and Fu of northern Shansi, but in Mongol time its circle of administration
extended beyond the Chinese wall, and embraced territory on the left of
the Hwang-Ho, being in fact the first _Lu_, or circle, entered on leaving
Tangut, and therefore, Pauthier urges, the "Kingdom of Tanduc" of our
text.

I find it hard to believe that Marco could get no nearer TATHUNG than in
the form of _Tanduc_ or _Tenduc_. The origin of the last may have been
some Mongol name, not recovered. But it is at least conceivable that a
name based on the old _Thiante-Kiun_ might have been retained among the
Tartars, from whom, and not from the Chinese, Polo took his nomenclature.
Thiante had been, according to Pauthier's own quotations, the _military
post of Tathung_; Klaproth cites a Chinese author of the Mongol era, who
describes the Hwang-Ho as passing through _the territory of the ancient
Chinese city of Thiante_; and Pauthier's own quotation from the Modern
Imperial Geography seems to imply that a place in that territory was
recently known as Fung-chau-_Thiante-Kiun_.

In the absence of preciser indications, it is reasonable to suppose that
the Plain of Tenduc, with its numerous towns and villages, was the
extensive and well-cultivated plain which stretches from the Hwang-Ho,
past the city of Kuku-Khotan, or "Blue Town." This tract abounds in the
remains of cities attributed to the Mongol era. And it is not improbable
that the city of Tenduc was Kuku-Khotan itself, now called by the Chinese
Kwei-hwa Ch'eng, but which was known to them in the Middle Ages as
_Tsing-chau_, and to which we find the Kin Emperor of Northern China
sending an envoy in 1210 to demand tribute from Chinghiz. The city is still
an important mart and a centre of Lamaitic Buddhism, being the residence of
a _Khutukhtu_, or personage combining the characters of cardinal and
voluntarily re-incarnate saint, as well as the site of five great convents
and fifteen smaller ones. Gerbillon notes that Kuku Khotan had been a place
of great trade and population during the Mongol Dynasty.

[The following evidence shows, I think, that we must look for the city of
Tenduc to _Tou Ch'eng_ or _Toto Ch'eng_, called _Togto_ or _Tokto_ by the
Mongols. Mr. Rockhill (_Diary_, 18) passed through this place, and 5 _li_
south of it, reached on the Yellow River, Ho-k'ou (in Chinese) or Dugus or
Dugei (in Mongol). Gerbillon speaks of Toto in his sixth voyage in
Tartary. (_Du Halde_, IV. 345.) Mr. Rockh