supposed skill
of Turks and Tartars in weaving gorgeous stuffs, and Boccaccio, commenting
thereon, says that Tartarian cloths are so skilfully woven that no painter
with his brush could equal them. Maundevile often speaks of cloths of
Tartary (e.g. pp. 175, 247). So also Chaucer:

"On every trumpe hanging a broad banere Of fine _Tartarium_."

Again, in the French inventory of the _Garde-Meuble_ of 1353 we find two
pieces of _Tartary_, one green and the other red, priced at 15 crowns
each. (_Flower and Leaf_, 211; _Dante, Inf._ XVII. 17, and _Longfellow_,
p. 159; _Douet d'Arcq_, p. 328; _Fr.-Michel, Rech._ I. 315, II. 166 seqq.)

NOTE 7.--SINDACHU (Sindacui, Suidatui, etc., of the MSS.) is SIUEN-HWA-FU,
called under the Kin Dynasty _Siuen-te-chau_, more than once besieged and
taken by Chinghiz. It is said to have been a summer residence of the later
Mongol Emperors, and fine parks full of grand trees remain on the western
side. It is still a large town and the capital of a _Fu_, about 25 miles
south of the Gate on the Great Wall at Chang Kia Kau, which the Mongols
and Russians call Kalgan. There is still a manufacture of felt and woollen
articles here.

[Mr. Rockhill writes to me that this place is noted for the manufacture of
buckskins.--H. C.]

_Ydifu_ has not been identified. But Baron Richthofen saw old mines
north-east of Kalgan, which used to yield argentiferous galena; and
Pumpelly heard of silver-mines near Yuchau, in the same department.

[In the _Yuen-shi_ it is "stated that there were gold and silver mines in
the districts of Siuen-te-chow and Yuchow, as well as in the Kiming shan
Mountains. These mines were worked by the Government itself up to 1323,
when they were transferred to private enterprise. Marco Polo's _Ydifu_ is
probably a copyist's error, and stands instead of Yuchow." (_Palladius_,
24, 25.)--H. C.]

[1] Mr. Ney Elias favours me with a curious but tantalising communication
on this subject: "An old man called on me at Kwei-hwa Ch'eng (Tenduc),
who said he was neither Chinaman, Mongol, nor Mahomedan, and lived on
ground a short distance to the north of the city, especially allotted
to his ancestors by the Emperor, and where there now exist several
families of the same origin. He then mentioned the connection of his
family with that of the Emperor, but in what way I am not clear, and
said that he ought to be, or had been, a prince. Other people coming
in, h