CHAPTER XLV.
OF THE CITY OF ETZINA.
When you leave the city of Campichu you ride for twelve days, and then
reach a city called ETZINA, which is towards the north on the verge
of the Sandy Desert; it belongs to the Province of Tangut.{1} The
people are Idolaters, and possess plenty of camels and cattle, and the
country produces a number of good falcons, both Sakers and Lanners. The
inhabitants live by their cultivation and their cattle, for they have
no trade. At this city you must needs lay in victuals for forty days,
because when you quit Etzina, you enter on a desert which extends forty
days’ journey to the north, and on which you meet with no habitation
nor baiting-place.{2} In the summer-time, indeed, you will fall in with
people, but in the winter the cold is too great. You also meet with
wild beasts (for there are some small pine-woods here and there), and
with numbers of wild asses.{3} When you have travelled these forty days
across the Desert you come to a certain province lying to the north.
Its name you shall hear presently.
[Illustration: Wild Ass of Mongolia.]
NOTE 1.—Deguignes says that YETSINA is found in a Chinese Map of
Tartary of the Mongol era, and this is confirmed by Pauthier, who
reads it _Itsinai_, and adds that the text of the Map names it
as one of the seven _Lu_ or Circuits of the Province of Kansuh
(or Tangut). Indeed, in D’Anville’s Atlas we find a river called
_Etsina Pira_, running northward from Kanchau, and a little below
the 41st parallel joining another from Suhchau. Beyond the
junction is a town called _Hoa-tsiang_, which probably represents
Etzina. Yetsina is also mentioned in Gaubil’s History of Chinghiz
as taken by that conqueror in 1226, on his last campaign against
Tangut. This capture would also seem from Pétis de la Croix to be
mentioned by Rashiduddin. Gaubil says the Chinese Geography places
Yetsina north of Kanchau and north-east of Suhchau, at a distance
of 120 leagues from Kanchau, but observes that this is certainly
too great. (_Gaubil_, p. 49.)
[I believe there can be no doubt that Etzina must be looked for
on the river _Hei-shui_, called _Etsina_ by the Mongols, east of
Suhchau. This river empties its waters into the two lakes Soho-omo
and Sopo-omo. Etzina would have been therefore situated on the
river on the border of the Desert, at the top of a triangle whose
bases would be Suhchau and Kanchau. This river was once part
of the frontier of the kingdom of Tangut. (Cf. _Devéria, Notes
d’épigraphie mongolo-chinoise_, p. 4.) Reclus (_Géog. Univ., Asie
Orientale_, p. 159) says: “To the east [of Hami], beyond the Chukur
Gobi, are to be found also some permanent villages and the remains
of cities. One of them is perhaps the ‘cité d’Etzina’ of which
Marco Polo speaks, and the name is to be found in that of the river
Az-sind.”
“Through Kanchau was the shortest, and most direct and convenient
road to _I-tsi-nay_.... I-tsi-nay, or _Echiné_, is properly the
name of a lake. Khubilaï, disquieted by his factious relatives on
the north, established a military post near lake I-tsi-nay, and
built a town, or a fort on the south-western shore of this lake.
The name of I-tsi-nay appears from that time; it does not occur
in the chronicle of the Tangut kingdom; the lake had then another
name. Vestiges of the town are seen to this day; the buildings
were of large dimensions, and some of them were very fine. In
Marco Polo’s time there existed a direct route from I-tsi-nay to
Karakorum; traces of this road are still noticeable, but it is
no more used. This circumstance, _i.e._ the existence of a road
from I-tsi-nay to Karakorum, probably led Marco Polo to make an
excursion (a mental one, I suppose) to the residence of the Khans
in Northern Mongolia.” (_Palladius_, _l.c._ pp. 10–11.)—H. C.]
NOTE 2.—“_Erberge_” (G. T.). Pauthier has _Herbage_.
NOTE 3.—The Wild Ass of Mongolia is the _Dshiggetai_ of Pallas
(_Asinus hemionus_ of Gray), and identical with the Tibetan _Kyang_
of Moorcroft and Trans-Himalayan sportsmen. It differs, according
to Blyth, only in shades of colour and unimportant markings from
the _Ghor Khar_ of Western India and the Persian Deserts, the
_Kulan_ of Turkestan, which Marco has spoken of in a previous
passage (_suprà_, ch. xvi.; _J. A. S. B._ XXVIII. 229 _seqq._).
There is a fine Kyang in the Zoological Gardens, whose portrait,
after Wolf, is given here. But Mr. Ney Elias says of this animal
that he has little of the aspect of his nomadic brethren. [The wild
ass (Tibetan _Kyang_, Mongol _Holu_ or _Hulan_) is called by the
Chinese _yeh ma_, “wild horse,” though “every one admits that it is
an ass, and should be called _yeh lo-tzŭ_.” (_Rockhill, Land of the
Lamas_, 151, note.)—H. C.]
[Captain Younghusband (1886) saw in the Altaï Mountains
“considerable numbers of wild asses, which appeared to be perfectly
similar to the Kyang of Ladak and Tibet, and wild horses too—the
_Equus Prejevalskii_—roaming about these great open plains.”
(_Proc. R. G. S._ X. 1888, p. 495.) Dr. Sven Hedin says the
_habitat_ of the _Kulan_ is the heights of Tibet as well as the
valley of the Tarim; it looks like a mule with the mane and tail of
an ass, but shorter ears, longer than those of a horse; he gives a
picture of it.—H. C.]