The city of Cambalu is seated on a great river in the province of Kathay, or Northern China, and its name signifies the city of the prince, having been the royal residence in former times.  After the conquest, understanding, from his astrologers, that the inhabitants would rebel, the great khan removed the city to the other side of the river, calling the new city Taidu, which is twenty-four miles in circumference, every side of the square being six miles, and he commanded all the Kathayans to remove from the old city into the new one.  The walls are of earth, ten paces thick at the bottom, and gradually tapering to three paces thick at the top, with white battlements.  Each side of the square has three principal gates, or twelve in all, having sumptuous palaces built over each; and there are pavilions in all the angles of the wall, where the arms of the garrison are kept, being 1000 men for each gate.  The whole buildings of this city are exactly squared, and all the streets are laid out in straight lines; so that a free prospect is preserved from gate to gate, through the whole city; and the houses are built on each side like palaces, with courts and gardens, divided according to the heads of families.  In the middle of the whole, there is a noble building, in which a great bell is suspended, after the tolling of which, at a certain hour of the night, no person must go out of his house till the dawn of next morning, except it be for some urgent cause, as for assistance to a woman in labour, and even then they must carry lights.  On the outside of the walls there are twelve large suburbs, extending three or four miles in length, from each gate, and there are more inhabitants in these suburbs than within the walls.  In these, foreign merchants, and other strangers live, each nation having several storehouses and bazars, in which they lodge and keep their goods.  No dead body is allowed to be burnt or buried within the city; but the bodies of the idolaters are burned without the suburbs, and the bodies of all other sects are buried in the same places.  On account of the vast multitude of Mahometans who inhabit here, there are above 25,000 harlots in the city and suburbs:  Over every 100 and every 1000 of these, there are chiefs or captains appointed, to keep them in order, and one general inspector over the whole.  When any ambassador or other person, having business with the khan, comes to Cambalu, his whole charges are defrayed from the imperial treasury, and the general inspector of the harlots provides the ambassador, and every man of his family, a change of women every night at free cost.  The guards of the city carry all whom they may find walking in the streets, after the appointed hour, to prison; and it these persons cannot give a valid excuse, they are beaten with cudgels, as the Bachsi allege that it is not right to shed mens blood; yet many persons die of this beating.

There are 12,000 horse-guards, called Casitan, who attend on the person of the khan, more from state than from any suspicion of danger.  These have four chief commanders, one to every 3000 men; and one commander, with his band of 3000, keeps guard over the khan for three days and nights, after which he is succeeded by another, and so on in regular order.