Then back to his palace at Cambaluc for three days;

Then off to the city of Chandu which he has built, and where the Cane
Palace is, where he stays June, July, August;

Then back again to his capital city of Cambaluc.

So thus the whole year is spent; six months at the capital, three months in hunting, and three months at the Cane Palace to avoid the heat.  And in this way he passes his time with the greatest enjoyment; not to mention occasional journeys in this or that direction at his own pleasure.

NOTE 1.—­This chapter, with its wearisome and whimsical reiteration, reminding one of a game of forfeits, is peculiar to that class of MSS. which claims to represent the copy given to Thibault de Cepoy by Marco Polo.

Dr. Bushell has kindly sent me a notice of a Chinese document (his translation of which he had unfortunately mislaid), containing a minute contemporary account of the annual migration of the Mongol Court to Shangtu.  Having traversed the Kiu Yung Kwan (or Nankau) Pass, where stands the great Mongol archway represented at the end of this volume, they left what is now the Kalgan post-road at Tumuyi, making straight for Chaghan-nor (supra, p. 304), and thence to Shangtu.  The return journey in autumn followed the same route as far as Chaghan-nor, where some days were spent in fowling on the lakes, and thence by Siuen-hwa fu ("Sindachu,” supra, p. 295) and the present post-road to Cambaluc.

CHAPTER XXII.

CONCERNING THE CITY OF CAMBALUC, AND ITS GREAT TRAFFIC AND POPULATION.

You must know that the city of Cambaluc hath such a multitude of houses, and such a vast population inside the walls and outside, that it seems quite past all possibility.  There is a suburb outside each of the gates, which are twelve in number;[NOTE 1] and these suburbs are so great that they contain more people than the city itself [for the suburb of one gate spreads in width till it meets the suburb of the next, whilst they extend in length some three or four miles].  In those suburbs lodge the foreign merchants and travellers, of whom there are always great numbers who have come to bring presents to the Emperor, or to sell articles at Court, or because the city affords so good a mart to attract traders. [There are in each of the suburbs, to a distance of a mile from the city, numerous fine hostelries[NOTE 2] for the lodgment of merchants from different parts of the world, and a special hostelry is assigned to each description of people, as if we should say there is one for the Lombards, another for the Germans, and a third for the Frenchmen.] And thus there are as many good houses outside of the city as inside, without counting those that belong to the great lords and barons, which are very numerous.

[Illustration:  Plain of Cambaluc; the City in the distance; from the Hills on the north-west]