Zhao Rukuo
Zhu Fan Zhi
c. 1225 CE
translated by Friedrich Hirth and W. W. Rockhill
1911
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NOTE |
The Song Dynasty bureaucrat and administrator Zhao Rukuo (1170-1231) wrote a two-volume geography of the worlds, the Zhu Fan Zhi, which he finished around 1225 CE. The book contained information gleaned from travelers and merchants as well as from maps and older geographical works like the Lingwai Daida of Zhou Qufei. His account of Egypt and Alexandria is one of the oldest in Chinese and is unique to him, not found in any earlier Chinese work. The majority of his account derives from Arabic sources, made evident by the transliteration of Islamic names for people and places into Chinese in the Zhu Fan Zhi. He gives, in distorted form, the legend of Joseph and the famine, as well as the Islamic legend of Alexander building the Pharos and placing a mirror atop it capable of seeing far into the sea. Of note is the absence of any mention of the pyramids or ancient kings prior to Alexander. But he also includes a story, unrecorded in any other source, about a river spirit who rises from the Nile to predict prosperity. The story perhaps reflects a distorted reflection of the rituals around the nilometer used to measure the Nile flood, a particular fascination for Islamic writers and European travelers. (The story is similar to the nilometer tale in the Akhbār al-zamān, though the creature in that story is a whistling eagle rather than a laughing man; Benjamin of Tudela gives a parallel story, but with an officer announcing prosperity based on the measurement.) The translation below is slightly adapted from the one published by Friedrich Hirth and W. W. Rockhill in 1911.
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A DESCRIPTION OF BARBARIAN NATIONS,
RECORDS OF FOREIGN PEOPLE
PART I.
36.
MISR (EGYPT).
Wu-ssï-li.
The country of Wu-ssi-li (Misr) is under the dominion of Pai-ta. The king is fair; he wears a turban, a jacket and black boots. When he shows himself in public he is on horseback, and before him go three hundred led horses with saddles and bridles ornamented with gold and jewels. There go also ten tigers held with iron chains; an hundred men watch them, and fifty men hold the chains. There are also an hundred club-bearers and thirty hawk-bearers. Furthermore a thousand horsemen surround and guard him, and three hundred body-slaves bear bucklers and swords. Two men carry the king’s arms before him, and an hundred kettle-drummers follow him on horseback. The whole pageant is very grand.
The people live on cakes, and flesh; they eat no rice. Dry weather usually prevails. The government extends over sixteen provinces, with a circumference of over sixty stages. When rain falls the people’s farming (is not helped thereby, but on the contrary) is washed out and destroyed. There is a river (in this country) of very clear and sweet water, and the source whence springs this river is not known. If there is a year of drought, the rivers of all other countries get low, this river alone remains as usual, with abundance of water for farming purposes, and the people avail themselves of it in their agriculture. Each succeeding year it is thus, and men of seventy or eighty years of age cannot recollect that it has rained.
An old tradition says that when Shï-su [Joseph], a descendant in the third generation of Pu-lo-hung, seized the government of this country, he was afraid that the land would suffer from drought on account of there being no rain; so he chose a tract of land near the river on which he established three hundred and sixty villages, and all these villages had to grow wheat; and, so that the ensuing year the people of the whole country should be supplied with food for every day, each of these villages supplied it 30 for one day, and thus the three hundred and sixty villages supplied enough food for a year.
Furthermore there is a city called Kié-yé [al-Qāhira, or Cairo] on the bank of this river. Every two or three years an old man comes out of the water of the river; his hair is black and short, his beard is hoary. He seats himself on a rock in the water so that only half his body is visible. If he is thus seen taking up water in his hands, washing his face and cutting his nails, the strange being is recognized, and they go near him, kneel before him and say: “Will the present year bring the people happiness or misfortune?”. The man says nothing, but if he laughs, then the year will be a plenteous one and sickness and plagues will not visit the people. If he frowns, then one may be sure that either in the present year, or in the next, they will suffer from famine or plague. The old man remains a long time seated before he dives down again.
In this river there are water-camels (cranes?), and water horses which come up on the bank to eat the herbs, but they go back into the water as soon as they see a man.
The people live on cakes, and flesh; they eat no rice. Dry weather usually prevails. The government extends over sixteen provinces, with a circumference of over sixty stages. When rain falls the people’s farming (is not helped thereby, but on the contrary) is washed out and destroyed. There is a river (in this country) of very clear and sweet water, and the source whence springs this river is not known. If there is a year of drought, the rivers of all other countries get low, this river alone remains as usual, with abundance of water for farming purposes, and the people avail themselves of it in their agriculture. Each succeeding year it is thus, and men of seventy or eighty years of age cannot recollect that it has rained.
An old tradition says that when Shï-su [Joseph], a descendant in the third generation of Pu-lo-hung, seized the government of this country, he was afraid that the land would suffer from drought on account of there being no rain; so he chose a tract of land near the river on which he established three hundred and sixty villages, and all these villages had to grow wheat; and, so that the ensuing year the people of the whole country should be supplied with food for every day, each of these villages supplied it 30 for one day, and thus the three hundred and sixty villages supplied enough food for a year.
Furthermore there is a city called Kié-yé [al-Qāhira, or Cairo] on the bank of this river. Every two or three years an old man comes out of the water of the river; his hair is black and short, his beard is hoary. He seats himself on a rock in the water so that only half his body is visible. If he is thus seen taking up water in his hands, washing his face and cutting his nails, the strange being is recognized, and they go near him, kneel before him and say: “Will the present year bring the people happiness or misfortune?”. The man says nothing, but if he laughs, then the year will be a plenteous one and sickness and plagues will not visit the people. If he frowns, then one may be sure that either in the present year, or in the next, they will suffer from famine or plague. The old man remains a long time seated before he dives down again.
In this river there are water-camels (cranes?), and water horses which come up on the bank to eat the herbs, but they go back into the water as soon as they see a man.
37.
ALEXANDRIA.
O-kön-t‘o.
The country of O-kön-t‘o (Iskanderiah, or Alexandria) belongs to Wu-ssi-li (Egypt). According to tradition, in olden times a stranger, Tsu-ko-ni (certainly Dhul Qarnayn, or Alexander) by name, built on the shore of the sea a great tower under which the earth was dug out and two rooms were made, well connected and very well secreted. In one vault was grain, in the other were arms. The tower was two hundred chang high. Four horses abreast could ascend to two-thirds of its height. In the centre of the building was a great well connecting with the big river.
To protect it from surprise by troops of other lands, the whole country guarded this tower that warded off the foes. In the upper and lower parts of it twenty thousand men could readily be stationed to guard, or to sally forth to fight. On the summit there was a wondrous great mirror; if war-ships of other countries made a sudden attack, the mirror detected them beforehand, and the troops were ready in time for duty.
In recent years there came (to O-kön-t‘o) a foreigner, who asked to be given work in the guard-house of the tower; he was employed to sprinkle and sweep. For years no one entertained any suspicion of him, when suddenly one day he found an opportunity to steal the mirror and throw it into the sea, after which he made off.
To protect it from surprise by troops of other lands, the whole country guarded this tower that warded off the foes. In the upper and lower parts of it twenty thousand men could readily be stationed to guard, or to sally forth to fight. On the summit there was a wondrous great mirror; if war-ships of other countries made a sudden attack, the mirror detected them beforehand, and the troops were ready in time for duty.
In recent years there came (to O-kön-t‘o) a foreigner, who asked to be given work in the guard-house of the tower; he was employed to sprinkle and sweep. For years no one entertained any suspicion of him, when suddenly one day he found an opportunity to steal the mirror and throw it into the sea, after which he made off.
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Source: Chau Ju-Kua, His Work on the Chinese and Arab Trade in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries, entitled Chu-Fan-Chï, eds. and trans. Friedrich Hirth and W. W. Rockhill (St. Petersburg: Imperial Academy of Sciences, 1911), 144-146.
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