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o_ alone. This word would bear comparison with a Chinese transcription of the Sanskrit word for silver, _rupya_ which in the _Pen ts ao kang mu_ (ch. 8, p. 9) is given as _o lu pa_. If we can find further analogies, this may help us to read that mysterious word in the Nestorian stone inscription, being the name of the first Christian missionary who carried the cross to China, _O lo pen_, as 'Ruben'. This was indeed a common name among the Nestorians, for which reason I would give it the preference over Pauthier's Syriac 'Alopeno'. But Father Havret (_Stele Chretienne_, Leide, 1897, p. 26) objects to Dr. Hirth that the Chinese character _lo_, to which he gives the sound _ru_, is not to be found as a Sanskrit phonetic element in Chinese characters but that this phonetic element _ru_ is represented by the Chinese characters pronounced _lu_ and therefore, he, Father Havret, adopts Colonel Yule's opinion as the only one being fully satisfactory."--H.C.] CHAPTER XLII. CONCERNING THE PROVINCE OF CUNCUN, WHICH IS RIGHT WEARISOME TO TRAVEL THROUGH. On leaving the Palace of Mangalai, you travel westward for three days, finding a succession of cities and boroughs and beautiful plains, inhabited by people who live by trade and industry, and have great plenty of silk. At the end of those three days, you reach the great mountains and valleys which belong to the province of CUNCUN.[NOTE 1] There are towns and villages in the land, and the people live by tilling the earth, and by hunting in the great woods; for the region abounds in forests, wherein are many wild beasts, such as lions, bears, lynxes, bucks and roes, and sundry other kinds, so that many are taken by the people of the country, who make a great profit thereof. So this way we travel over mountains and valleys, finding a succession of towns and villages, and many great hostelries for the entertainment of travellers, interspersed among extensive forests. NOTE 1.--The region intended must necessarily be some part of the southern district of the province of Shen-si, called HAN-CHUNG, the axis of which is the River Han, closed in by exceedingly mountainous and woody country to north and south, dividing it on the former quarter from the rest of Shen-si, and on the latter fr
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