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