long as he lists, whilst the husband has no shame in the matter, but
indeed considers it an honour. And all the men of this province are
made wittols of by their wives in this way.{3} The women themselves are
fair and wanton.
Now it came to pass during the reign of MANGU KAAN, that as lord of
this province he came to hear of this custom, and he sent forth an
order commanding them under grievous penalties to do so no more [but
to provide public hostelries for travellers]. And when they heard this
order they were much vexed thereat. [For about three years’ space
they carried it out. But then they found that their lands were no
longer fruitful, and that many mishaps befell them.] So they collected
together and prepared a grand present which they sent to their Lord,
praying him graciously to let them retain the custom which they had
inherited from their ancestors; for it was by reason of this usage that
their gods bestowed upon them all the good things that they possessed,
and without it they saw not how they could continue to exist.{4} When
the Prince had heard their petition his reply was “Since ye must needs
keep your shame, keep it then,” and so he left them at liberty to
maintain their naughty custom. And they always have kept it up, and do
so still.
Now let us quit Camul, and I will tell you of another province which
lies between north-west and north, and belongs to the Great Kaan.
NOTE 1.—Kamul (or Komul) does not fall into the great line of
travel towards Cathay which Marco is following. His notice of it,
and of the next province, forms a digression like that which he
has already made to Samarkand. It appears very doubtful if Marco
himself had visited it; his father and uncle may have done so on
their first journey, as one of the chief routes to Northern China
from Western Asia lies through this city, and has done so for many
centuries. This was the route described by Pegolotti as that of the
Italian traders in the century following Polo; it was that followed
by Marignolli, by the envoys of Shah Rukh at a later date, and
at a much later by Benedict Goës. The people were in Polo’s time
apparently Buddhist, as the Uighúrs inhabiting this region had been
from an old date: in Shah Rukh’s time (1420) we find a mosque and a
great Buddhist Temple cheek by jowl; whilst Ramusio’s friend Hajji
Mahomed (_circa_ 1550) speaks of Kamul as the first Mahomedan city
met with in travelling from China.
Kamul stands on an oasis carefully cultivated by aid of reservoirs
for irrigation, and is noted in China for its rice and for some of
its fruits, especially melons and grapes. It is still a place of
some consequence, standing near the bifurcation of two great roads
from China, one passing north and the other south of the Thian
Shan, and it was the site of the Chinese Commissariat depôts for
the garrisons to the westward. It was lost to the Chinese in 1867.
Kamul appears to have been the see of a Nestorian bishop. A Bishop
of Kamul is mentioned as present at the inauguration of the
Catholicos Denha in 1266. (_Russians in Cent. Asia_, 129; _Ritter_,
II. 357 _seqq._; _Cathay, passim_; _Assemani_, II. 455–456.)
[_Kamul_ is the Turkish name of the province called by the Mongols
_Khamil_, by the Chinese _Hami_; the latter name is found for the
first time in the _Yuen Shi_, but it is first mentioned in Chinese
history in the 1st century of our Era under the name of _I-wu-lu_
or _I-wu_ (_Bretschneider, Med. Res._ II. p. 20); after the death
of Chinghiz, it belonged to his son Chagataï. From the Great Wall,
at the Pass of Kia Yü, to Hami there is a distance of 1470 _li_.
(_C. Imbault-Huart. Le Pays de Hami ou Khamil_ ... d’après les
auteurs chinois, _Bul. de Géog. hist. et desc._, Paris, 1892, pp.
121–195.) The Chinese general Chang Yao was in 1877 at Hami, which
had submitted in 1867 to the Athalik Ghazi, and made it the basis
of his operations against the small towns of Chightam and Pidjam,
and Yakúb Khan himself stationed at Turfan. The Imperial Chinese
Agent in this region bears the title of _K’u lun Pan She Ta Ch’en_
and resides at K’urun (Urga); of lesser rank are the agents (_Pan
She Ta Ch’en_) of Kashgar, Kharashar, Kuché, Aksu, Khotan, and
Hami. (See a description of Hami by Colonel M. S. Bell, _Proc. R.
G. S._ XII. 1890, p. 213.)—H. C.]
NOTE 2.—Expressed almost in the same words is the character
attributed by a Chinese writer to the people of Kuché in the same
region. (_Chin. Repos._ IX. 126.) In fact, the character seems to
be generally applicable to the people of East Turkestan, but sorely
kept down by the rigid Islam that is now enforced. (See _Shaw,
passim_, and especially the Mahrambáshi’s lamentations over the
jolly days that were no more, pp. 319, 376.)
NOTE 3.—Pauthier’s text has “_sont si_ honni _de leur moliers
comme vous avez ouy_.” Here the Crusca has “_sono_ bozzi _delle
loro moglie_,” and the Lat. Geog. “_sunt_ bezzi _de suis
uxoribus_.” The Crusca Vocab. has inserted _bozzo_ with the meaning
we have given, on the strength of this passage. It occurs also in
Dante (_Paradiso_, XIX. 137), in the general sense of _disgraced_.
The shameful custom here spoken of is ascribed by Polo also to a
province of Eastern Tibet, and by popular report in modern times
to the Hazaras of the Hindu-Kush, a people of Mongolian blood, as
well as to certain nomad tribes of Persia, to say nothing of the
like accusation against our own ancestors which has been drawn from
Laonicus Chalcondylas. The old Arab traveller Ibn Muhalhal (10th
century) also relates the same of the Hazlakh (probably _Kharlikh_)
Turks: “Ducis alicujus uxor vel filia vel soror, quum mercatorum
agmen in terram venit, eos adit, eorumque lustrat faciem. Quorum
siquis earum afficit admiratione hunc domum suam ducit, eumque apud
se hospitio excipit, eique benigne facit. Atque marito suo et filio
fratrique rerum necessariarum curam demandat; neque dum hospes
apud eam habitat, nisi necessarium est, maritus eam adit.” A like
custom prevails among the Chukchis and Koryaks in the vicinity of
Kamtchatka. (_Elphinstone’s Caubul; Wood_, p. 201; _Burnes_, who
discredits, II. 153, III. 195; _Laon. Chalcond._ 1650, pp. 48–49;
_Kurd de Schloezer_, p. 13; _Erman_, II. 530.)
[“It is remarkable that the Chinese author, _Hung Hao_, who lived
a century before M. Polo, makes mention in his memoirs nearly in
the same words of this custom of the Uighúrs, with whom he became
acquainted during his captivity in the kingdom of the _Kin_.
According to the chronicle of the Tangut kingdom of Si-hia, Hami
was the nursery of Buddhism in Si-hia, and provided this kingdom
with Buddhist books and monks.” (_Palladius_, _l.c._ p. 6.)—H. C.]
NOTE 4.—So the Jewish rabble to Jeremiah: “Since we left
off to burn incense to the Queen of Heaven, and to pour out
drink-offerings to her, we have wanted all things, and have been
consumed by the sword and by famine.” (_Jerem._ xliv. 18.)
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