NOTE 8.—­Marsden, after referring to the ingenious frauds commonly related of Chinese traders, observes:  “In the long continued intercourse that has subsisted between the agents of the European companies and the more eminent of the Chinese merchants ... complaints on the ground of commercial unfairness have been extremely rare, and on the contrary, their transactions have been marked with the most perfect good faith and mutual confidence.”  Mr. Consul Medhurst bears similar strong testimony to the upright dealings of Chinese merchants.  His remark that, as a rule, he has found that the Chinese deteriorate by intimacy with foreigners is worthy of notice;[3] it is a remark capable of application wherever the East and West come into habitual contact.  Favourable opinions among the nations on their frontiers of Chinese dealing, as expressed to Wood and Burnes in Turkestan, and to Macleod and Richardson in Laos, have been quoted by me elsewhere in reference to the old classical reputation of the Seres for integrity.  Indeed, Marco’s whole account of the people here might pass for an expanded paraphrase of the Latin commonplaces regarding the Seres.  Mr. Milne, a missionary for many years in China, stands up manfully against the wholesale disparagement or Chinese character (p. 401).

NOTE 9.—­Semedo and Martini, in the 17th century, give a very similar account of the Lake Si-hu, the parties of pleasure frequenting it, and their gay barges. (Semedo, pp. 20-21; Mart. p. 9.) But here is a Chinese picture of the very thing described by Marco, under the Sung Dynasty:  “When Yaou Shunming was Prefect of Hangchow, there was an old woman, who said she was formerly a singing-girl, and in the service of Tung-p’o Seen-sheng.[4] She related that her master, whenever he found a leisure day in spring, would invite friends to take their pleasure on the lake.  They used to take an early meal on some agreeable spot, and, the repast over, a chief was chosen for the company of each barge, who called a number of dancing-girls to follow them to any place they chose.  As the day waned a gong sounded to assemble all once more at ’Lake Prospect Chambers,’ or at the ‘Bamboo Pavilion,’ or some place of the kind, where they amused themselves to the top of their bent, and then, at the first or second drum, before the evening market dispersed, returned home by candle-light.  In the city, gentlemen and ladies assembled in crowds, lining the way to see the return of the thousand Knights.  It must have been a brave spectacle of that time.” (Moule, from the Si-hu-Chi, or “Topography of the West Lake.”) It is evident, from what Mr. Moule says, that this book abounds in interesting illustration of these two chapters of Polo.  Barges with paddle-wheels are alluded to.

NOTE 10.—­Public carriages are still used in the great cities of the north, such as Peking.  Possibly this is a revival.  At one time carriages appear to have been much more general in China than they were afterwards, or are now.  Semedo says they were abandoned in China just about the time that they were adopted in Europe, viz. in the 16th century.  And this disuse seems to have been either cause or effect of the neglect of the roads, of which so high an account is given in old times. (Semedo; N. and Q. Ch. and Jap. I. 94.)