Chinese plans of Hang-chau do show a large canal encircling the city on the east and north, i.e., on the sides away from the lake.  In some of them this is represented like a ditch to the rampart, but in others it is more detached.  And the position of the main street, with its parallel canal, does answer fairly to the account in the next paragraph, setting aside the extravagant dimensions.

The existence of the squares or market-places is alluded to by Wassaf in a passage that we shall quote below; and the Masalak-al-Absar speaks of the main street running from end to end of the city.

On this Mr. Moule says:  “I have found no certain account of market-squares, though the Fang,[2] of which a few still exist, and a very large number are laid down in the Sung Map, mainly grouped along the chief street, may perhaps represent them....  The names of some of these (Fang) and of the Sze or markets still remain.”

Mr. Wylie sent Sir Henry Yule a tracing of the figures mentioned in the footnote; it is worth while to append them, at least in diagram.

No 1.  No 2.  No 3.
      ++ ++ ++ |-----------| |-----------| |-----|------|------| | | | | | | | a | |
+| | |+ +| |+ +|-----+------+------|+
+|-----+-----|+ +|-----------|+ +| | | |+ | | | | | | | b | | | | | | | +|-----+------+------|+ |-----------| |-----------| +| | | |+
      ++ | | c | |
          
                              |-----|------|------|
                                             ++ ++

No. 1.  Plan of a Fang or Square.

No. 2.  Plan of a Fang or Square in the South of the Imperial City of Si-ngan fu.

No. 3.  Arrangement of Two-Fang Square, with four streets and 8 gates.
    a.  The Market place.
    b.  The Official Establishment.
    c.  Office for regulating Weights.

Compare Polo’s statement that in each of the squares at Kinsay, where the markets were held, there were two great Palaces facing one another, in which were established the officers who decided differences between merchants, etc.

The double lines represent streets, and the ++ are gates.

NOTE 4.—­There is no mention of pork, the characteristic animal food of China, and the only one specified by Friar Odoric in his account of the same city.  Probably Mark may have got a little Saracenized among the Mahomedans at the Kaan’s Court, and doubted if ’twere good manners to mention it.  It is perhaps a relic of the same feeling, gendered by Saracen rule, that in Sicily pigs are called i neri.