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Ij22 TUB ARABS. 121
8) Confer what our author says here of the Nile with his other account of it in Ch XXX.
Ch6u K'tt-fei did not know of the Nile; our author, so far as we are aware, is the earliest
Chinese author to refer to it.
9) This may he a reference to Kolzum on the Ked Sea, the Clysma of late classical writers,
5 and to the canal re-opened by Amru somewhere about A. D. 642 between the Nile and the Eed Sea,
and which appears to have followed very closely the line of the Fresh-water Canal of the present
day. After its re-oponing by Amru it remained navigable for eighty years, when, choked with sand,
it was again abandoned. Muir, Annals of the early Caliphate, 244. Another possible and more
probable explanation is that it refers to OboUah and Basra, a district famous for its canals, which,
10 accordiug'to Ib'n Haukal, exceeded 100,000 in number, and of these 20,000 were navigable for
boats. Le Strange, Land of the Eastern Caliphate, 46.
10) The list of products here given includes the most important ones brought to China by
the Arabs from various countries of the West; more detailed descriptions of them arc given in
Part II this work.
15 , 11) The last character is certainly an error, it should be ^a(ii&). In another passage (Pt. II,
Ch. XXXVI) our author, however, writes the name Ma-Io-mo (^^ R|^ -f^)- ^^ shown in a pre-
vious note (supra, p. 25 note 3-) the country referred to is Mirbat (Lb^) on the Hadramaut
coast of Arabia. Ch6u K'fl-fei says of it (3,2, continuing the passage quoted supra, pp. 119—120):
«The king of the country, the officers and the people all worship Heaven (i. e. are iloslims). The
20 gentry wear turbans of white silk falling down the back; they have designs in gold thread in them;
Their clothes are. made of white yui-no stuff with golden characters in it, or else of brocades (f
sundry kinds. They wear red leather boots. They live in five-storied houses. They eat wheaten
cakes, meat and milk. The poor eat fish and vegetables. The soil does not produce rice. The fruits
they produce are more sweet than sour. They make wine from grapes. There is also the drink
25 (called) ssi (}^^ ^^ V®) ''^hich is a decoction of sugar and spices. Mixing honey and spices
they make drinks (called) me?, ss'i-la, hua ( j^ ^^ :J*J' 3pE), which are heating and stimulating.
Their coins are of toth gold and silver. (It is a place) where big ships and wealthy traders con-
gregate ( g
^ *M ^ "^1^ ^ )•
^"^ *'"'' *^''''^ y^'"' J/"«w-2/'« of Ch&-tsuug (1088 A. D.) in
the eleventh moon, people sent by the Ta-shi of Ma-lo^pa presented tribute to our Court. Now this
30 Ma-lo-pa is the same as Ma-li-pa» ^'''"^s''*'i {^ ^^ makes sundry mentions' of «the
-l'^)'
country of Ma-lo-pa of the Ta-shi». It records (17,s) the coming of the mission of 1088, spoken of
by Ch6u K'u-fei, and also (17,i3) that of missions from the same country in 1089 and in 1094.
12) Shi'-ho is Shehr, another port on the Hadramaut coast, of considerable importance in
mediaeval times; it is the Esher (or Soer) of Marco Polo, sec Yule's, Marco Polo (2^ edit.), II,
'35 324, 439 and Heyd, Hist, du Commerce, II, SOO. See also infra, Pt. II, Ch. XXV.
Nu-fa is Zufar, the modern Dhofar f^UJi), the Dufar of Polo, about 400 miles E^of Shehr.
Yule, op. oH., II. 441-442, Hey d, op. cit., II, 015. Ming-shi, 326, calls it Tsu-fa-ir (|g^ ^ ^).
• " Ya-ssi-piin-hito, in Amoy dialect A-su-pau-han, is Ispahan or Isfahan. In the Yuan
period we find the name written I-ssi-fa-hang (:^ ,g, ^ i^). Cretschneider, J. C. B'.
40 A. S., X, See also infra, Pt. II, Ch. IX.
Lo shJ-mei in Cantonese Lo-shi-mi, appears to be a tiimcated transcription of Khwaiizm,
the country south of the sea of Aral; Lo-shi-mei probably representing the sound rizm. See alsd
infra, Pt. II, Ch. IX. It is called Ho-li-si-mi-kia (^ ^|] ^ ^ jjp ) by H U a n-t s a ng (J u 1 i e n,
HI, 283), andis probably first referred to (Ts'ien Han-shu, 96A, 176) as one of the dependencies of
45 K'ang-k'u (Sogdiana) under the name of Au-kien (^ ^), the old sound of which characters,
according -to Yen Shi-ku, was Dk-ken, which may be connected with the name of the present city
of Kuhne, (Old) Urgendj, the GorgSniya of the Middle Ages. In the commentary on this passage (see
Han-shu Si-yQ-chuan-pu-chu, l,si) Au-kien is identified with Huan-tsa^'s Ho-li-si-mi-kia,andthe
abbreviated names (appearing in T'ang-shu, 22 1 B,5)of Huo-siin (^ ^) andKuo-li()j^ ^|J),
50 which the T'ang-shu says correspond with the site of the ancient city of Au-kien The description
of the T'ang-shu leaves but little doubt about the identification of all these names with
Khwarizm.