om Sze-ch'wan. Polo's C frequently expresses
an _H_, especially the Guttural _H_ of Chinese names, yet _Cuncun_ is not
satisfactory as the expression of _Hanchung_.

The country was so ragged that in ancient times travellers from Si-ngan fu
had to make a long circuit eastward by the frontier of Ho-nan to reach
Han-chung; but, at an early date, a road was made across the mountains for
military purposes; so long ago indeed that various eras and constructors
are assigned to it. Padre Martini's authorities ascribed it to a general
in the service of Liu Pang, the founder of the first Han Dynasty (B.C.
202), and this date is current in Shan-si, as Baron v. Richthofen tells
me. But in Sze-ch'wan the work is asserted to have been executed during
the 3rd century, when China was divided into several states, by Liu Pei,
of the Han family, who, about A.D. 226, established himself as Emperor
[Minor Han] of Western China at Ch'eng-tu fu.[1] This work, with its
difficulties and boldness, extending often for great distances on timber
corbels inserted in the rock, is vividly described by Martini. Villages
and rest-houses were established at convenient distances. It received from
the Chinese the name of _Chien-tao_, or the "Pillar Road." It
commenced on the west bank of the Wei, opposite Pao-ki h'ien, 100 miles
west of Si-ngan fu, and ended near the town of Paoching-h'ien, some 15 or
20 miles north-west from Han-chung.

We are told that Tului, the son of Chinghiz, when directing his march
against Ho-nan in 1231 by this very line from Paoki, had to _make_ a road
with great difficulty; but, as we shall see presently, this can only mean
that the ancient road had fallen into decay, and had to be repaired. The
same route was followed by Okkodai's son Kutan, in marching to attack the
Sung Empire in 1235, and again by Mangku Kaan on his last campaign in
1258. These circumstances show that the road from Paoki was in that age
the usual route into Han-chung and Sze-ch'wan; indeed there is no other
road in that direction that is more than a mere jungle-track, and we may
be certain that this was Polo's route.

This remarkable road was traversed by Baron v. Richthofen in 1872. To my
questions, he replies: "The entire route is a work of tremendous
engineering, and all of this was done by Liu Pei, who first ordered the
construction. The hardest work consisted in cutting out long portions of
the road from solid rock, chiefly where ledges project on the