may have plenty of food; and a number of people are appointed to take care that no person may catch any of these birds, which are so tame, that they will flock around their keepers at a whistle, to receive food from their hands.  There are also a great number of small huts built, in different parts of the valley, for shelter to these birds, during the severity of winter, where they are regularly fed by the keepers.  By these means, when the emperor chooses to come to this part of the country, he is certain to find abundance of game; and during winter, he has great quantities sent to him on camels, or other beasts of burden.

Three days journey south-west from Iangamur is the city of Ciandu[9], which was built by the great emperor Kublai-khan, and in which he had a palace erected, of marvellous art and beauty, ornamented with marble and other rare stones.  One side of this palace extends to the middle of the city, and the other reaches to the city wall.  On this side there is a great inclosed park, extending sixteen miles in circuit, into which none can enter but by the palace.  In this inclosure there are pleasant meadows, groves, and rivers, and it is well stocked with red and fallow deer, and other animals.  The khan has here a mew of about two hundred ger-falcons, which he goes to see once a-week, and he causes them to be fed with the flesh of fawns.  When he rides out into this park, he often causes some leopards to be carried on horseback, by people appointed for this purpose, and when he gives command, a leopard is let loose, which immediately seizes a stag or deer; and he takes great delight in this sport.

In the middle of a fine wood, the khan has a very elegant house built all of wood, on pillars, richly gilt and varnished; on every one of the pillars there is a dragon gilt all over, the tail being wound around the pillar, while the head supports the roof, and the wings are expanded on each side.  The roof is composed of large canes, three hand breadths in diameter, and ten yards long, split down the middle, all gilt and varnished, and so artificially laid on that no rain can penetrate.  The whole of this house can be easily pulled down and taken to pieces, like a tent, and readily set up again, as it is all built of cane, and very light; and when it is erected, it is fastened by two hundred silken ropes, after the manner of tent cords, to prevent it from being thrown down by the winds.  Every thing is arranged in this place for the pleasure and convenience of the khan, who spends three months here annually, in June, July, and August; but on the twenty-eighth day of August he always leaves this, to go to some other place, for the performance of a solemn sacrifice.  Always on the twentieth day of August, he is directed by the astrologers and sorcerers, to sprinkle a quantity of white mares milk, with his own hands, as a sacrifice to the gods and spirits of the air and the earth, in order that his subjects, wives, children, cattle,