Whether the application by foreigners of the term Zayton, may, by some possible change in trade arrangements in the quarter-century after Polo’s departure from China, have undergone a transfer, is a question which it would be vain to answer positively without further evidence.  But as regards Polo’s Zayton, I continue in the belief that this was T’swan-chau and its haven, with the admission that this haven may probably have embraced that great basin called Amoy Harbour, or part of it.[4]

[Besides the two papers I have already mentioned, the late Mr. Phillips has published, since the last edition of Marco Polo, in the T’oung-Pao, VI. and VII.:  Two Mediaeval Fuh-kien Trading Ports:  Chuean-chow and Chang-chow.  He has certainly given many proofs of the importance of Chang-chau at the time of the Mongol Dynasty, and one might well hesitate (I know it was also the feeling of Sir Henry Yule at the end of his life) between this city and T’swan-chau, but the weak point of his controversy is his theory about Fu-chau.  However, Mr. George Phillips, who died in 1896, gathered much valuable material, of which we have made use; it is only fair to pay this tribute to the memory of this learned consul.—­H.C.]

Martini (circa 1650) describes T’swan-chau as delightfully situated on a promontory between two branches of the estuary which forms the harbour, and these so deep that the largest ships could come up to the walls on either side.  A great suburb, Loyang, lay beyond the northern water, connected with the city by the most celebrated bridge in China.  Collinson’s Chart in some points below the town gives only 1-1/4 fathom for the present depth, but Dr. Douglas tells me he has even now occasionally seen large junks come close to the city.

Chinchew, though now occasionally visited by missionaries and others, is not a Treaty port, and we have not a great deal of information about its modern state.  It is the head-quarters of the T’i-tuh, or general commanding the troops in Fo-kien.  The walls have a circuit of 7 or 8 miles, but embracing much vacant ground.  The chief exports now are tea and sugar, which are largely grown in the vicinity, tobacco, china-ware, nankeens, etc.  There are still to be seen (as I learn from Mr. Phillips) the ruins of a fine mosque, said to have been founded by the Arab traders who resorted thither.  The English Presbyterian Church Mission has had a chapel in the city for about ten years.

Zayton, we have seen from Ibn Batuta’s report, was famed for rich satins called Zaituniah.  I have suggested in another work (Cathay, p. 486) that this may be the origin of our word Satin, through the Zettani of mediaeval Italian (or Aceytuni of mediaeval Spanish).  And I am more strongly disposed to support this, seeing that Francisque-Michel, in considering the origin of Satin, hesitates between Satalin from Satalia in Asia Minor and Soudanin from the Soudan or Sultan; neither half so probable as Zaituni.  I may add that in a French list of charges of 1352 we find the intermediate form Zatony. Satin in the modern form occurs in Chaucer:—­