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| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
306
MARCO POLO BOOK I.
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 Kúblái had seen in a dream, and had retained in his memory." But I suspect D'Ohsson's reading is more accurate, which runs : " Kúblái caused a Palace to be built for him east of Kaipingfu, called Lengten ; but he abandoned it in consequence of a dream." For we see from Sanang Setzen that the Palaces of Lengten and Kaiming or Shangtu were distinct : " Between the year of the Rat (1264), when Kúblái was fifty years old, and the year of the Sheep (1271), in the space of eight years; he built four great cities, viz. for Summer Residence SHANGTU KEII3UNG Kürdu Balgasun, for Winter Residence Yeke DAÏTU Khotan, and on the shady side of the Altai (see eh. li. note 3, supra) Arulun TSAGHAN BALGASUN, and Erchiigin LANGTING Balgasun." A valuable letter from Dr. Bushell enables me now to indicate the position of Langtin : "The district through which the river flows eastward from Shangtu is known to the Mongolians of the present day by the name of Lang-tírh (Land ting'rh ). . . . The ruins of the city are marked on a Chinese map in my possession Pai-dseng-tzu, i.e. 'White City,' implying that it was formerly an Imperial residence. The remains of the wall are 7 or 8 li in diameter, of stone, and situated about 40 li north-north-west from Dolon-nor."
(Gerbillon in Astley, IV. 701-716 ; Klaproth, in/ As. sèr. II. tom. xi. 345-350 Schott, Die letzten jahre der Mongolenherrschaft in China (Berl. Acad. d. Wissensch. 1850, pp. 502-503) ; Hue's Tartary, etc., p. 14 seqq. ; Cathay, 134, 261 ; S. Setzen, p. 115; Dr. S. W. Bushell, Jour;if'' outside the Great gall, in J. R. G. S. for i 874, and MS. notes.)
One of the pavilions of the celebrated Yuen-ming-Yuen may give some idea of the probable style, though not of the scale, of Kúblái's Summer Palace.
Hiuen Tsang's account of the elaborate and fantastic ornamentation of the famous Indian monasteries at Nalanda in Bahár, where Mr. Broadley has lately made such
remarkable discoveries, seems to indicate that these fantasies of Burmese and Chinese
architecture may have had a direct origin in India, at a time when timber was still a principal material of construction there : " The pavilions had pillars adorned with
dragons, and posts that glowed with all the colours of the rainbow, sculptured frets,
columns set with jade, richly chiseled and lackered, with balustrades of vermilion, and carved open work. The lintels of the doors were tastefully ornamented, and
the roofs covered with shining tiles, the splendours of which were multiplied by mutual reflection and from moment to moment took a thousand forms." ( Vie et Voyages, 157.)
NOTE 3.—[Rubruck says, (Rockhill, p. 248) : " ` I saw also the envoy of a certain Soldan of India, who had brought eight leopards and ten greyhounds, taught to sit on horses' backs, as leopards sit."—H. C.]
NOTE 4.—Ramusio's is here so much more lucid than the other texts, that I have adhered mainly w his account of the building. The roof described is of a kind in use in the Indian Archipelago, and in some other parts of Transgangetic India, in which the semi-cylinders of bamboo are laid just like Roman tiles.
Rashiduddin gives a curious account of the way in which the foundations of the terrace on which this palace stood were erected in a lake. He says, too, in accord with Polo : " ` Inside the city itself a second palace was built, about a bowshot from the first : but the Kaan generally takes up his residence in the palace outside the town," i.e., as I imagine, in Marco's Cane Palace. (Cathay, pp. 261-262.)
[ " The Palace of canes is probably the Palm Hall, Tsung lien, alias Tsung mao tien, of the Chinese authors, which was situated in the western palace garden of Shangtu. ATention is made also in the Altan 7obchi of a cane tent in Shangtu. (Palladius, p. 27.)—H. C.]
runs another wall, which fetches a compass and encloses a good 16 miles of plain{ and so that no one can enter this enclosure except by passing through the palace."
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