twelve idol temples belonging to different nations, two Mahummeries in which the Law of Mahomet is preached, and one church of the Christians at the extremity of the town.  The town is enclosed by a mud-wall and has four gates.  At the east gate they sell millet and other corn, but the supply is scanty; at the west gate they sell rams and goats; at the south gate oxen and waggons; at the north gate horses....  Mangu Kaan has a great Court beside the Town Rampart, which is enclosed by a brick wall, just like our priories.  Inside there is a big palace, within which he holds a drinking-bout twice a year;... there are also a number of long buildings like granges, in which are kept his treasures and his stores of victual” (345-6; 334).

Where was Karakorum situated?

The Archimandrite Palladius is very prudent (l.c. p. 11):  “Everything that the studious Chinese authors could gather and say of the situation of Karakhorum is collected in two Chinese works, Lo fung low wen kao (1849), and Mungku yew mu ki (1859).  However, no positive conclusion can be derived from these researches, chiefly in consequence of the absence of a tolerably correct map of Northern Mongolia.”

Abel Remusat (Mem. sur Geog.  Asie Centrale, p. 20) made a confusion between Karabalgasun and Karakorum which has misled most writers after him.

Sir Henry Yule says:  “The evidence adduced in Abel Remusat’s paper on Karakorum (Mem. de l’ Acad.  R. des Insc. VII. 288) establishes the site on the north bank of the Orkhon, and about five days’ journey above the confluence of the Orkhon and Tula.  But as we have only a very loose knowledge of these rivers, it is impossible to assign the geographical position with accuracy.  Nor is it likely that ruins exist beyond an outline perhaps of the Kaan’s Palace walls.”

In the Geographical Magazine for July, 1874 (p. 137), Sir Henry Yule has been enabled, by the kind aid of Madame Fedtchenko in supplying a translation from the Russian, to give some account of Mr. Paderin’s visit to the place, in the summer of 1873, along with a sketch-map.

“The site visited by Mr. Paderin is shown, by the particulars stated in that paper, to be sufficiently identified with Karakorum.  It is precisely that which Remusat indicated, and which bears in the Jesuit maps, as published by D’Anville, the name of Talarho Hara Palhassoun (i.e.  Kara Balghasun), standing 4 or 5 miles from the left bank of the Orkhon, in lat. (by the Jesuit Tables) 47 deg. 32’ 24”.  It is now known as Kara-Kharam (Rampart) or Kara Balghasun (city).  The remains consist of a quadrangular rampart of mud and sun-dried brick, of about 500 paces to the side, and now about 9 feet high, with traces of a higher tower, and of an inner rampart parallel to the other.  But these remains probably appertain to the city as re-occupied by the descendants of the Yuen in the end of the 14th century, after their expulsion from China.”