s eminently hilly; the rivers flow with rapid currents in
well-defined valleys, and are for the most part navigable for boats, or in
their upper reaches for lumber-rafts.... The horse-cart, which in the
north and north-west of China is the principal means of conveyance, has
never succeeded in gaining an entrance into Sze-ch'wan with its steep
ascents and rapid unfordable streams; and is here represented for
passenger traffic by the sedan-chair, and for the carriage of goods,
with the exception of a limited number of wheel-barrows, by the backs of
men or animals, unless where the friendly water-courses afford the
cheapest and readiest means of intercourse."--H.C.]

Martini notes the musk-deer in northern Sze-ch'wan.

CHAPTER XLIV.

CONCERNING THE PROVINCE AND CITY OF SINDAFU.

When you have travelled those 20 days westward through the mountains, as I
have told you, then you arrive at a plain belonging to a province called
Sindafu, which still is on the confines of Manzi, and the capital city of
which is (also) called SINDAFU. This city was in former days a rich and
noble one, and the Kings who reigned there were very great and wealthy. It
is a good twenty miles in compass, but it is divided in the way that I
shall tell you.

You see the King of this Province, in the days of old, when he found
himself drawing near to death, leaving three sons behind him, commanded
that the city should be divided into three parts, and that each of his
three sons should have one. So each of these three parts is separately
walled about, though all three are surrounded by the common wall of the
city. Each of the three sons was King, having his own part of the city, and
his own share of the kingdom, and each of them in fact was a great and
wealthy King. But the Great Kaan conquered the kingdom of these three
Kings, and stripped them of their inheritance.[NOTE 1]

Through the midst of this great city runs a large river, in which they
catch a great quantity of fish. It is a good half mile wide, and very deep
withal, and so long that it reaches all the way to the Ocean Sea,--a very
long way, equal to 80 or 100 days' journey. And the name of the River is
KIAN-SUY. The multitude of vessels that navigate this river is so vast,
that no one who should read or hear the tale would believe it. The
quantities of merchandize also which merchants carry up and down this river
are past all belief. In fact, it is so big, that it seems to be a Sea