[Illustration:  Yang chau:  the three Cities Under the Sung]

[Through the kindness of the late Father H. Havret, S J, of Zi ka wei, I am enabled to give two plans from the Chronicles of Yang chau, Yang chau fu che (ed. 1733); one bears the title “The Three Cities under the Sung,” and the other.  “The Great City under the Sung” The three cities are Pao yew cheng, built in 1256, Sin Pao cheng or Kia cheng, built after 1256, and Tacheng, the “Great City,” built in 1175; in 1357, Ta cheng was rebuilt, and in 1557 it was augmented, taking the place of the three cities; from 553 B.C. until the 12th century, Yang-chau had no less than five enclosures; the governor’s yamen stood where a cross is marked in the Great City.  Since Yang-chau has been laid in ruins by the T’ai-P’ing insurgents, these plans offer now a new interest.—­H.C.]

[Illustration:  Yang-chau:  the Great City under the Sung.]

NOTE 3.—­What I have rendered “Twelve Sings” is in the G.T. “douze sajes,” and in Pauthier’s text “sieges.”  It seems to me a reasonable conclusion that the original word was Sings (see I. 432, supra); anyhow that was the proper term for the thing meant.

In his note on this chapter, Pauthier produces evidence that Yang-chau was the seat of a Lu or circuit[1] from 1277, and also of a Sing or Government-General, but only for the first year after the conquest, viz. 1276-1277, and he seems (for his argument is obscure) to make from this the unreasonable deduction that at this period Kublai placed Marco Polo—­who could not be more than twenty-three years of age, and had been but two years in Cathay—­in charge either of the general government, or of an important district government in the most important province of the empire.

In a later note M. Pauthier speaks of 1284 as the date at which the Sing of the province of Kiang-che was transferred from Yang-chau to Hang-chau; this is probably to be taken as a correction of the former citations, and it better justifies Polo’s statement. (Pauthier, pp. 467, 492.)

I do not think that we are to regard Marco as having held at any time the important post of Governor-General of Kiang-che.  The expressions in the G. T. are:  “Meser Marc Pol meisme, celui de cui trate ceste livre, seingneurie ceste cite por trois anz.” Pauthier’s MS. A. appears to read:  “Et ot seigneurie, Marc Pol, en ceste cite, trois ans.” These expressions probably point to the government of the Lu or circuit of Yang-chau, just as we find in ch. lxxiii. another Christian, Mar Sarghis, mentioned as Governor of Chin-kiang fu for the same term of years, that city being also the head of a Lu.  It is remarkable that in Pauthier’s MS. C., which often contains readings of peculiar value, the passage runs (and also in the Bern MS.):  “Et si vous dy que ledit Messire Marc Pol,