two months and some days after which he returned to Pao Yun and the others.[1] They all agreed that the people of the Wu-i country did not cultivate politeness or their duty towards their neighbour,[2] and were cold[3] in their treatment of strangers. Subsequently,[4] Chih Yen, Hui Chien, and Hui Wei went back to Kao-ch'ang in order to obtain necessaries for the journey; but Fa Hsien and his party, being provided with these things by Fu and Kung-sun, went on forthwith towards the south-east. The country was uninhabited, and the difficulties of travelling by land and water and the hardships they went through were beyond all comparison. After being on the road a month and five days they arrived at Yü-tien.[5]
CHAPTER III.
This country is fertile and prosperous. The people are well off and all converts to Buddhism. They play religious music to each other for amusement.[6] The
- ↑ Who, as Mr. Beal justly supposes, had by this time arrived at the Wu-i country.
- ↑ 義 which Mr. Beal omits as if it were part of 禮.
- ↑ Literally, thin 薄.
- ↑ The whole of this passage differs grammatically speaking from MM. Rémusat and Beal's translations, though the general sense is the same.
- ↑ Khoten. Rémusat.
- ↑ M. Rémusat:—"c'est la loi qui leur procure la félicitè dont
there is a difficulty of any kind? Of the correctness of our own translation there can be no reasonable doubt, and the only stone an adverse critic could possible cast is one that we shall anticipate him by throwing ourselves. It is rather unusual to give the surname 姓 and name 名 of one of two people (Fu Hsing-t'ang), and only the surname of the other (Kung-sun). But almost in the next line they are spoken of as Fu and Kung-Sun.
