for they have no
trade. At this city you must needs lay in victuals for forty days, because
when you quit Etzina, you enter on a desert which extends forty days'
journey to the north, and on which you meet with no habitation nor
baiting-place.[NOTE 2] In the summer-time, indeed, you will fall in with
people, but in the winter the cold is too great. You also meet with wild
beasts (for there are some small pine-woods here and there), and with
numbers of wild asses.[NOTE 3] When you have travelled these forty days
across the Desert you come to a certain province lying to the north. Its
name you shall hear presently.

[Illustration: Wild Ass of Mongolia.]

NOTE 1.--Deguignes says that YETSINA is found in a Chinese Map of Tartary
of the Mongol era, and this is confirmed by Pauthier, who reads it
_Itsinai_, and adds that the text of the Map names it as one of the seven
_Lu_ or Circuits of the Province of Kansuh (or Tangut). Indeed, in
D'Anville's Atlas we find a river called _Etsina Pira_, running northward
from Kanchau, and a little below the 41st parallel joining another from
Suhchau. Beyond the junction is a town called _Hoa-tsiang_, which probably
represents Etzina. Yetsina is also mentioned in Gaubil's History of
Chinghiz as taken by that conqueror in 1226, on his last campaign against
Tangut. This capture would also seem from Petis de la Croix to be
mentioned by Rashiduddin. Gaubil says the Chinese Geography places Yetsina
north of Kanchau and north-east of Suhchau, at a distance of 120 leagues
from Kanchau, but observes that this is certainly too great. (_Gaubil_, p.
49.)

[I believe there can be no doubt that Etzina must be looked for on the
river _Hei-shui_, called _Etsina_ by the Mongols, east of Suhchau. This
river empties its waters into the two lakes Soho-omo and Sopo-omo. Etzina
would have been therefore situated on the river on the border of the
Desert, at the top of a triangle whose bases would be Suhchau and Kanchau.
This river was once part of the frontier of the kingdom of Tangut. (Cf.
_Deveria, Notes d'epigraphie mongolo-chinoise_, p. 4.) Reclus (_Geog.
Univ., Asie Orientale_, p. 159) says: "To the east [of Hami], beyond the
Chukur Gobi, are to be found also some permanent villages and the remains
of cities. One of them is perhaps the 'cite d'Etzina' of which Marco Polo
speaks, and the name is to be found in that of the river Az-sind."

"Through Kanchau was the shortest, and most direct and convenien