Gan-p'u. These three ports depended on the province of
Fu-kien, the capital of which was Ts'uean-chou. Farther on, the ports of
Hang-chou and Fu-chou are also mentioned in connection with foreign trade.
Chang-chou (in Fu-kien, near Amoy) is only once spoken of there. We meet
further the names of Wen-chou and Kuang-chou as seaports for foreign trade
in the Mongol time. But Ts'uean-chou in this article on the sea-trade seems
to be considered as the most important of the seaports, and it is
repeatedly referred to. I have, therefore, no doubt that the port of Zayton
of Western mediaeval travellers can only be identified with Ts'uaen-chou,
not with Chang-chou.... There are many other reasons found in Chinese works
in favour of this view. Gan-p'u of the _Yuen-shi_ is the seaport Ganfu of
Marco Polo." (_Bretschneider, Med. Res._ I. pp. 186-187.)

In his paper on _Changchow, the Capital of Fuhkien in Mongol Times_,
printed in the _Jour. China B.R.A. Soc._ 1888, pp. 22-30, Mr. Geo.
Phillips from Chinese works has shown that the Port of Chang-chau did, in
Mongol times, alternate with Chinchew and Fu-chau as the capital of
Fuh-kien.--H.C.]

Further, Zayton was, as we see from this chapter, and from the 2nd and 5th
of Bk. III., in that age the great focus and harbour of communication with
India and the Islands. From Zayton sailed Kublai's ill-fated expedition
against Japan. From Zayton Marco Polo seems to have sailed on his return
to the West, as did John Marignolli some half century later. At Zayton Ibn
Batuta first landed in China, and from it he sailed on his return.

All that we find quoted from Chinese records regarding _T'swan-chau_
corresponds to these Western statements regarding _Zayton_. For centuries
T'swan-chau was the seat of the Customs Department of Fo-kien, nor was
this finally removed till 1473. In all the historical notices of the
arrival of ships and missions from India and the Indian Islands during the
reign of Kublai, T'swan-chau, and T'swan-chau almost alone, is the port of
debarkation; in the notices of Indian regions in the annals of the same
reign it is from T'swan-chau that the distances are estimated; it was from
T'swan-chau that the expeditions against Japan and Java were mainly fitted
out. (See quotations by Pauthier, pp. 559, 570, 604, 653, 603, 643;
_Gaubil_, 205, 217; _Deguignes_, III. 169, 175, 180, 187; _Chinese
Recorder_ (Foochow), 1870, pp. 45 seqq.)

When the Portuguese, in the 16th century, r