When Marco Polo appeared to have acquired the necessary degree of information, the khan, to make trial of his ability, despatched him upon an embassy to a city or chief called Karakhan, at the distance of six months’ journey from Cambalu. This difficult commission our traveller executed with ability and discretion; and in order still further to enhance the merit of his services in the estimation of his sovereign, he carefully observed the customs and manners of all the various tribes among whom he resided, and drew up a concise account of the whole in writing, which, together with a description of the new and curious objects he had beheld, he presented to the khan on his return. This, as he foresaw, greatly contributed to increase the favour of the prince towards him; and he continued to rise gradually from one degree of honour to another, until at length it may be doubted whether any individual in the empire enjoyed a larger portion of Kublai’s affection and esteem. Upon various occasions, sometimes upon the khan’s business, sometimes upon his own, he traversed all the territories and dependencies of the empire, everywhere possessing the means of observing whatever he considered worth notice, his authority and the imperial favour opening the most secluded and sacred places to his scrutiny.
As our traveller has not thought proper, however, to describe these various journeys chronologically, or, indeed, to determine with any degree of exactness when any one of them took place, we are at liberty, in recording his peregrinations, to adopt whatever arrangement we please; and it being indisputable that Northern China was the first part of Kublai’s dominions, properly so called, which he entered, it appears most rational to commence the history of his Chinese travels with an outline of what he saw in that division of the empire.
The khan himself, whose profuse munificence enabled Marco Polo to perform with pleasure and comfort his long and numerous expeditions, was a fine handsome man of middle stature, with a fresh complexion, bright black eyes, a well-formed nose, and a form every way well proportioned. He had four wives, each of whom had the title of empress, and possessed her own magnificent palace, with a separate court, consisting of three hundred maids of honour, a large number of eunuchs, and a suite amounting at least to ten thousand persons. He, moreover, possessed a numerous harem besides his wives; and in order to keep up a constant supply of fresh beauties, messengers were despatched every two years into a province of Tartary remarkable for the beauty of its women, and therefore set apart as a nursery for royal concubines, to collect the finest among the daughters of the land for the khan. As the inhabitants of this country considered it an honour to breed mistresses for their prince, the “elegans formarum spectator” had no difficulty in finding whatever number of young women he desired, and generally returned to court with at least five hundred in his charge. So vast an army of women were not, however, marched all at once into the khan’s harem. Examiners were appointed to fan away the chaff from the corn,—that is, to discover whether any of these fair damsels snored in their sleep, had an unsavoury smell, or were addicted to any mischievous or disagreeable tricks in their behaviour. Such, says the traveller, as were finally approved were divided into parties of five, and one such party attended in the chamber of the khan during three days and three nights in their turn, while another party waited in an adjoining apartment to prepare whatever the others might command them. The girls of inferior charms were employed in menial offices about the palace, or were bestowed in marriage, with large portions, upon the favoured officers of the khan.
The number of the khan’s family, though not altogether answerable to this vast establishment of women, was respectable,—consisting of forty-seven sons, of whom twenty-two were by his wives, and all employed in offices of trust and honour in the empire. Of the number of his daughters we are not informed.
The imperial city of Cambalu, the modern Peking, formed the residence of the khan during the months of December, January, and February. The palace of Kublai stood in the midst of a prodigious park, thirty-two miles in circumference, surrounded by a lofty wall and deep ditch. This enclosure, like all Mongol works of the kind, was square, and each of its four sides was pierced by but one gate, so that between gate and gate there was a distance of eight miles. Within this vast square stood another, twenty-four miles in circumference, the walls being equidistant from those of the outer square, and pierced on the northern and southern sides by three gates, of which the centre one, loftier and more magnificent than the rest, was reserved for the khan alone. At the four corners, and in the centre of each face of the inner square, were superb and spacious buildings, which were royal arsenals for containing the implements and machinery of war, such as horse-trappings, long and crossbows and arrows, helmets, cuirasses, leather armour, &c. Marco Polo makes no mention of artillery or of firearms of any kind, from which it may be fairly inferred that the use of gunpowder, notwithstanding the vain pretensions of the modern Chinese, was unknown to their ancestors of the thirteenth century; for it is inconceivable that so intelligent and observant a traveller as Marco Polo should have omitted all mention of so stupendous an invention, had it in his age been known either to the Chinese or their conquerors. Indeed, though certainly superior in civilization and the arts of life to the nations of Europe, they appear to have been altogether inferior in the science of destruction; for when Sian-fu had for three years checked the arms of Kublai Khan in his conquest of Southern China, the Tartars were compelled to have recourse to the ingenuity of Nicolo and Maffio Polo, who, constructing immense catapults capable of casting stones of three hundred pounds’ weight, enabled them, by battering down the houses and shaking the walls as with an earthquake, to terrify the inhabitants into submission.
To return, however, to the description of the palace. The space between the first and second walls was bare and level, and appropriated to the exercising of the troops. But having passed the second wall, you discovered an immense park, resembling the paradises of the ancient Persian kings, stretching away on all sides into green lawns, dotted and broken into long sunny vistas or embowered shades by numerous groves of trees, between the rich and various foliage of which the glittering pinnacles and snow-white battlements of the palace walls appeared at intervals. The palace itself was a mile in length, but, not being of corresponding height, had rather the appearance of a vast terrace or range of buildings than of one structure. Its interior was divided into numerous apartments, some of which were of prodigious dimensions and splendidly ornamented; the walls being covered with figures of men, birds, and animals in exquisite relief and richly gilt. A labyrinth of carving, gilding, and the most brilliant colours, red, green, and blue, supplied the place of a ceiling; and the united effect of the whole oppressed the soul with a sense of painful splendour. On the north of this poetical abode, which rivalled in vastness and magnificence the Olympic domes of Homer, stood an artificial hill, a mile in circumference and of corresponding height, which was skilfully planted with evergreen trees, which the Great Khan had caused to be brought from remote places, with all their roots, on the backs of elephants. At the foot of this hill were two beautiful lakes imbosomed in trees, and filled with a multitude of delicate fish.
That portion of the imperial city which had been erected by Kublai Khan was square, like his palace. It was less extensive, however, than the royal grounds, being only twenty-four miles in circumference. The streets were all straight, and six miles in length, and the houses were erected on each side, with courts and gardens, like palaces. At a certain hour of the night, a bell, like the curfew of the Normans, was sounded in the city, after which it was not lawful for any person to go out of doors unless upon the most urgent business; for example, to procure assistance for a woman in labour; in which case, however, they were compelled to carry torches before them, from which we may infer that the streets were not lighted with lamps. Twelve extensive suburbs, inhabited by foreign merchants and by tradespeople, and more populous than the city itself, lay without the walls.
The money current in China at this period was of a species of paper fabricated from the middle bark of the mulberry-tree, and of a round form. To counterfeit, or to refuse this money in payment, or to make use of any other was a capital offence. The use of this money, which within the empire was as good as any other instrument of exchange, enabled the khan to amass incredible quantities of the precious metals and of all the other toys which delight civilized man. Great public roads, which may be enumerated among the principal instruments of civilization, radiated from Peking, or Cambalu, towards all the various provinces of the empire, and by the enlightened and liberal regulations of the khan, not only facilitated in a surprising manner the conveyance of intelligence, but likewise afforded to travellers and merchants a safe and commodious passage from one province to another. On each of these great roads were inns at the distance of twenty-five or thirty miles, amply furnished with chambers, beds, and provisions, and four hundred horses, of which one half were constantly kept saddled in the stables, ready for use, while the other moiety were grazing in the neighbouring fields. In deserts and mountainous steril districts where there were no inhabitants, the khan established colonies to cultivate the lands, where that was possible, and provide provisions for the ambassadors and royal messengers who possessed the privilege of using the imperial horses and the public tables. In the night these messengers were lighted on their way by persons running before them with torches; and when they approached a posthouse, of which there were ten thousand in the empire, they sounded a horn, as our mail and stage coaches do, to inform the inmates of their coming, that no delay might be experienced. By this means, one of these couriers sometimes travelled two hundred or two hundred and fifty miles in a day. In desolate and uninhabited places, the courses of the roads were marked by trees which had been planted for the purpose; and in places where nothing would vegetate, by stones or pillars.
The manners, customs, and opinions of the people, though apparently considered by Marco Polo as less important than what regarded the magnificence and greatness of the khan, commanded a considerable share of our traveller’s attention. The religion of Buddha, whose mysterious doctrines have eluded the grasp of the most comprehensive minds even up to the present moment, he could not be expected to understand; but its great leading tenets, the unity of the supreme God, the immortality of the soul, the metempsychosis, and the final absorption of the virtuous in the essence of the Divinity, are distinctly announced. The manners of the Tartars were mild and refined; their temper cheerful; their character honest. Filial affection was assiduously cultivated, and such as were wanting in this virtue were condemned to severe punishment by the laws. Three years’ imprisonment was the usual punishment for heinous offences; but the criminals were marked upon the cheek when set at liberty, that they might be known and avoided.
Agriculture has always commanded a large share of the attention of the Chinese. The whole country for many days’ journey west of Cambalu was covered with a numerous population, distinguished for their ingenuity and industry. Towns and cities were numerous, the fields richly cultivated, and interspersed with vineyards or plantations of mulberry-trees. On approaching the banks of the Hoang-ho, which was so broad and deep that no bridges could be thrown over it from the latitude of Cambalu to the ocean, the fields abounded with ginger and silk; and game, particularly pheasants, were so abundant, that three of these beautiful birds might be purchased for a Venetian groat. The margin of the river was clothed with large forests of bamboos, the largest, tallest, and most useful of the cane species. Crossing the Hoang-ho, and proceeding for two days in a westerly direction, you arrived at the city of Karianfu, situated in a country fertile in various kinds of spices, and remarkable for its manufactories of silk and cloth of gold.