Deguignes describes the public carriages of Peking, as “shaped like a palankin, but of a longer form, with a rounded top, lined outside and in with coarse blue cloth, and provided with black cushions” (I. 372).  This corresponds with our author’s description, and with a drawing by Alexander among his published sketches.  The present Peking cab is evidently the same vehicle, but smaller.

NOTE 11.—­The character of the King of Manzi here given corresponds to that which the Chinese histories assign to the Emperor Tu-Tsong, in whose time Kublai commenced his enterprise against Southern China, but who died two years before the fall of the capital.  He is described as given up to wine and women, and indifferent to all public business, which he committed to unworthy ministers.  The following words, quoted by Mr. Moule from the Hang-Chau Fu-Chi, are like an echo of Marco’s:  “In those days the dynasty was holding on to a mere corner of the realm, hardly able to defend even that; and nevertheless all, high and low, devoted themselves to dress and ornament, to music and dancing on the lake and amongst the hills, with no idea of sympathy for the country.”  A garden called Tseu-king ("of many prospects”) near the Tsing-po Gate, and a monastery west of the lake, near the Lingin, are mentioned as pleasure haunts of the Sung Kings.

NOTE 12.—­The statement that the palace of Kingsze was occupied by the Great Kaan’s lieutenant seems to be inconsistent with the notice in De Mailla that Kublai made it over to the Buddhist priests.  Perhaps Kublai’s name is a mistake; for one of Mr. Moule’s books (Jin-ho-hien-chi) says that under the last Mongol Emperor five convents were built on the area of the palace.

Mr. H. Murray argues, from this closing passage especially, that Marco never could have been the author of the Ramusian interpolations; but with this I cannot agree.  Did this passage stand alone we might doubt if it were Marco’s; but the interpolations must be considered as a whole.  Many of them bear to my mind clear evidence of being his own, and I do not see that the present one may not be his.  The picture conveyed of the ruined walls and half-obliterated buildings does, it is true, give the impression of a long interval between their abandonment and the traveller’s visit, whilst the whole interval between the capture of the city and Polo’s departure from China was not more than fifteen or sixteen years.  But this is too vague a basis for theorising.

Mr. Moule has ascertained by maps of the Sung period, and by a variety of notices in the Topographies, that the palace lay to the south and south-east of the present city, and included a large part of the fine hills called Fung-hwang Shan or Phoenix Mount,[5] and other names, whilst its southern gate opened near the Ts’ien-T’ang River.  Its north gate is supposed to have been the Fung Shan Gate of the present city, and the chief street thus formed the avenue to the palace.