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| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
304
MARCO POLO BOOK I.
who is the Sovereign of the Tartars, CuBL.'Y by name,
that most noble and puissant Lord.
No'rE 1.—[There were two roads to go from Peking to Shangtu : the eastern road through Tu-shi-k'ow, and the western (used for the return journey) road by Ye-hu ling. Polo took this last road, which ran from Peking to Siuen-te chau through the same places as now ; but from the latter town it led, not to Kalgan as it does now, but more to the west, to a place called now Shan-fang pú where the pass across the Ye-hu ling range begins. " On both these roads nabo, or temporary palaces, were built, as resting-places for the Khans ; eighteen on the eastern road, and twenty-four on the western." (Palladius, p. 25.) The same author makes (p. 26) the following remarks : " M. Polo's statement that he travelled three days from Siuen-te chau to Chagannor, and three days also from the latter place to Shang-tu, agrees with the information contained in the ` Researches on the Routes to Shangtu.' The Chinese authors have not given the precise position of Lake Chagannor ; there are several lakes in the desert on the road to Shangtu, and their names have changed with time. The palace in Chagannor was built in 1280 " (according to the Siu t'ung kien).—H. C.]
NOTE 2.—Chandu, called more correctly in Ramusio Xamz zr , i.e. SHIANDU, and by Fr. Odorico Sandu, viz. SIIANG-'rU or " Upper Court," the Chinese title of Kúblái's summer residence at Kaipingfu, 1JIongolicè Keibung (see ch. xiii. of Prologue) [is called also Loan king, i.e. " the capital on the Loan River," according to Palladius, p. 26.—H. C.]. 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-nor, 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 io8 temples," and are about 26 miles to the north-west of Dolon-nor, 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 Pére Gerbillon in 1691, and since then by no European traveller till 1872, when Dr. Bushell of the 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. 26), Kalgan, and the vicinity of Chaghan-nor, the route that would seem to have been habitually followed, in their annual migration, by Kúblái 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 Shang-tu, 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 ( 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 (1 * 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, half buried 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 Kúblái, in honour of a Buddhist ecclesiastic called Vun-I lien. Yun - llien was the abbot of one of those great minsters and
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* 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-nor, which determines that of Shang-tu, as stated to me in a letter from I)r. Bushell. (See Note I.]
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