[Captain Gill writes (River of Golden Sand, I. p. 111):  “This country around Urh-Chuang is admirably described [in Marco Polo, pp. 403, 406], and I should almost imagine that the Kaan must have set off south-east from Peking, and enjoyed some of his hawking not far from here, before he travelled to Cachar Modun, wherever that may have been.”

“With respect to Cachar Modun, Marco Polo intends perhaps by this name Ho-si wu, which place, together with Yang-ts’un, were comprised in the general name Ma t’ou (perhaps the Modun of M. Polo).  Ma-t’ou is even now a general term for a jetty in Chinese.  Ho-si in the Mongol spelling was Ha-shin.  D’Ohsson, in his translation of Rashid-eddin renders Ho-si by Co-shi (Hist. des Mongols, I. p. 95), but Rashid in that case speaks not of Ho-si wu, but of the Tangut Empire, which in Chinese was called Ho-si, meaning west of the (Yellow) River. (See supra, p. 205).  Ho-si wu, as well as Yang-ts’un, both exist even now as villages on the Pei-ho River, and near the first ancient walls can be seen.  Ho-si wu means:  ‘Custom’s barrier west of the (Pei-ho) river.’” (Palladius, p. 45.) This identification cannot be accepted on account of the position of Ho-si wu.  —­H.  C.]

NOTE 7.—­I suppose the best accessible illustration of the Kaan’s great tent may be that in which the Emperor Kienlung received Lord Macartney in the same region in 1793, of which one view is given in Staunton’s plates.  Another exists in the Staunton Collection in the B. M., of which I give a reduced sketch.

Kublai’s great tent, after all, was but a fraction of the size of Akbar’s audience-tents, the largest of which held 10,000 people, and took 1000 farrashes a week’s work to pitch it, with machines.  But perhaps the manner of holding people is differently estimated. (Ain Akb. 53.)

In the description of the tent-poles, Pauthier’s text has “trois coulombes de fust de pieces moult bien encuierees,” etc.  The G. T. has “de leing d’especies mout bien cures,” etc.  The Crusca, “di spezie molto belle,” and Ramusio going off at a tangent, “di legno intagliate con grandissimo artificio e indorate.”  I believe the translation in the text to indicate the true reading.  It might mean camphor-wood, or the like.  The tent-covering of tiger-skins is illustrated by a passage in Sanang Setzen, which speaks of a tent covered with panther-skins, sent to Chinghiz by the Khan of the Solongos (p. 77).

[Illustration:  The Tents of the Emperor Kienlung.]