platform on which it stands is raised ten spans above the level of the ground, and a wall of marble, two paces wide, is built on all sides, to the level of this pavement, within the line of which the palace is erected; so that the wall, extending beyond the ground plan of the building, and encompassing the whole, serves as a terrace, where those who walk on it are visible from without. Along the exterior edge of the wall is a handsome balustrade, with pillars, which the people are allowed to approach.1 The sides of the great halls and the apartments are ornamented with dragons in carved work and gilt, figures of warriors, of birds, and of beasts, with representations of battles. The inside of the roof is contrived in such a manner that nothing besides gilding and painting presents itself to the eye. On each of the four sides of the palace there is a grand flight of marble steps, by which you ascend from the level of the ground to the wall of marble which surrounds the building, and which constitute the approach to the palace itself. The grand hall is extremely long and wide, and admits of dinners being there served to great multitudes of people. The palace contains a number of separate chambers, all highly beautiful, and so admirably disposed that it seems impossible to suggest any improvement to the system of their arrangement. The exterior of the roof is adorned with a variety of colours, red, green, azure, and violet, and the sort of covering is so strong as to last for many years.3 embassies to Peking, that although the flooring of the palaces is elevated from the ground, they consist of but a single story. The height of the ornamented roofs is a striking feature in the architecture of these people.

The height of the terrace is said, in Ramusio's text, to be dieci palmi, or about seven feet; but in the epitomes it is doi brazza e mezo, or about twice that elevation; and this accords best with modern descriptions. All the accounts of missionaries and travellers serve to show that, in point of structure, materials, and style of embellishment, there has existed a perfect resemblance between the buildings of Kublaï, as described by our author, and those of Kang-hi and Kien-long, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

2 "Cette salle," adds Du Halde, "a environ cent trente pieds de longueur, et est presque quarrée. Le lambris est tout en sculpture vernissé de verd, et chargé de dragons dorez: les colonnes qui soutiennent le toit en dedans sont de six à sept pieds de circonférence par le bas: elles sont incrustées d'une espèce de pâte enduite d'un vernis rouge."-Tom. i. p. 117.

3 The roofs are invariably covered with baked tiles, which, for the

2

THE IMPERIAL PALACE OF KANBALU.

179

The glazing of the windows is so well wrought and so delicate as to have the transparency of crystal.1 In the rear of the body of the palace there are large buildings containing several apartments, where is deposited the private property of the monarch, or his treasure in gold and silver bullion, precious stones, and pearls, and also his vessels of gold and silver plate. Here are likewise the apartments of his wives and concubines; and in this retired situation he despatches business with convenience, being free from every kind of interruption. On the other side of the grand palace, and opposite to that in which the emperor resides, is another palace, in every respect similar, appropriated to the residence of Chingis, his eldest son, at whose court are observed all the ceremonials belonging to that of his father, as the prince who is to succeed to the government of the empire. Not far from the principal buildings, have a vitrified glazing of a bright colour. Such as are used for the palaces at the present day are exclusively yellow; but this etiquette may not have been so strictly adhered to under the dynasty of the Yuen. "Le tout est couvert de tuiles vernissées d'un si beau jaune, que de loin elles ne paroissent guères moins éclatantes, que si elles étoient dorées."-Du Halde, tom. i. p. 116.

1 Ramusio employs the word vitreate, which I have translated glazing, although there is no reason to suppose that glass was used for windows in China at that period. The meaning may be, that the pellucid substance employed for glazing (perhaps talc or lamina of shells) was so delicately wrought (cosi ben fatte e cosi sottilmente) as to have nearly the transparency of crystal. "Les fenêtres des maisons," says De Guignes, "sont garnies avec des coquilles minces et assez transparentes, ou avec du papier." (Tom. ii. p. 178.) Staunton mentions that the windows of some of the yachts or barges had glass panes, but the manufacture was probably European.

2 In the modern palace, the buildings for this purpose are described as being (less appropriately) round the court, in front of the great hall of audience; but we ought not to be surprised at any variation with respect to the arrangement of these buildings, when we learn that the whole of the palace has been repeatedly destroyed by fire.

3 "A l'est de la même cour est un autre palais, habité par le prince héritier, lorsqu'il y en a un de déclaré.” (De L'isle, Descr. de la Ville de Peking, p. 16.) It will not escape the observation of the reader that, in a previous page, our author noticed the untimely death of this prince, (see pp. 174, 175,) who, notwithstanding, is here mentioned as a living person. This is obviously to be accounted for from the circumstance of the work being composed, not from recollection merely, but from notes made at different periods, amongst which a description of the palaces might have been one of the earliest. Kublaï also, the event of whose death is related in the course of the returning journey, is spoken of throughout the work as the emperor actually reigning.

palace, on the northern side, and about a bow-shot distance from the surrounding wall, is an artificial mount of earth, the height of which is full a hundred paces, and the circuit at the base about a mile. It is clothed with the most beautiful evergreen trees; for whenever his majesty receives information of a handsome tree growing in any place, he causes it to be dug up, with all its roots and the earth about them, and however large and heavy it may be, he has it transported by means of elephants to this mount, and adds it to the verdant collection. From this perpetual verdure it has acquired the appellation of the Green Mount. On its summit is erected an ornamental pavilion, which is likewise entirely green. The view of this altogether, the mount itself, the trees, and the building, form a delightful and at the same time a wonderful scene. In the northern quarter also, and equally within the precincts of the city, there is a large and deep excavation, judiciously formed, the earth from which supplied the material for raising the mount.1 It is furnished with water by a small rivulet, and has the appearance of a fish-pond, but its use is for watering the cattle. The stream passing from thence along an aqueduct, at the foot of the Green Mount, proceeds to fill another great and very deep excavation formed between the private palace of the emperor and that of his son Chingis; and the earth from hence equally served to increase the elevation of the mount. In this latter basin there is great store and variety of fish, from which the table of his majesty is supplied with any quantity that may be wanted. The stream discharges itself at the opposite extremity of the piece of water, and precautions are taken to prevent the escape of the fish by placing gratings of copper or iron at the places of its entrance and exit. It is stocked also with swans and other aquatic birds. From the one palace to the other there is a communication by means of a bridge thrown across the water. Such is the description of this great palace. We shall now speak of the situation and circumstances of the city of Taidu.

1 This artificial hill exists at the present day, and retains its original name of King-shan, or the Green Mountain; but it would seem, from modern relations, that four others of inferior size have since been added.

THE CITY OF TAI-DU.

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CHAPTER VII.

OF THE NEW CITY OF TAI-DU, BUILT NEAR TO THAT OF KANBALU-OF A RULE OBSERVED RESPECTING THE ENTERTAINMENT OF AMBASSADORS -AND OF THE NIGHTLY POLIGE OF THE CITY.

1

THE city of Kanbalu is situated near a large river in the province of Cathay, and was in ancient times eminently magnificent and royal. The name itself implies "the city of the sovereign;" but his majesty having imbibed an opinion from the astrologers, that it was destined to become rebellious to his authority, resolved upon the measure of building another capital, upon the opposite side of the river, where stand the palaces just described: so that the new and the old cities are separated from each other only by the stream that runs between them.2 The new-built city received the

1 The name of this celebrated city, which our author writes Cambalu (for Canbalu, the m being substituted for n at the end of a syllable, in the old Italian, as well as in the Portuguese orthography), is by the Arabians and Persians written Khan-balik and Khan-baligh, signifying, in one of the dialects of Tartary, the "city of the khan or sovereign." This terminating appellative is not uncommon, as we find it in Kabaligh and Bish-baligh, cities of Turkistan; in Ordu-baligh, one of the names of Kara-korum; and in Mu-baligh, or the “city of desolation,” a name given to Bamian, in the territory of Balkh, upon the occasion of its destruction by Jengiz-khan. With respect to the particular situation of the city, it is said, in the words of Ramusio, to have been " sopra un gran fiume," but in the Latin version, "juxta magnum fluvium," which affords more latitude. By this river must be understood the Pe-ho, which is navigable for loaded vessels up to Tong-cheu, within twelve miles of the capital; but in the higher part of its course it seems to approximate nearer. Our knowledge of the country that surrounds Pe-king is, however, extremely imperfect; nor do the different maps accord with respect to the number or course of the streams that, coming from the neighbouring mountains of Tartary, appear to unite at or above Tong-cheu. It should be observed, also, that the old city of Yen-king, or Khan-balig, might have stood some miles nearer to the Pe-ho than the site of the more modern city of Peking.

2 This would seem to imply a removal of the capital to a different side of the Pe-ho, or larger river just mentioned; but it may be thought more probable that our author here speaks only of the rivulet which at the present day passes between what are denominated the Chinese and the Tartar cities, over which (however insignificant the stream) there is a handsome bridge of communication. Martini, in his "Atlas Sinensis," distinguishes two streams as contributing to supply the city with water.

name of Tai-du,1 and all the Cathaians, that is, all those of the inhabitants who were natives of the province of Cathay, were compelled to evacuate the ancient city, and to take up their abode in the new. Some of the inhabitants, however, of whose loyalty he did not entertain suspicion, were suffered to remain, especially because the latter, although of the dimensions that shall presently be described, was not capable of containing the same number as the former, which was of vast extent.2

This new city is of a form perfectly square, and twentyfour miles in extent, each of its sides being neither more nor less than six miles. It is enclosed with walls of earth, that

1 The name of Tai-du (more correctly written Ta-tú) signifies the દ great court," and was the Chinese appellation for the new city, which the Tartars, and the western people in general, continued to name Khan-baligh. A doubt may be entertained whether the city of Yenking, which Kublaï, from motives of superstition or of policy, abandoned, occupied the site of that now called the ancient or Chinese city, which is separated from the other only by a rivulet, and by the wall of the latter. But there is evidence of a positive kind of their being the same; for Yong-lo, the rebuilder of Peking, after it had been nearly destroyed in the preceding wars, erected within the bounds of what was equally in his time denominated the old city, and which could be no other than that depopulated by Kublaï a century and a half before, two remarkable temples, one of them dedicated to the Heavens and the other to the Earth, which temples are to be found in Du Halde's and De Lisle's plates, and exist in the Chinese city at the present day. All the works of this great monarch, the third of the dynasty by which the Mungals were driven out, and who sat on the throne at the period of Shah Rokh's embassy, were begun about the year 1406, and completed about 1421.

2 In the "Mémoires concernant les Chinois," we find the following account of the extent of its walls at different periods: "Sous le Kin (the dynasty overturned by Jengiz-khan) dont il fut aussi la capitale, il eut soixante-quinze li de tour, ou sept lieues et demie. Les Yuen qui le nommèrent d'abord la capitale du milieu, puis la grande capitale, ne lui donnèrent que six lieues de tour et onze portes, lorsqu'ils en réparèrent les ruines en 1274. Le fondateur de la dynastie des Ming rasa deux de ces portes du côté du Midi pour le dégrader; et Yong-lo, qui en rebâtit les murailles en 1409, ne leur donna que quatre lieues de tour: c'est leur mesure d'aujourd'hui, étant restées les mêmes. Quant à la ville Chinoise, ce fut Chin-tsong, de la dynastie précédente, qui en fit faire l'enceinte en murs de terre l'an 1524. Ce ne fut qu'en 1564 qu'elle obtint l'honneur d'être incorporée à l'ancienne ville, avec celui d'avoir des murailles et des portes en briques."-Tom. ii. p. 553.

3 The square form prevails much amongst the cities and towns of China, wherever the nature of the ground and the course of the waters