ROMAN ORIENT AND FAR EAST — SELIGMAN 553 



Aral, Chang Ch'ien did not distinguish between the two]. From Yu T'ien east- 

 ward the rivers flow to the east into the salt swamps [the Tarim river system]. 

 From these swamps the waters flow underground until they reappear as the 

 source of the Yellow River. From the salt swamp to Ch'ang An, the distance is 

 5,000 Li. The Right horde of Hsiung Nu live between the salt swamps and the 

 Great Wall of Lung Hsi [Kansu]. The Wu Sun [Khirgiz], K'ang Chu, and Yen 

 Ts'ai, who are northwest of the K'ang Chu, and Ta Yiieh Chi, are nomads with 

 customs similar to the Hsiung Nu. Ta Hsia [Bactria] is southwest of Ta Yuan 

 and has similar customs. When your servant was in Ta Hsia he saw large bam- 

 boos and cloth of Shu [Szechuan]. When he asked the people of Ta Hsia how 

 they obtained these things they told him that their merchants bought them in 

 Shen Tu [Sind, India], which is a country several hundred li southeast of Ta Hsia, 

 and is a sedentary nation, like Ta Hsia. Both Ta Hsia and Ta Yuan are tribu- 

 tary to An Hsi [Parthia, so called from the dynasty of Arsaces]. So far as your 

 servant could judge Ta Hsia is 12,000 li [4,000 miles] from China. As it is north- 

 east of Shen Tu, this kingdom cannot be so far from China. 12 



Distances are exaggerated (the li is a third of a mile) and the source 

 of the Yellow River incorrectly stated, but apart from these errors the 

 report is a plain statement of fact. Chang Ch'ien had, however, so 

 thoroughly experienced in his own person the difficulties of the north- 

 ern route that he persuaded the Emperor to seek to approach the West 

 overland via India, a reasonable enough suggestion at a time when the 

 extreme difficulty of the country between Yunnan and Burmah was 

 unknown; for even at the present day the deep gorges of the Mekong 

 and Salween rivers make this one of the most inaccessible parts of the 

 earth's surface. When it was realized that this route was impossible, 

 interest once more centered on the northern route, and several embas- 

 sies reached Ta Yuan. For a long time the ruler of this state reso- 

 lutely refused to hand over any of his celebrated horses, and little 

 progress was made until Chinese envoys seized some of the best 

 horses and with them set out for China, only to be ambushed by the 

 Yuan, who killed the Chinese and recovered the horses. An attempt 

 to revenge this insult resulted in the defeat of a Chinese army, and it 

 was not until a further army was despatched that an agreed peace was 

 made (102 B. C), one of the terms being that the Chinese received 

 several of the finest horses of Ta Yuan and a large number of inferior 

 quality. 



Some years after the death of the Emperor Wu there came a split 

 in the ranks of the Hsiung Nu, whose northern and southern hordes 

 quarrelled and so weakened each other that the southern leader did 

 homage at Ch'ang-an. Chinese vigilance in the west relaxed, and 

 war broke out again during the reign of Han Ming Ti (A. D. 58-77), 

 who was forced to realize that Turkestan must again be brought under 

 Chinese influence. In A. D. 73 Pan Chao, a really great general and 

 administrator, began his career in Turkestan, though it was not until 



u Fitzgerald, O. P., China: a cultural history, pp. 178-9, 1938. 



