and lead a life of such hardship as I will describe. All their life long they eat nothing but bran, which they take mixt with hot water. That is their food: bran, and nothing but bran; and water for their drink. 'Tis a lifelong fast! so that I may well say their life is one of extraordinary asceticism. They have great idols, and plenty of them; but they sometimes also worship fire. The other Idolaters who are not of this sect call these people hereticsPatarins as we should say 12 because they do not worship their idols in their own fashion. Those of whom I am speaking would not take a wife on any consideration." They wear dresses of hempen stuff, black and blue," and sleep upon mats; in fact their asceticism is something astonishing. Their idols are all feminine, that is to say, they have women's names.

Now let us have done with this subject, and let me tell you of the great state and wonderful magnificence of the Great Lord of Lords; I mean that great Prince who is the Sovereign of the Tartars, CUBLAY by name, that most noble and puissant Lord.

NOTE 1.-Chandu, called more correctly in Ramusio Xandu, i.e., SHANDU, and by Fr. Odorico Sandu, viz. SHANGTU or "Upper Court," the Chinese title of Kublai's summer residence at Kaipingfu, Mongolicè Keibung. (See chap. xiii. of Prologue.) The ruins still exist, in about lat: 40 22', and a little west of the longitude of Peking. The site is 118 miles in direct line from Chaghan-nur, making Polo's three marches into rides of unusual length. The ruins bear the Mongol name of Chao Naiman Sumé Khotan, meaning "city of the 108 temples," and are about twenty-six miles to the north-west of Dolon-núr, a bustling, dirty town of modern origin, famous for the manufactory of idols, bells, and other ecclesiastical paraphernalia of Buddhism. The site was visited (though not described) by Père Gerbillon in 1691, and since then by no European traveller till 1872, when Dr. Bushell of the

*This distance is taken from a tracing of the map prepared for Dr. Bushell's paper quoted below. But there is a serious discrepancy between this tracing and the observed position of Dolon-núr, which determines that of Shangtu, as stated to me in a letter from Dr. Bushell,

MARCO POLO

BookIChap.61.

(About one Fourth the Length and Breadth of Original)

in the Old Chinese Seal Character, of an INSCRIPTION on a Memorial raised by KUBLAI-KAAN to a Buddhist Ecclesiastic in the vicinity of his SUMMERPALACE at SHANGTU in Mongolia.

Reduced from a facsimile obtained on the spot by DS.W.BUSHELL.

1872.

Int Frauente

British Legation at Peking, and the Hon. T. G. Grosvenor, made a journey thither from the capital, by way of the Nan-kau Pass (supra p. 29), Kalgan, and the vicinity of Chaghan-nur, the route that would seem to have been habitually followed, in their annual migration, by Kublai and his successors.

The deserted site, overgrown with rank weeds and grass, stands but little above the marshy bed of the river, which here preserves the name of Shangtu, and about a mile from its north or left bank. The walls, of earth faced with brick and unhewn stone, still stand, forming, as in the Tartar city of Peking, a double enceinte, of which the inner line no doubt represents the area of the "Marble Palace" of which Polo speaks. This forms a square of about 2 li (3 of a mile) to the side, and has three gates-south, east, and west, of which the southern one still stands intact, a perfect arch, 20 ft. high and 12 ft. wide. The outer wall forms a square of 4 li (13 mile) to the side, and has six gates. The foundations of temples and palace-buildings can be traced, and both enclosures are abundantly strewn with blocks of marble and fragments of lions, dragons, and other sculptures, testifying to the former existence of a flourishing city, but exhibiting now scarcely one stone upon another. A broken memorial tablet was found, halfburied in the ground, within the north-east angle of the outer rampart, bearing an inscription in an antique form of the Chinese character, which proves it to have been erected by Kublai, in honour of a Buddhist ecclesiastic called Yun-Hien. Yun-Hien was the abbot of one of those great minsters and abbeys of Bacsis, of which Marco speaks, and the exact date (no longer visible) of the monument was equivalent to A.D. 1288.*

This city occupies the south-east angle of a more extensive enclosure, bounded by what is now a grassy mound, and embracing, on Dr. Bushell's estimate, about five square miles. Further knowledge may explain the discrepancy from Marco's dimension, but this must be the park of which he speaks. The woods and fountains have disappeared,

These particulars were obtained by Dr. Bushell through the Archimandrite Palladius, from the MS. account of a Chinese traveller who visited Shangtu about 200 years ago, when probably the whole inscription was above ground. The inscription is also mentioned in the Imp. Geography of the present dynasty, quoted by Klaproth. This work gives the interior wall 5 li to the side, instead of 2 li, and the outer wall 10 li, instead of 4 li. By Dr. Bushell's kindness, I give a reduction of his sketch plan (see Itinerary Map, No. IV., at end of this volume), and also a plate of the heading of the inscription. The translation of this is: "Monument conferred by the Emperor of the August Yuan (dynasty) in memory of His High Eminence Yun Hien (styled) Chang-Lao (canonised as) Shou-Kung (Prince of Longevity)."

† Ramusio's version runs thus: "The palace presents one side to the centre of the city and the other to the city wall. And from either extremity of the palace where it touches the city wall, there runs another wall, which fetches a compass and encloses a good sixteen miles of plain, and so that no one can enter this enclosure except by passing through the palace."

like the temples and palaces; all is dreary and desolate, though still abounding in the game which was one of Kublai's attractions to the spot. A small monastery, occupied by six or seven wretched Lamas, is the only building that remains in the vicinity. The river Shangtu, which lower down becomes the Lan-Ho, was formerly navigated from the sea up to this place by flat grain-boats.

In the wail which Sanang Setzen, the poetical historian of the Mongols, puts, perhaps with some traditional basis, into the mouth of Toghon Temur, the last of the Chinghizide dynasty in China, when driven from his throne, the changes are rung on the lost glories of his capital Daïtu (see infrà, Book II. chap. xi.) and his summer palace. Shangtu; thus (I translate from Schott's amended German rendering of the Mongol) :

66

My vast and noble Capital, My Daïtu, My splendidly adorned!

And Thou my cool and delicious Summer-seat, my Shangtu-Keibung !

Ye, also, yellow plains of Shangtu, Delight of my godlike Sires !

I suffered myself to drop into dreams,-and lo! my Empire was gone!

Ah Thou my Daïtu, built of the nine precious substances!

Ah my Shangtu-Keibung, Union of all perfections!

Ah my Fame! Ah my Glory, as Khagan and Lord of the Earth!

When I used to awake betimes and look forth, how the breezes blew loaded

with fragrance!

And turn which way I would all was glorious perfection of beauty!

Alas for my illustrious name as the Sovereign of the World!

Alas for my Daïtu, seat of Sanctity, Glorious work of the Immortal KUBLAU *
All, all is rent from me !"

It was whilst reading this passage of Marco's narrative in old Purchas that Coleridge fell asleep, and dreamt the dream of Kublai's Paradise, beginning:

"In Xanadu did Kubla Khan

A stately pleasure dome decree :
Where Alph, the sacred River, ran,
By caverns measureless to man,
Down to a sunless sea.

So twice five miles of fertile ground

With walls and towers were girdled round:

And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests, ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery."

It would be a singular coincidence in relation to this poem were Klaproth's reading correct of a passage in Rashiduddin which he renders as saying that the palace at Kaiminfu was "called Langtin, and was built after a plan that Kublai had seen in a dream, and had retained in his memory." But I suspect D'Ohsson's reading is more accurate, which runs: "Kublai caused a Palace to be built for him east of Kaipingfu, called Lengten; but he abandoned it in consequence of a dream." For