v. 7.) The Russian traveller, Potanin, found the Salar living in twenty-four villages, near Hsuen-hua t’ing, on the south bank of the Yellow River. (See Proc.R.G.S. ix. 234.) The Annals of the Ming Dynasty (Ming Shih, ch. 330) say that An-ting wei, 1500 li south-west of Kan-chou, was in old times known as Sa-li Wei-wu-ehr.  These Sari Uigurs are mentioned by Du Plan Carpin, as Sari Huiur.  Can Sala be the same as Sari?”

“Mohammedans,” says Mr. Rockhill (Ibid. p. 39), “here are divided into two sects, known as ‘white-capped Hui-hui,’ and ‘black-capped Hui-hui.’  One of the questions which separate them is the hour at which fast can be broken during the Ramadan.  Another point which divides them is that the white-capped burn incense, as do the ordinary Chinese; and the Salar condemn this as Paganish.  The usual way by which one finds out to which sect a Mohammedan belongs is by asking him if he burns incense.  The black-capped Hui-hui are more frequently called Salar, and are much the more devout and fanatical.  They live in the vicinity of Ho-chou, in and around Hsuen-hua t’ing, their chief town being known as Salar Pakun or Paken.”

[Illustration:  Cross on the Monument at Si-ngan fu (actual size). (From a rubbing.)]

Ho-chou, in Western Kan-Suh, about 320 li (107 miles) from Lan-chau, has a population of about 30,000 nearly entirely Mahomedans with 24 mosques; it is a “hot-bed of rebellion.” Salar-pa-kun means “the eight thousand Salar families,” or “the eight thousands of the Salar.”  The eight kiun (Chinese t’sun? a village, a commune) constituting the Salar pa-kun are Ka-tzu, the oldest and largest, said to have over 1300 families living in it, Chang-chia, Nemen, Ch’ing-shui, Munta, Tsu-chi, Antasu and Ch’a-chia.  Besides these Salar kiun there are five outer (wai) kiun:  Ts’a-pa, Ngan-ssu-to, Hei-ch’eng, Kan-tu and Kargan, inhabited by a few Salar and a mixed population of Chinese and T’u-ssu:  each of these wai-wu kiun has, theoretically, fifteen villages in it.  Tradition says that the first Salar who came to China (from Rum or Turkey) arrived in this valley in the third year of Hung-wu of the Ming (1370). (Rockhill, Land of the Lamas, Journey; Grenard, II. p. 457)—­H.C.] (Martini; Cathay, 148, 269; Petis de la Croix, III. 218; Russian paper on the Dungen, see supra, vol. i. p. 291; Williamson’s North China, u.s.; Richthofen’s Letters, and MS. Notes.)

NOTE 4.—­Mangalai, Kublai’s third son, who governed the provinces of Shen-si and Sze-ch’wan, with the title of Wang or king (supra ch. ix. note 2), died in 1280, a circumstance which limits the date of Polo’s journey to the west.  It seems unlikely that Marco should have remained ten years ignorant of his death, yet he seems to speak of him as still governing.