port and town of KANP'U, the Ganpu of the
text. A modern representative of the name still subsists, a walled town,
and one of the depots for the salt which is so extensively manufactured on
this coast; but the present port of Hang-chau, and till recently the sole
seat of Chinese trade with Japan, is at _Chapu_, some 20 miles further
seaward.

It is supposed by Klaproth that KANP'U was the port frequented by the
early Arab voyagers, and of which they speak under the name of _Khanfu_,
confounding in their details Hang-chau itself with the port. Neumann
dissents from this, maintaining that the Khanfu of the Arabs was certainly
Canton. Abulfeda, however, states expressly that Khanfu was known in his
day as _Khansa_ (i.e. Kinsay), and he speaks of its lake of fresh water
called _Sikhu_ (Si-hu). [Abulfeda has in fact two Khanqu (Khanfu): Khansa
with the lake which is Kinsay, and one Khanfu which is probably Canton.
(See _Guyard's transl._, II., ii., 122-124.)--H.C.] There seems to be an
indication in Chinese records that a southern branch of the Great Kiang
once entered the sea at Kanp'u; the closing of it is assigned to the 7th
century, or a little later.

[Dr. F. Hirth writes (_Jour. Roy. As. Soc._, 1896, pp. 68-69): "For
centuries Canton must have been the only channel through which foreign
trade was permitted; for it is not before the year 999 that we read of the
appointment of Inspectors of Trade at Hang-chou and Ming-chou. The latter
name is identified with Ning-po." Dr. Hirth adds in a note: "This is in my
opinion the principal reason why the port of _Khanfu_, mentioned by the
earliest Muhammadan travellers, or authors (Soleiman, Abu Zeid, and
Macoudi), cannot be identified with Hang-chou. The report of Soleiman, who
first speaks of _Khanfu_, was written in 851, and in those days Canton was
apparently the only port open to foreign trade. Marco Polo's _Ganfu_ is a
different port altogether, viz. _Kan-fu_, or _Kan-pu_, near Hang-chou, and
should not be confounded with _Khanfu_."--H.C.]

The changes of the Great Kiang do not seem to have attracted so much
attention among the Chinese as those of the dangerous Hwang-Ho, nor does
their history seem to have been so carefully recorded. But a paper of
great interest on the subject was published by Mr. Edkins, in the _Journal
of the North China Branch of the R.A.S._ for September 1860 [pp. 77-84],
which I know only by an abstract given by the late Comte d'Escayrac de
Lauture.