Chau Ju-Kua - University of Oregon Libraries

Hi HISK (EOYPT). 1,36
36.
MISR (EGYPT).
Wii ssi-li {^ 1^ M).
The country of Wu-ssi-li is under the dominion of Pai-ta. The king is
fair; he wears a turban, a jacket and black boots. When he shows himself in 5
public he is on horseback, and before him go three hundred led horses with
saddles and bridles ornamented with gold and jewels. There go also ten
tigers held with iron chains; an hundred men watch them, and fifty men hold
the chains. There are also an hundred club-bearers and thirty hawk-bearers.
Furthermore a thousand horsemen surround and guard him, and three lo
hundred body-slaves (^ ^) bear bucklers and swords. Two men carry the
king's arms before him, and an hundred kettle-drummers follow him on horse-
back. The whole pageant is very grand ^
The people live on cakes, and flesh; they eat no rice. Dry weather
usually prevails. The government extends over sixteen provinces ("}]]), with 15
a circumference (j^ |eJ) of over sixty stages. "When rain falls the people's
farming (is not helped thereby, but on the contrary) is washed out and des-
troyed. There is a river (in this country) of very clear and sweet water, and
the source whence springs this river is not known. If there is a year of
drought, the rivers of all other countries get low, this river alone remains as 20
usual, with abundance of water for farming purposes, and the people avail
themselves of it in their agriculture. Each succeeding year it is thus, and
men of seventy or eighty years of age cannot recollect that it has rained ^.
An old tradition says that when Shi-su (-|^ ^), a descendant in the
third generation of P'u-lo-hung (^ Rp V^), seized the government of this 25
country, he was afraid that the land would suffer from drought on account
of there being no rain; so he chose a tract of land near the river on which
he established three hundred and sixty villages, and all these villages had to
grow wheat; and, so that the ensuing year the people of the whole country
should be supplied with food for every day, each of these villages supplied it 30
for one day, and thus the three hundred and sixty villages supplied enough
food for a year '-
Furthermore there is a city ( j>|>|) called Ki§-y6 (^ ^) on the bank of
this river*. Every two or three years an old man comes out of the water of
the river; his hair is black and short, his beard is hoary. He seats himself on 35