towns, and fine fields, and gardens, and everywhere there are plantations of mulberries for feeding silk-worms, and abundance of wild beasts and fowls.  The inhabitants are mostly idolaters, with some Christians, or Nestorians, and Saracens or Mahometans.  Continuing the journey for seven days, we come to a great city called Quenzanfu, which is the capital of the kingdom of that name, in which many famous kings have reigned.  At the present time Mangalu, one of the sons of the great khan, has the supreme command of this kingdom.  This country yields great plenty of silk, and cloth of gold, and all things necessary for the subsistence of an army, and the maintenance of its numerous inhabitants.  The people are mostly idolaters, but there are some Christians and Mahometans among them.  Five miles from the city stands the palace of Mangalu, in a fine plain, watered by numerous springs and rivulets, and abounding in game.  This fine palace, all painted with gold and azure, and adorned with numberless statues, stands in the middle of a fine park of five miles square, surrounded by a high wall, in which all kinds of beasts and fowls are to be found in abundance; and in this place Mangalu and his courtiers take great delight to hunt.  He follows his fathers excellent example, in conducting his government with great equity and justice, and is much beloved and respected by the people.

Proceeding three days to the westward, from the palace of Mangalu, through a very beautiful plain, adorned with many cities and castles, which have great abundance of silk and other manufactures, we come to a mountainous district of the province of Chunchian, in the vallies of which there are many villages and hamlets; the inhabitants being idolaters and husbandmen.  In these mountains they hunt lions, bears, stags, roebucks, deer, and wolves.  The plain is two days over, and for twenty days journey to the west, the country is well inhabited, and finely diversified with mountains, vallies, and woods.  At the end of these twenty days, there lies, towards the west, a populous province called Achbaluch Mangi, or the white city on the borders of Mangi.  On entering this province, we find a plain of two days journey in extent, and containing a prodigious number of villages; beyond which the country is diversified with mountains, vallies, and woods, yet all well inhabited.  In these mountains there are plenty of wild beasts, among which are the animals that produce musk.  This province produces rice and other grain, and abundance of ginger.  After twenty days journey through these hills, we come to a plain and a province on the confines of Mangi, called Sindinfu.  The city of the same name is very large, and exceedingly rich, being twenty miles in circumference; of old, this city and province was governed by a race of rich and powerful kings.  On the death of an old king, he left the succession among three sons, who divided the city into three parts, each surrounded by its own wall, yet all contained