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| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
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368
!MARCO POLO BOOK II.
NOTE 4.—The stores are now outside the walls of the " Prohibited City," corresponding to Polo's Palace-Wall, but within the walls of the " Imperial City." (Middle Kin' doua, I. 61.) See the cut at p. 376.
NOTE 5.—The two gates near the corners apparently do not exist in the Palace now. " On the south side there arc three gates to the Palace, both in the inner and the outer walls. The middle one is absolutely reserved for the entrance or exit of the Emperor ; all other people pass in and out by the gate to the right or left of it." (Trzg autius, Bk. I. ch. vii.) This custom is not in China peculiar to Royalty. In private houses it is usual to have three doors leading from the court to the guest-rooms, and there is a great exercise of politeness in reference to these ; the guest after much pressing is prevailed on to enter the middle door, whilst the host enters by the side. (See leg uig vies, Voyages, I. 262.) [See also H. Cordier's Hist. des !c elat. de la Chine, III. eh. x. Audience Impériale. ]
E" It seems Polo took the three gateways in the middle gate ( Ta-ming men) for three gates, and thus speaks of five gates instead of three in the southern wall." (Bretschneider, Peking, 27, note.)—H. C.]
NOTE 6.—Ramusio's version here diverges from the old MSS. It makes the inner enclosure a mile square ; and the second (the city of Taidu) six miles square, as here, but adds, at a mile interval, a third of eight miles square. Now it is remarkable that Mr. A. Wylie, in a letter dated 4th December 1873, speaking of a recent visit to Peking, says : " I found from various inquiries that there are several remains of a very much larger city wall, inclosing the present city ; but time would not allow me to follow up the traces."
Pauthier's text (which I have corrected by the G. T.), after describing the outer inclosure to be a mile every way, says that the inner inclosure lay at an interval of a mile within it!
[Dr. Bretschneider observes " that in the ancient Chinese works, three concentric inclosures are mentioned in connection with the palace. The innermost inclosed the Ta-nei, the middle inclosure, called Kung ch'eng or Hzzan- ck'eng, answering to the wall surrounding the present prohibited city, and was about 6 li in circuit. Besides this there was an outer wall (a rampart apparently) 20 li in circuit, answering to the wall of the present imperial city (which now has 18 li in circuit." The Huang clz'eng of the Yuen was measured by imperial order, and found to be 7 li in circuit ; the wall of the Mongol palace was 6 li in circuit, according to the Ch'ue keng lu. (Bretschneider, Peking, 24.)—Marco Polo's mile could be approximately estimated= 2'77 Chinese li. (Ibid 24, note.) The common Chinese li = 36o pu, or 18o chang, or 1800 ch'i (feet) ; 1 li =1894 English feet or 575 mètres ; at least according to the old Venice measures quoted in Yule's Marco Polo, IL, one pace = 5 feet. Besides the common li, the Chinese have another li, used for measuring fields, which has only 240 pit or 1200 ch'i. This is the li spoken of in the Ch'ue keng lu. (Ibid. 13, note.) —II. C.]
NOTE 7.—[" Near the southern face of the wall are barracks for the Life Guards." (Ch'ue keng lu, translated by Bretschneider, 25.)—I I. C.]
NOTE 8.—This description of palace (see opposite cut), an elevated basement of masonry with a superstructure of timber (in general carved and gilded), is still found in Burma, Siam, and Java, as well as in China. If we had any trace of the palaces of the ancient Asokas and Vikramadityas of India, we should probably find that they were of the sanie character. It seems to be one of those things that belonged to some ancient Pariasiatic fashion, as the palaces of Nineveh were of a somewhat similar construction. In the Audience Halls of the Moguls at Delhi and Agra we can trace the ancient form, though the superstructure has there bccume an arcade of marble instead of a pavilion on timber columns.
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