CONTEMPORARY NOTICES OF CATHAY UNDER THE MONGOLS :
EXTRACTED FROM THE HISTORICAL CYCLOPIEDIA OF RASHIDUDDIN.
CATHAY is a country of vast extent and cultivated in the highest degree. Indeed the most credible authors assert that there is no country in the world to compare with it in culture and population. A gulf of the ocean, of no very great width, washes its south-eastern shores and extends along the coast between MANZI and KoLI,r running into Cathay so as to reach within (twenty) -four parasangs of Khanbaligh,2 and ships come to that point. The vicinity of the sea causes frequent rain. In one part of the country the climate is a hot one, whilst in others it is cold. In his time Chinghiz Kaan had conquered the greater part of the provinces of Cathay, whilst under the reign of Oktaï Kaan the conquest of the whole was completed. Chinghiz Kaan and his sons, however, as we have said in relating their history, never took up their residence in Cathay ; but after Mangu Khan had transmitted the empire to Kublai Kaan, the latter thought it not well to remain at such a distance from a country so populous, and which was reckoned to surpass all other kingdoms and countries in the world. So he fixed his residence in Cathay, and established his winter quarters in the city of Khanbaligh, which was called in the Cathayan tongue CHUNG-TU.3
1 On Manzi, see note supra, p. 103. Koli is the Chinese Kaoli, i.e., Corea and the Gulf is of course the Yellow Sea.
11 The reading is four both with Klaproth and D'Ohsson. But as the real distance is twenty-four, the former supposes it originally stood so. 3 Supra, p. 127.
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