By the kindness of Messrs. Moule and Wylie, I am able to give a copy of the Sung Map of the Palace (for origin of which see list of illustrations).  I should note that the orientation is different from that of the map of the city already given.  This map elucidates Polo’s account of the palace in a highly interesting manner.

[Father H. Havret has given in p. 21 of Varietes Sinologiques, No. 19, a complete study of the inscription of a chwang, nearly similar to the one given here, which is erected near Ch’eng-tu.—­H.C.]

Before quitting KINSAY, the description of which forms the most striking feature in Polo’s account of China, it is worth while to quote other notices from authors of nearly the same age.  However exaggerated some of these may be, there can be little doubt that it was the greatest city then existing in the world.

[Illustration:  Stone Chwang, or Umbrella Column, on site of “Brahma’s Temple,” Hang-chau.]

[Illustration:  South Part of KING-SZE, with the SUNG PALACE, from a Chinese reprint of a Plan dated circa A.D. 1270]

Friar Odoric (in China about 1324-1327):—­“Departing thence I came unto the city of CANSAY, a name which signifieth the ‘City of Heaven.’  And ’tis the greatest city in the whole world, so great indeed that I should scarcely venture to tell of it, but that I have met at Venice people in plenty who have been there.  It is a good hundred miles in compass, and there is not in it a span of ground which is not well peopled.  And many a tenement is there which shall have 10 or 12 households comprised in it.  And there be also great suburbs which contain a greater population than even the city itself....  This city is situated upon lagoons of standing water, with canals like the city of Venice.  And it hath more than 12,000 bridges, on each of which are stationed guards, guarding the city on behalf of the Great Kaan.  And at the side of this city there flows a river near which it is built, like Ferrara by the Po, for it is longer than it is broad,” and so on, relating how his host took him to see a great monastery of the idolaters, where there was a garden full of grottoes, and therein many animals of divers kinds, which they believed to be inhabited by the souls of gentlemen.  “But if any one should desire to tell all the vastness and great marvels of this city, a good quire of stationery would not hold the matter, I trow.  For ’tis the greatest and noblest city, and the finest for merchandize that the whole world containeth.” (Cathay, 113 seqq.)

The Archbishop of Soltania (circa 1330):—­“And so vast is the number of people that the soldiers alone who are posted to keep ward in the city of Cambalec are 40,000 men by sure tale.  And in the city of CASSAY there be yet more, for its people is greater in number, seeing that it is a city of very great trade.  And to this city all the traders of the country come to trade; and greatly it aboundeth in all manner of merchandize.” (Ib. 244-245.)