Chau Ju-Kua - University of Oregon Libraries

I>34 KUM (ASIA minor). HI
See Le Strange, op. cit., 436—437. Likewise as to coral, our author can only mean that it was
plentiful in the Mosul market.
U
(X ^)-
^\^'*°^ '' ^'^* mentioned in the Hou Han-shu, 11G,2;» under the name liuo-mm,,
^^^ Hirth, China and the Eoman Orient, 249-251. Ashestos, according to Fei-
5 w6n-yfln-fu, 66A, lee, was described in the text known as Lifi-tzi, but it was probably not known
before the Han dynasty.
34.
RUM (ASIA MINOR).
«-ii-meT(M Ji)-
10 If one travels by land in a westerly direction for some three hundred
stages from Ma-lo-pa, one reaches Lu-mei, also called Mei-lu-ku (j| ^
»^). The city wall (^) is crooked, seven-fold, «and built of large smooth
flat black stones, and each wall (^) is distant (from the adjoining one) a
thousand paces». «There are over three hundred foreign towers (^ ^ mina-
15 rets), among which is one eight hundred feet high», which four horses
abreast can be driven up. «It has three hundred and sixty rooms in it«.
c(The people all wear turbans which hang down on the neck, and their
clothing is made of coloured woollen stuffs (^ % |^). Their food consists
of meat and meal (cakes). They use gold and silver coins». Forty thousand
20 families are employed weaving silk brocades (^^). The products of the country
are byssus (? «^ |§), gold spangled yue-no cloth (^ ^ ^ ^ ^), bro-
cades with alternating stripes of gold and silk, bezoar stones, wu-ming-i,
rose-water, gardenia flowers, liquid storax, borax, and a superior quality of
engraved opaque glassware. The people are fond of breeding camels, horses
25 and dogs.
Note.
There is but little doubt that our author's Lu-mei is the Eum Bilad ar-Eum, the 'Land
of the Greeks' of the Arab geographers, Asia Minor; but where we are to look for Mei-lu-ku (or
rather Mei-lu-ku-tun as the name is written by Chou K'ii-fei) is quite another matter, as there
30 is nothing in the Chinese name or in the description of the place to help us to elucidate the
question. One is inclined to look for it in Kuniyah (Iconinm, Konieh) which was the capital of
the Seljuk Sultanate of Eum from 1077 to 1257, when it was captured by the Mongols. See
Le Strange, op. cit., 140, 148. If weconsider only the description ofthe city of Mei-lu-ku, we find
some points of resemblance (the division ofthe city in seven parts, and the separation of these various
35 parts from-each otherywith Damascus. See von Kremer, Kulturgeschichte, etc., 1, 127 et seqq. But
Damascus was not in Rum. The 'foreign tower' (minaret, mosque) eight handred feet high(!)with three
hundred and sixty chambers in it, may refer to the Djami mosque of Damascus; the great impor-
tance of the silk brocade industry of Mei-lu-ku points also to that great centre of Oriental trade.
In Chou K'li-fei's work (3,3*) the passage concerning this place reads as follows: «There
40 is the Mei-lu-ku-tun ( E S^ *a* 'S) country. It is in (J§) a seven-fold wall (or «city»).