[In the China Review (xiv. p. 358) Mr. E.H.  Parker, has an article on Acbalec Manzi, but does not throw any new light on the subject.—­H.C.]

NOTE 2.—­Polo’s journey now continues through the lofty mountainous region in the north of Sze-ch’wan.

The dividing range Ta-pa-shan is less in height than the T’sing-ling range, but with gorges still more abrupt and deep; and it would be an entire barrier to communication but for the care with which the road, here also, has been formed.  But this road, from Han-chung to Ch’eng-tu fu, is still older than that to the north, having been constructed, it is said, in the 3rd century B.C. [See supra.] Before that time Sze-ch’wan was a closed country, the only access from the north being the circuitous route down the Han and up the Yang-tz’u. (Ibid.)

[Mr. G.G.  Brown writes (Jour.  China Br.  R. As.  Soc. xxviii. p. 53):  “Crossing the Ta-pa-shan from the valley of the Upper Han in Shen-si we enter the province of Sze-ch’wan, and are now in a country as distinct as possible from that that has been left.  The climate which in the north was at times almost Arctic, is now pluvial, and except on the summits of the mountains no snow is to be seen.  The people are ethnologically different....  More even than the change of climate the geological aspect is markedly different.  The loess, which in Shen-si has settled like a pall over the country, is here absent, and red sandstone rocks, filling the valleys between the high-bounding and intermediate ridges of palaeozoic formation, take its place.  Sze-ch’wan is evidently a region of rivers flowing in deeply eroded valleys, and as these find but one exit, the deep gorges of Kwei-fu, their disposition takes the form of the innervations of a leaf springing from a solitary stalk.  The country between the branching valleys is eminently hilly; the rivers flow with rapid currents in well-defined valleys, and are for the most part navigable for boats, or in their upper reaches for lumber-rafts....  The horse-cart, which in the north and north-west of China is the principal means of conveyance, has never succeeded in gaining an entrance into Sze-ch’wan with its steep ascents and rapid unfordable streams; and is here represented for passenger traffic by the sedan-chair, and for the carriage of goods, with the exception of a limited number of wheel-barrows, by the backs of men or animals, unless where the friendly water-courses afford the cheapest and readiest means of intercourse.”—­H.C.]

Martini notes the musk-deer in northern Sze-ch’wan.

CHAPTER XLIV.

CONCERNING THE PROVINCE AND CITY OF SINDAFU.

When you have travelled those 20 days westward through the mountains, as I have told you, then you arrive at a plain belonging to a province called Sindafu, which still is on the confines of Manzi, and the capital city of which is (also) called SINDAFU.  This city was in former days a rich and noble one, and the Kings who reigned there were very great and wealthy.  It is a good twenty miles in compass, but it is divided in the way that I shall tell you.