History of the Rhinoceros 165 



Africa. The interesting notes of Chao Ju-kua written in 1225, 1 em- 

 inently translated and interpreted by Hirth and Rockhill, afford an 

 excellent view of all the localities from which rhinoceros-horn was 

 traded to China, during the middle ages; 2 he refers to the Berbera coast 

 as producing big horns (p. 128), and records them also for the island of 

 Pemba (p. 149). 3 



Returning to China, we find trustworthy accounts, according to 

 which the rhinoceros has persisted there in some localities at least 

 down to the thirteenth century. Kuo Yiin-tao, who composed an elabo- 

 rate history of Sze-ch'uan in the thirteenth century, 4 states that the 

 region of the aboriginal tribes of the south-west (Si-nan I) harbors a 

 great number of rhinoceroses and elephants; and this agrees with the 

 above statement of Su Sung (p. 140) that rhinoceros-horns came from 

 Sze-ch'uan at the same period. As the author includes also the prov- 

 ince of Kuei-chou, we are allowed to presume that the two-horned 

 rhinoceros still inhabited the forests of Sze-ch'uan and Kuei-chou during 

 the age of the Sung dynasty (960-1278). 5 In the year 987, as narrated 

 in the Annals of the Sung Dynasty, 6 a rhinoceros penetrated from the 

 southern part of K'ien into Wan-chou 7 where people seized and slew it, 



of short swords with hilts of rhinoceros-horn or gold, and records the word ti-mi as 

 the native name of the rhinoceros. This word is not Javanese, in which the animal 

 is called warak, but is presumably traceable to the Kawi language (compare the 

 discussions of this word by G. Schlegel, T'oung Pao, Vol. X, 1899, p. 272; and P. 

 Pelliot, Bull, de I'Ecolefrancaise, Vol. IV, 1904, p. 310). 



1 Pelliot, T'oung Pao, 19 12, p. 449. 



2 At least as early as the fifth century, carved objects of rhinoceros-horn were 

 traded to China from the Roman Orient and India (Hirth, China and the Roman 

 Orient, p. 46). In the year 730 a tribute of rhinoceros-horn from Persia is mentioned 

 (Chavannes, T'oung Pao, 1904, p. 51). 



3 The Geography of the Ming Dynasty (Ta Ming i t'ung chi, ed. of 1461, Ch. 91, 

 fol. 20) lists rhinoceros-horn also among the products of Arabia (T'ien-fang). Un- 

 der the Ming, rhinoceros-horn was imported to China from Champa, Cambodja, 

 Malacca, Borneo, Siam, Bengal, and rhinoceros-flesh from Java. These data are 

 derived from the Si yang ch'ao kung lien lu by Huang Sheng-tseng, published in 1520 

 (reprinted in Pie hia chai ts'ung shu) ; this is the most convenient work on the coun- 

 tries of the Indian Ocean and on Chinese knowledge of them during the Ming, and 

 gives more information than the Ming Annals. 



4 Shu kien (Ch. 10, p. 1), reprinted in Shou shan ko ts'ung shu, Vol. 23. The pref- 

 ace of Li W£n-tse is dated 1236. 



5 It might seem that the rhinoceros was extinct in China proper at the time of 

 the Yuan period (1271-1367), judging from a remark made by Chou Ta-kuan, in 

 his Memoirs on the Customs of Cambodja, to the effect that the latter country har- 

 bors the rhinoceros, elephant, the wild buffalo, and the mountain-horse, which do not 

 occur in China (Pelliot, Bulletin de I'Ecole franqaise, Vol. II, 1902, p. 169); but the 

 passage is by no means conclusive, and may simply be interpreted in the sense that 

 the author had never seen or heard of a rhinoceros in China. 



6 Sung shi, Chapter Wu king chi, quoted in T'u shu tsi ch'hig (Chapter on Rhi- 

 noceros). 



7 Now the district of Wan in K'uei-chou fu, Sze-ch'uan Province. 



