CHAPTER XLIII.
OF THE PROVINCE OF SUKCHUR.
On leaving the province of which I spoke before,{1} you ride ten days
between north-east and east, and in all that way you find no human
dwelling, or next to none, so that there is nothing for our book to
speak of.
At the end of those ten days you come to another province called
SUKCHUR, in which there are numerous towns and villages. The chief
city is called SUKCHU.{2} The people are partly Christians and partly
Idolaters, and all are subject to the Great Kaan.
The great General Province to which all these three provinces belong is
called TANGUT.
Over all the mountains of this province rhubarb is found in great
abundance, and thither merchants come to buy it, and carry it thence
all over the world.{3} [Travellers, however, dare not visit those
mountains with any cattle but those of the country, for a certain plant
grows there which is so poisonous that cattle which eat it lose their
hoofs. The cattle of the country know it and eschew it.{4}] The people
live by agriculture, and have not much trade. [They are of a brown
complexion. The whole of the province is healthy.]
NOTE 1.—Referring apparently to Shachau; see Note 1 and the closing
words of last chapter.
NOTE 2.—There is no doubt that the province and city are those of
SUHCHAU, but there is a great variety in the readings, and several
texts have a marked difference between the name of the province
and that of the city, whilst others give them as the same. I have
adopted those to which the resultants of the readings of the best
texts seem to point, viz. _Succiur_ and _Succiu_, though with
considerable doubt whether they should not be identical. Pauthier
declares that _Suctur_, which is the reading of his favourite MS.,
is the exact pronunciation, after the vulgar Mongol manner, of
_Suh-chau-lu_, the _Lu_ or circuit of Suhchau; whilst Neumann says
that the Northern Chinese constantly add an euphonic particle _or_
to the end of words. I confess to little faith in such refinements,
when no evidence is produced.
[Suhchau had been devastated and its inhabitants massacred by
Chinghiz Khan in 1226.—H. C.]
Suhchau is called by Rashiduddin, and by Shah Rukh’s ambassadors,
_Sukchú_, in exact correspondence with the reading we have adopted
for the name of the city, whilst the Russian Envoy Boikoff, in the
17th century, calls it “_Suktsey_, where the rhubarb grows”; and
Anthony Jenkinson, in Hakluyt, by a slight metathesis, _Sowchick_.
Suhchau lies just within the extreme north-west angle of the Great
Wall. It was at Suhchau that Benedict Goës was detained, waiting
for leave to go on to Peking, eighteen weary months, and there he
died just as aid reached him.
NOTE 3.—The real rhubarb [_Rheum palmatum_] grows wild, on very
high mountains. The central line of its distribution appears to be
the high range dividing the head waters of the Hwang-Ho, Yalung,
and Min-Kiang. The chief markets are Siningfu (see ch. lvii.), and
Kwan-Kian in Szechwan. In the latter province an inferior kind is
grown in fields, but the genuine rhubarb defies cultivation. (See
_Richthofen_, Letters, No. VII. p. 69.) Till recently it was almost
all exported by Kiakhta and Russia, but some now comes _viâ_ Hankau
and Shanghai.
[“See, on the preparation of the root in China, Gemelli-Careri.
(_Churchill’s Collect._, Bk. III. ch. v. 365.) It is said that when
Chinghiz Khan was pillaging Tangut, the only things his minister,
Yeh-lü Ch’u-ts’ai, would take as his share of the booty were a few
Chinese books and a supply of rhubarb, with which he saved the
lives of a great number of Mongols, when, a short time after, an
epidemic broke out in the army.” (_D’Ohsson_, I. 372.—_Rockhill,
Rubruck_, p. 193, note.)
“With respect to rhubarb ... the _Suchowchi_ also makes the remark,
that the best rhubarb, with golden flowers in the breaking, is
gathered in this province (district of _Shan-tan_), and that it
is equally beneficial to men and beasts, preserving them from the
pernicious effects of the heat.” (_Palladius_, _l.c._ p. 9.)—H. C.]
NOTE 4.—_Erba_ is the title applied to the poisonous growth, which
may be either “plant” or “grass.” It is not unlikely that it was
a plant akin to the _Andromeda ovalifolia_, the tradition of the
poisonous character of which prevails everywhere along the Himalaya
from Nepal to the Indus.
It is notorious for poisoning sheep and goats at Simla and other
hill sanitaria; and Dr. Cleghorn notes the same circumstance
regarding it that Polo heard of the plant in Tangut, viz. that its
effects on flocks imported from the plains are highly injurious,
whilst those of the hills do not appear to suffer, probably because
they shun the young leaves, which alone are deleterious. Mr. Marsh
attests the like fact regarding the _Kalmia angustifolia_ of New
England, a plant of the same order (_Ericaceae_). Sheep bred where
it abounds almost always avoid browsing on its leaves, whilst those
brought from districts where it is unknown feed upon it and are
poisoned.
Firishta, quoting from the _Zafar-Námah_, says: “On the road from
Kashmir towards Tibet there is a plain on which no other vegetable
grows but a poisonous grass that destroys all the cattle that taste
of it, and therefore no horsemen venture to travel that route.”
And Abbé Desgodins, writing from E. Tibet, mentions that sheep and
goats are poisoned by rhododendron leaves. (_Dr. Hugh Cleghorn_
in _J. Agricultural and Hortic. Society of India_, XIV. part 4;
_Marsh’s Man and Nature_, p. 40; _Brigg’s Firishta_, IV. 449; _Bul.
de la Soc. de Géog._ 1873, I. 333.)
[“This poisonous plant seems to be the _Stipa inebrians_ described
by the late Dr. Hance in the _Journal of Bot._ 1876, p. 211, from
specimens sent to me by Belgian Missionaries from the Ala Shan
Mountains, west of the Yellow River.” (_Bretschneider, Hist. of
Bot. Disc._ I. p. 5.)
“M. Polo notices that the cattle not indigenous to the province
lose their hoofs in the Suh-chau Mountains; but that is probably
not on account of some poisonous grass, but in consequence of the
stony ground.” (_Palladius_, _l.c._ p. 9.)—H. C.]