The Country of Shangmi商彌國

The country of Shangmi is twenty-five or twenty-six hundred li around. Mountains and rivers lie one among another, and the hills are high and low. Grain of every kind is planted, beans and wheat are all the more plentiful, and there are many grapes. Orpiment comes from here, and it is got only after the cliff is cut and the stone split. The god of the mountain is violent and evil and has often brought calamity and harm, and so those who enter after they have made offering go and come in peace and good fortune. If they do not pray, wind and hail rise up. The climate is cold and the customs are hasty. The nature of the people is simple and plain, but in their customs there is no rite and no right. Their wisdom and their planning are few and narrow, and their skills and their powers are shallow and thin. Their writing is the same as in the country of Duhuoluo, but their speech is different. They mostly wear felt and coarse cloth. Their king is of the Shakya clan, and he holds the Law of the Buddha in deep reverence, so that the people of the country follow his teaching and there is none who does not believe purely. There are two monasteries, and the monks are few.

From the northeast border of the country one goes over mountains and through valleys, passing dangers and treading on steep places, and after more than seven hundred li one comes to the Bomiluo valley. It is more than a thousand li from east to west and more than a hundred li from north to south, and where it is narrow it is not more than ten li. It lies between two snow mountains, and so the cold wind is bleak and strong. Snow flies even in spring and summer, and the wind blows day and night. The ground is salt and full of gravel. What is planted does not grow, and grass and trees are thin and few, so that in the end it has become empty and waste, and there is no one at all who stays there.

In the middle of the Bomiluo valley there is a great dragon pool, more than three hundred li from east to west and more than fifty li from north to south. It lies within the great Onion Range, and of all the continent of Shanbu this ground is the highest. The water is clear and bright as a mirror, and its depth cannot be measured. Its color carries a cast of blue and black, and its taste is very sweet and good. Those that live below the water are sharks and water serpents and fish and dragons, great turtles and alligators and tortoises and pond turtles. Those that float upon it are mandarin ducks and wild geese and ducks and snipe and bustards. The great eggs of these many birds are left in the waste fields, some among the grass and the marsh, some on the sandy islets. From the west of the pool one great stream branches off and goes west to the eastern border of the country of Damoxitiedi, where it joins the Fuchu river and flows west. Therefore from here to the right all the waters flow west. From the east of the pool one great stream branches off and goes northeast to the western border of the country of Qusha, where it joins the Xiduo river and flows east. Therefore from here to the left all the waters flow east.

South of the Bomiluo valley, over the mountains, there is the country of Boluluo. There is much gold and silver there, and the color of the gold is like fire.

From here one goes southeast through the middle of the valley, climbing the mountains and treading on steep places. There are no villages of men along the road, and there is only much ice and snow. After more than five hundred li one comes to the country of Qiepantuo.