Prefatory Note

We made the translation together, and together we decided which points merited annotation.Dr. Loewe wrote the first draft of the Introduction and I made the first draft of the notes, but we subsequently revised and emended each other's work, so that it is now difficult to distinguish between our individual contributions.As Dr. Loewe was hard pressed by other commitments, I undertook the textcritical study of chapter 123 of the Shih-chi, the Memoir on Ta Yuan, a study which is indispensable for the correct appreciation of its counterpart, i.e. chapter 61 of the Han shu, the Memoir on Chang Ch'ien and Li Kuang-Ii.As the present work is destined first and foremost for the non-sinological reader, we considered it inadvisable to include that study here.It has been separ.atelypublished in T'oung Pao 61 (1975), but its results have been assimilated in the Introduction, the translation and the annotation of Han shu ch.61.The annotation to our translation is extensive, for we have consistently tried to elucidate all points that would not be immediately clear to the non-sinological reader as well as to those students of Chinese history and culture whose field lies outside the domain of the Han period and Han institutions.We are well aware that recently the

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