—­“Be those juggling fiends no more believed
  That palter with us in a double sense;
  That keep the word of promise to our ear
  And break it to our hope!”

It would seem from the expression, both in Pauthier’s text and in the G. T., as if Polo intended to say that Chincsan (Cinqsan) meant “One Hundred Eyes”; and if so we could have no stronger proof of his ignorance of Chinese.  It is Pe-yen, the Chinese form of Bayan, that means, or rather may be punningly rendered, “One Hundred Eyes.”  Chincsan, i.e. Ching-siang, was the title of the superior ministers of state at Khanbaligh, as we have already seen.  The title occurs pretty frequently in the Persian histories of the Mongols, and frequently as a Mongol title in Sanang Setzen.  We find it also disguised as Chyansam in a letter from certain Christian nobles at Khanbaligh, which Wadding quotes from the Papal archives. (See Cathay, pp. 314-315.)

But it is right to observe that in the Ramusian version the mistranslation which we have noticed is not so undubitable:  “Volendo sapere come avea nome il Capitano nemico, le fu detto, Chinsambaian, cioe Cent’occhi.”

A kind of corroboration of Marco’s story, but giving a different form to the pun, has been found by Mr. W.F.  Mayers, of the Diplomatic Department in China, in a Chinese compilation dating from the latter part of the 14th century.  Under the heading, “A Kiang-nan Prophecy,” this book states that prior to the fall of the Sung a prediction ran through Kiang-nan:  “If Kiang-nan fall, a hundred wild geese (Pe-yen) will make their appearance.”  This, it is added, was not understood till the generalissimo Peyen Chingsiang made his appearance on the scene.  “Punning prophecies of this kind are so common in Chinese history, that the above is only worth noticing in connection with Marco Polo’s story.” (N. and Q., China and Japan, vol. ii. p. 162.)

But I should suppose that the Persian historian Wassaf had also heard a bungled version of the same story, which he tells in a pointless manner of the fortress of Sinafur (evidently a clerical error for Saianfu, see below, ch. lxx.):  “Payan ordered this fortress to be assaulted.  The garrison had heard how the capital of China had fallen, and the army of Payan was drawing near.  The commandant was an experienced veteran who had tasted all the sweets and bitters of fortune, and had borne the day’s heat and the night’s cold; he had, as the saw goes, milked the world’s cow dry.  So he sent word to Payan:  ‘In my youth’ (here we abridge Wassaf’s rigmarole) ’I heard my father tell that this fortress should be taken by a man called Payan, and that all fencing and trenching, fighting and smiting, would be of no avail.  You need not, therefore, bring an army hither; we give in; we surrender the fortress and all that is therein.’  So they opened the gates and came down.” (Wassaf, Hammer’s ed., p. 41).