Marco’s amount, as he gives it, is, I think, unquestionably a huge exaggeration, though I do not suppose an intentional one.  In spite of his professed rendering of the amounts in gold, I have little doubt that his tomans really represent paper-currency, and that to get a valuation in gold, his total has to be divided at the very least by two.  We may then compare his total of 290 tomans of paper ting with Pauthier’s 130 tomans of paper ting, excluding sea-customs and some other items.  No nearer comparison is practicable; and besides the sources of doubt already indicated, it remains uncertain what in either calculation are the limits of the province intended.  For the bounds of Kiang-Che seem to have varied greatly, sometimes including and sometimes excluding Fo-kien.

I may observe that Rashiduddin reports, on the authority of the Mongol minister Pulad Chingsang, that the whole of Manzi brought in a revenue of “900 tomans.”  This Quatremere renders “nine million pieces of gold,” presumably meaning dinars.  It is unfortunate that there should be uncertainty here again as to the unit.  If it were the dinar the whole revenue of Manzi would be about 5,850,000_l._, whereas if the unit were, as in the case of Polo’s toman, the ting, the revenue would be nearly 30,000,000 sterling!

It does appear that in China a toman of some denomination of money near the dinar was known in account.  For Friar Odoric states the revenue of Yang-chau in tomans of Balish, the latter unit being, as he explains, a sum in paper-currency equivalent to a florin and a half (or something more than a dinar); perhaps, however, only the liang or tael (see vol. i. pp. 426-7).

It is this calculation of the Kinsay revenue which Marco is supposed to be expounding to his fellow-prisoner on the title-page of this volume. [See P.  Hoang, Commerce Public du Sel, Shanghai, 1898, Liang-tahe-yen, pp. 6-7.—­H.C.]

[1] Pauthier’s MSS.  A and B are hopelessly corrupt here.  His MS. C agrees
    with the Geog.  Text in making the toman = 70,000 saggi, but 210 tomans
    = 15,700,000, instead of 14,700,000.  The Crusca and Latin have 80,000
    saggi in the first place, but 15,700,000 in the second.  Ramusio alone
    has 80,000 in the first place, and 16,800,000 in the second.

[2] Eng.  Cyclop., “Weights and Measures."

CHAPTER LXXIX.

OF THE CITY OF TANPIJU AND OTHERS.

When you leave Kinsay and travel a day’s journey to the south-east, through a plenteous region, passing a succession of dwellings and charming gardens, you reach the city of TANPIJU, a great, rich, and fine city, under Kinsay.  The people are subject to the Kaan, and have paper-money, and are Idolaters, and burn their dead in the way described before.  They live by trade and manufactures and handicrafts, and have all necessaries in great plenty and cheapness.[NOTE 1]