The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.2 / Page 255 (Color Image)

0255	The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.2

CHAP. LXX II. THE GREAT CITY OF KINSAY

207

gold, with a profusion of precious stones ; for they tried

to outdo each other in the splendour and richness of their

appointments. Behind this great Pavilion that faced the

great gate, there was a wall with a passage in it shutting

off the inner part of the Palace. On entering this you

found another great edifice in the form of a cloister

surrounded by a portico with columns, from which

opened a variety of apartments for the King and the

Queen, adorned like the outer walls with such elaborate

work as we have mentioned. From the cloister again

you passed into a covered corridor, six paces in width, of

great length, and extending to the margin of the lake.

On either side of this corridor were ten courts, in the form

of oblong cloisters surrounded by colonnades ; and in each

cloister or court were fifty chambers with gardens to each.

In these chambers were quartered one thousand young

ladies in the service of the King. The King would

sometimes go with the Queen and some of these maidens

to take his diversion on the Lake, or to visit the Idol-

temples, in boats all canopied with silk.

The other two parts of the enclosure were distributed

in groves, and lakes, and charming gardens planted with

fruit-trees, and preserves for all sorts of animals, such as

roe, red-deer, fallow-deer, hares, and rabbits. Here the

King used to take his pleasure in company with those

damsels of his ; some in carriages, some on horseback,

whilst no man was permitted to enter. Sometimes the

King would set the girls a-coursing after the game with

dogs, and when they were tired they would hie to the

groves that overhung the lakes, and leaving their clothes

there they would come forth naked and enter the water

and swim about hither and thither, whilst it was the

King's delight to watch them ; and then all would return

home. Sometimes the King would. have his dinner

carried to those groves, which were dense with lofty trees,

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