Chau Ju-Kua - University of Oregon Libraries

ISTRODUCTION. 37
the information supplied him directly by Chinese and foreign traders of the
lands they had visited and concerning the products of their soil. The facts he
there records are not to be found in any other known Chinese work either of
the thirteenth or of subsequent centuries; he was the first, so far as we know,
5 to make known to China the names and some few facts, at least, concerning
many countries and localities of south-western Asia, ofAfrica and of the Medi-
terranean Sea.
The sections of the Chu-fan-chi based exclusively, it would seem, on oral
information famished the author by Chinese and foreign traders, are those
10 dealing with San-fo-tsM, Tah-ma-ling, Ling-ya-ssi-kia, Fo-lo-an, Sin-t'o,
Kien-pi, Lan-wu-li, Si-lan, Su-ki-tan, Nan-p'i, Hu-ch'a-la, Ma-lo-hua, Tsong-
pa, Wu-pa, Chung-li, Wong-man, Ki-shi", Pi-sSi-lo, Wu-ssi-li (Egypt),
0-k6n-to, An-tO'man, Cha-pi-sha, Ssi-kia-li-y6, Mo-ki6-la, Po-ssi, Ma-i,
San-sti and Pi-sho-ye.
15 In some chapters, while most of his information must have been supplied
him by traders, he has added to it paragraphs taken from Chou K'u fei's
work. These are the chapters on Chan-ch'6ng, Pin-tung-lung, Chon-la, P'u-
kan, Sh8-p*o, Chu-li6n, the Ta-shi, Pi-pa-lo and Ki-tzi-ni.
In the chapters on Ta-ts'in, T'i6n-chu, Wu-ssi-li (Mosul), Lu-mei, Mu-
20 lan-p'i, Ma-kia, Pai-ta, K'un-lung-ts6ng-ki, Sha-hua-kung, Ma-lo-nu and
Nii-kuo, he either quotes nearly verbatim the Ling-wai-tai-ta, or takes prac-
tically all his information from the Dynastic histories, the T'ung-tien or some
other minor work, adding occasionally a few words of his owu.
The chapter on the island of Hai-nan is very largely taken from the
25 Dynastic histories and from the Ling-wai-tai-ta, but it contains also much
valuable original matter.
The chapters on Sin-lo and Wo are practically entirely copied from the
Dynastic histories without any regard to the periods to which they refer. These
chapters have consequently less value than any other portion of this work, though
30 they are useful as showing the knowledge possessed by Chinese of these coun-
tries in the days of Chau Ju-kua.
The second part of Chau's work, which is devoted to a description of the
principal foreign products mentioned in the first part, contains a considerable
amount of information, which the author probably got from traders at Ts'uan-
35 chou; he, however, makes frequent use of the'Yu-yang-tsa-tsu and the Ling-
wai-tai-ta, and has based his statements for the most part on the same autho-
rities-mentioned previously in writing many of the articles. In this second part,
chapters XIX and XLI are verbatim quotations, without the addition of a