journey lasted; he left Peking on the 1st May, 1892, reached Tai-yuan on the 12th, and arrived at Si-ngan on the 30th (Von Peking nach Ch’ang-an).  Mr. Rockhill left Peking on the 17th December, 1888, reached T’ai-yuan on the 26th, crossed the Yellow River on the 5th January, and arrived at Si-ngan fu on the 8th January, 1889, in twenty-two days, a distance of 916 miles. (Land of the Lamas, pp. 372-374.) M. Grenard left Si-ngan on the 10th November and reached Peking on the 16th December, 1894 = thirty-six days; he reckons 1389 kilometres = 863 miles.  (See Rev. C. Holcombe, Tour through Shan-hsi and Shen-hsi in Jour.  North China Br.R.A.S.N.S. X. pp. 54-70.)—­H.C.]

[Illustration:  The Bridge of Pulisanghin. (From the Livre des Merveilles.)]

NOTE 2.—­Pul-i-Sangin, the name which Marco gives the River, means in Persian simply (as Marsden noticed) “The Stone Bridge.”  In a very different region the same name often occurs in the history of Timur applied to a certain bridge, in the country north of Badakhshan, over the Wakhsh branch of the Oxus.  And the Turkish admiral Sidi ’Ali, travelling that way from India in the 16th century, applies the name, as it is applied here, to the river; for his journal tells us that beyond Kulib he crossed “the River Pulisangin.”

We may easily suppose, therefore, that near Cambaluc also, the Bridge, first, and then the River, came to be known to the Persian-speaking foreigners of the court and city by this name.  This supposition is however a little perplexed by the circumstance that Rashiduddin calls the River the Sangin and that Sangkan-Ho appears from the maps or citations of Martini, Klaproth, Neumann, and Pauthier to have been one of the Chinese names of the river, and indeed, Sankang is still the name of one of the confluents forming the Hwan Ho.

[By Sanghin, Polo renders the Chinese Sang-kan, by which name the River Hun-ho is already mentioned, in the 6th century of our era. Hun-ho is also an ancient name; and the same river in ancient books is often called Lu-Kou River also.  All these names are in use up to the present time; but on modern Chinese maps, only the upper part of the river is termed Sang-Kan ho, whilst south of the inner Great Wall, and in the plain, the name of Hun-ho is applied to it. Hun ho means “Muddy River,” and the term is quite suitable.  In the last century, the Emperor K’ien-lung ordered the Hun-ho to be named Yung-ting ho, a name found on modern maps, but the people always call it Hun ho (Bretschneider, Peking, p. 54.)—­H.C.]