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| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
412
11'IARCO POLO BOOK II.
NOTE r.—This chapter, with its wearisome and whimsical reiteration, reminding one of a game of forfeits, is peculiar to that class of MSS. which claims to represent the copy given to Thibault de Cepoy by Marco Polo.
Dr. Bushell has kindly sent me a notice of a Chinese document (his translation of which he had unfortunately mislaid), containing a minute contemporary account of the annual migration of the Mongol Court to Shangtu. Having traversed the Kiu Yung Kwan (or Nankau) Pass, where stands the great Mongol archway represented at the end of this volume, they left what is now the Kalgan post-road at Tumuyi, making straight for Chaghan-nor (supra, p. 304), and thence to Shangtu. The return journey in autumn followed the same route as far as Chaghan-nor, where some days were spent in fowling on the lakes, and thence by Siuen-hwa fu ("Sindachu," supra, p. 295) and the present post-road to Cainbaluc
CHAPTER XXII.
CONCERNING THE CITY OF CAMBALUC, AND ITS GREAT TRAFFIC AND POPULATION.
JOE
You must know that the city of Cainbaluc hath such a
multitude of houses, and such a vast population inside
the walls and outside, that it seems quite past all
possibility. There is a suburb outside each of the
gates, which are twelve in number ;1 and these suburbs
are so great that they contain more people than the city
itself [for the suburb of one gate spreads in width till
b
it meets the suburb of the next, whilst they extend in
length some three or four miles]. In those suburbs
lodge the foreign merchants and travellers, of whom
there are always great numbers who have come to bring
presents to the Emperor, or to sell articles at Court, or
because the city affords so good a mart to attract traders.
[There are in each of the suburbs, to a distance of a
mile from the city, numerous fine hostelries 2 for the
lodgment of merchants from different parts of the world,
and a special hostelry is assigned to each description of
people, as if we should say there is one for the Lombards,
another for the Germans, and a third for the French-
men.] And thus there are as many good houses outside
4'.
~•
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