into rides of unusual length.[1] The ruins bear the Mongol name of Chao Naiman Sume Khotan, meaning “city of the 108 temples,” and are about 26 miles to the north-west of Dolon-nor, a bustling, dirty town of modern origin, famous for the manufactory of idols, bells, and other ecclesiastical paraphernalia of Buddhism.  The site was visited (though not described) by Pere Gerbillon in 1691, and since then by no European traveller till 1872, when Dr. Bushell of the British Legation at Peking, and the Hon. T. G. Grosvenor, made a journey thither from the capital, by way of the Nan-kau Pass (supra p. 26), Kalgan, and the vicinity of Chaghan-nor, the route that would seem to have been habitually followed, in their annual migration, by Kublai and his successors.

The deserted site, overgrown with rank weeds and grass, stands but little above the marshy bed of the river, which here preserves the name of Shang-tu, and about a mile from its north or left bank.  The walls, of earth faced with brick and unhewn stone, still stand, forming, as in the Tartar city of Peking, a double enceinte, of which the inner line no doubt represents the area of the “Marble Palace” of which Polo speaks.  This forms a square of about 2 li (2/3 of a mile) to the side, and has three gates—­south, east, and west, of which the southern one still stands intact, a perfect arch, 20 ft. high and 12 ft. wide.  The outer wall forms a square of 4 li (1-1/3 mile) to the side, and has six gates.  The foundations of temples and palace-buildings can be traced, and both enclosures are abundantly strewn with blocks of marble and fragments of lions, dragons, and other sculptures, testifying to the former existence of a flourishing city, but exhibiting now scarcely one stone upon another.  A broken memorial tablet was found, half buried in the ground, within the north-east angle of the outer rampart, bearing an inscription in an antique form of the Chinese character, which proves it to have been erected by Kublai, in honour of a Buddhist ecclesiastic called Yun-Hien.  Yun-Hien was the abbot of one of those great minsters and abbeys of Bacsis, of which Marco speaks, and the exact date (no longer visible) of the monument was equivalent to A.D. 1288.[2]

[Illustration:  Heading In the Old Chinese Seal-Character, of an INSCRIPTION on a Memorial raised by KUBLAI-KAAN to a Buddhist Ecclesiastic in the vicinity of his SUMMER-PALACE at SHANG-TU in Mongolia.  Reduced from a facsimile obtained on the spot by Dr. S.  W. Bushell, 1872. (About one-Forth the Length and Breadth of Original.)]

This city occupies the south-east angle of a more extensive enclosure, bounded by what is now a grassy mound, and embracing, on Dr. Bushell’s estimate, about 5 square miles.  Further knowledge may explain the discrepancy from Marco’s dimension, but this must be the park of which he speaks.[3] The woods and fountains have disappeared, like the temples and palaces; all is dreary and desolate, though still abounding in the game which was one of Kublai’s attractions to the spot.  A small monastery, occupied by six or seven wretched Lamas, is the only building that remains in the vicinity.  The river Shangtu, which lower down becomes the Lan [or Loan]-Ho, was formerly navigated from the sea up to this place by flat grain-boats.