Polo’s ascription of a circumference of 30 miles to the lake, corroborates the supposition that in the compass of the city a confusion had been made between miles and li, for Semedo gives the circuit of the lake really as 30 li.  Probably the document to which Marco refers at the beginning of the chapter was seen by him in a Persian translation, in which li had been rendered by mil.  A Persian work of the same age, quoted by Quatremere (the Nuzhat al-Kultub, gives the circuit of the lake as six parasangs, or some 24 miles, a statement which probably had a like origin).

Polo says the lake was within the city.  This might be merely a loose way of speaking, but it may on the other hand be a further indication of the former existence of an extensive outer wall.  The Persian author just quoted also speaks of the lake as within the city. (Barrow’s Autobiog., p. 104; V.  Braam, II. 154; Gardner in Proc. of the R. Geog.  Soc., vol. xiii. p. 178; Q.  Rashid, p. lxxxviii.) Mr. Moule states that popular oral tradition does enclose the lake within the walls, but he can find no trace of this in the Topographies.

Elsewhere Mr. Moule says:  “Of the luxury of the (Sung) period, and its devotion to pleasure, evidence occurs everywhere.  Hang-chow went at the time by the nickname of the melting-pot for money.  The use, at houses of entertainment, of linen and silver plate appears somewhat out of keeping in a Chinese picture.  I cannot vouch for the linen, but here is the plate....  ’The most famous Tea-houses of the day were the Pa-seen ("8 genii"), the “Pure Delight”, the “Pearl”, the “House of the Pwan Family,” and the “Two and Two” and “Three and Three” houses (perhaps rather “Double honours” and “Treble honours").  In these places they always set out bouquets of fresh flowers, according to the season....  At the counter were sold “Precious thunder Tea”, Tea of fritters and onions, or else Pickle broth; and in hot weather wine of snow bubbles and apricot blossom, or other kinds of refrigerating liquor. Saucers, ladles, and bowls were all of pure, silver!’ (Si-Hu-Chi.)”

[Illustration:  Plan of the Metropolitan City of Hangchow in the 13th Century. (From the Notes of the Right Rev. G.E.  Moule.)

1-17, Gates; 18, Ta-nuy, Central Palace; 19, Woo-Foo, The Five Courts; 20, T’ai Miao, The Imperial Temple; 21, Fung-hwang shan, Phoenix Hill; 22, Shih fuh she, Monastery of the Sacred Fruit; 25-30, Gates; 31, T’ien tsung yen tsang T’ien tsung Salt Depot; 2, T’ien tsung tsew koo, T’ien tsung Wine Store; 33, Chang she, The Chang Monastery; 34, Foo che, Prefecture; Foo hio, Prefectural Confucian Temple.]