Note 3, supra) Arulun TSAGHAN BALGASUN, and
Erchuegin LANGTING Balgasun." A valuable letter from Dr. Bushell enables me
now to indicate the position of Langtin: "The district through which the
river flows eastward from Shangtu is known to the Mongolians of the
present day by the name of Lang-tirh (Lang-ting'rh).... The ruins of
the city are marked on a Chinese map in my possession Pai-dseng-tzu, i.e.
'White City,' implying that it was formerly an Imperial residence. The
remains of the wall are 7 or 8 li in diameter, of stone, and situated
about 40 li north-north-west from Dolon-nor."
(Gerbillon in Astley, IV. 701-716; Klaproth, in J. As. ser. II. tom.
xi. 345-350; Schott, Die letzten Jahre der Mongolenherrschaft in China
(Berl. Acad. d. Wissensch. 1850, pp. 502-503); Huc's Tartary, etc., p.
seqq.; Cathay, 134, 261; S. Setzen, p. 115; Dr. S. W. Bushell,
Journey outside the Great Wall, in J. R. G. S. for 1874, and MS.
notes.)
One of the pavilions of the celebrated Yuen-ming-Yuen may give some idea
of the probable style, though not of the scale, of Kublai's Summer Palace.
Hiuen Tsang's account of the elaborate and fantastic ornamentation of the
famous Indian monasteries at Nalanda in Bahar, where Mr. Broadley has
lately made such remarkable discoveries, seems to indicate that these
fantasies of Burmese and Chinese architecture may have had a direct origin
in India, at a time when timber was still a principal material of
construction there: "The pavilions had pillars adorned with dragons, and
posts that glowed with all the colours of the rainbow, sculptured frets,
columns set with jade, richly chiselled and lackered, with balustrades of
vermilion, and carved open work. The lintels of the doors were tastefully
ornamented, and the roofs covered with shining tiles, the splendours of
which were multiplied by mutual reflection and from moment to moment took
a thousand forms." (Vie et Voyages, 157.)
NOTE 3. - [Rubruck says, (Rockhill, p. 248): "I saw also the envoy of
a certain Soldan of India, who had brought eight leopards and ten
greyhounds, taught to sit on horses' backs, as leopards sit." - H. C.]
NOTE 4. - Ramusio's is here so much more lucid than the other texts, that
I have adhered mainly to his account of the building. The roof described
is of a kind in use in the Indian Archipelago, and in some other parts of
Transgangetic India, in which the semi-cylinders of bamboo are laid just
like Roman tiles.
Rashiduddin gives a curious account of the way in which the foundations of
the terrace on which this palace stood were erected in a lake. He says,
too, in accord with Polo: "Inside the city itself a second palace was
built, about a bowshot from the first: but the Kaan generally takes up his
residence in the palace outside the town," i.e., as I imagine, in Marco's
Cane Palace.
