NOTE 1.—­In all the Shan towns visited by Major Sladen on this frontier he found markets held every fifth day.  This custom, he says, is borrowed from China, and is general throughout Western Yun-nan.  There seem to be traces of this five-day week over Indo-China, and it is found in Java; as it is in Mexico.  The Kakhyens attend in great crowds.  They do not now bring gold for sale to Momein, though it is found to some extent in their hills, more especially in the direction of Mogaung, whence it is exported towards Assam.

Major Sladen saw a small quantity of nuggets in the possession of a Kakhyen who had brought them from a hill two days north of Bhamo. (MS. Notes by Major Sladen.)

NOTE 2.—­I confess that the indications in this and the beginning of the following chapter are, to me, full of difficulty.  According to the general style of Polo’s itinerary, the 2-1/2 days should be reckoned from Yung-ch’ang; the distance therefore to the capital city of Mien would be 17-1/2 days.  The real capital of Mien or Burma at this time was, however, Pagan, in lat. 21 deg. 13’, and that city could hardly have been reached by a land traveller in any such time.  We shall see that something may be said in behalf of the supposition that the point reached was Tagaung or Old Pagan, on the upper Irawadi, in lat. 23 deg. 28’; and there was perhaps some confusion in the traveller’s mind between this and the great city.  The descent might then be from Yung-ch’ang to the valley of the Shweli, and that valley then followed to the Irawadi.  Taking as a scale Polo’s 5 marches from Tali to Yung-ch’ang, I find we should by this route make just about 17 marches from Yung-ch’ang to Tagaung.  We have no detailed knowledge of the route, but there is a road that way, and by no other does the plain country approach so near to Yung-ch’ang. (See Anderson’s Report on Expedition to Western Yunnan, p. 160.)

Dr. Anderson’s remarks on the present question do not in my opinion remove the difficulties.  He supposes the long descent to be the descent into the plains of the Irawadi near Bhamo; and from that point the land journey to Great Pagan could, he conceives, “easily be accomplished in 15 days.”  I greatly doubt the latter assumption.  By the scale I have just referred to it would take at least 20 days.  And to calculate the 2-1/2 days with which the journey commences from an indefinite point seems scarcely admissible.  Polo is giving us a continuous itinerary; it would be ruptured if he left an indefinite distance between his last station and his “long descent.”  And if the same principle were applied to the 5 days between Carajan (or Tali) and Vochan (Yung-ch’ang), the result would be nonsense.

[Illustration:  Temple of Gaudapalen (in the city of Mien), erected circa A.D. 1160.]

[Mien-tien, to which is devoted ch. vii. of the Chinese work Sze-i-kwan-k’ao, appears to have included much more than Burma proper.  (See the passage supra, pp. 70-71, quoted by Deveria from the Yuen-shi lei pien regarding Kien-tou and Kin-Chi.)—­H.C.]