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Marco Polo, Rustichello of Pisa - The Travels of Marco Polo, 1
during which time he has great court entertainments and rejoicings, and makes merry with his wives. He
then quits his palace at Cambaluc, and proceeds to that city which he has built, as I told you before, and
which is called Chandu, where he has that grand park and palace of cane, and where he keeps his
gerfalcons in mew. There he spends the summer, to escape the heat, for the situation is a very cool one.
After stopping there from the beginning of May to the 28th of August, he takes his departure (that is the
time when they sprinkle the white mares' milk as I told you), and returns to his capital Cambaluc. There
he stops, as I have told you also, the month of September, to keep his Birthday Feast, and also throughout
October, November, December, January, and February, in which last month he keeps the grand feast of
the New Year, which they call the White Feast, as you have heard already with all particulars. He then
sets out on his march towards the Ocean Sea, hunting and hawking, and continues out from the beginning
of March to the middle of May; and then comes back for three days only to the capital, during which he
makes merry with his wives, and holds a great court and grand entertainments. In truth, 'tis something
astonishing, the magnificence displayed by the Emperor in those three days; and then he starts off again
as you know.
Thus his whole year is distributed in the following manner: six months at his chief palace in the royal
city of Cambaluc, to wit, September, October, November, December, January, February;
Then on the great hunting expedition towards the sea, March, April, May;
Then back to his palace at Cambaluc for three days;
Then off to the city of Chandu which he has built, and where the Cane Palace is, where he stays June,
July, August;
Then back again to his capital city of Cambaluc.
So thus the whole year is spent; six months at the capital, three months in hunting, and three months at
the Cane Palace to avoid the heat. And in this way he passes his time with the greatest enjoyment; not to
mention occasional journeys in this or that direction at his own pleasure.
NOTE 1. - This chapter, with its wearisome and whimsical reiteration, reminding one of a game of
forfeits, is peculiar to that class of MSS. which claims to represent the copy given to Thibault de Cepoy
by Marco Polo.
Dr. Bushell has kindly sent me a notice of a Chinese document (his translation of which he had
unfortunately mislaid), containing a minute contemporary account of the annual migration of the Mongol
Court to Shangtu. Having traversed the Kiu Yung Kwan (or Nankau) Pass, where stands the great
Mongol archway represented at the end of this volume, they left what is now the Kalgan post-road at
Tumuyi, making straight for Chaghan-nor (supra, p. 304), and thence to Shangtu. The return journey in
autumn followed the same route as far as Chaghan-nor, where some days were spent in fowling on the
lakes, and thence by Siuen-hwa fu ("Sindachu," supra, p. 295) and the present post-road to
Cambaluc.
CHAPTER XXII. CONCERNING THE CITY OF CAMBALUC, AND ITS GREAT TRAFFIC
AND POPULATION.
You must know that the city of Cambaluc hath such a multitude of houses, and such a vast population
inside the walls and outside, that it seems quite past all possibility. There is a suburb outside each of the
gates, which are twelve in number;[NOTE 1] and these suburbs are so great that they contain more
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