"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. (Cathay, pp. 261-262.)
["The Palace of canes is probably the Palm Hall, Tsung tien, alias
Tsung mao tien, of the Chinese authors, which was situated in the
western palace garden of Shangtu.
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