The new city formed a rectangle, enclosed by a colossal mud rampart, the longer sides of which ran north and south. These were each about 51⁄3 English m. in length, the shorter sides 3¾ m., so that the circuit was upwards of 18 m. The palace of the khan, with its gardens and lake, itself formed an inner enclosure fronting the south. There were eleven city gates, viz. three on the south side, always the formal front with the Tatars, and two on each of the other sides; and the streets ran wide and straight from gate to gate (except, of course, where interrupted by the palace walls), forming an oblong chess-board plan.
Ta-tu continued to be the residence of the emperors till the fall of the Mongol power (1368). The native dynasty (Ming) which supplanted them established their residence at Nan-king (“South Court”), but this proved so inconvenient that Yunglo, the third sovereign of the dynasty, reoccupied Ta-tu, giving it then, for the first time, the name of Pe-king (“North Court”). This was the name in common use when the Jesuits entered China towards the end of the 16th century, and began to send home accurate information about China. But it is not so now; the names in ordinary use being King-cheng or King-tu, both signifying “capital.” The restoration of Cambaluc was commenced in 1409. The size of the city was diminished by the retrenchment of nearly one-third at the northern end, which brought the enceinte more nearly to a square form. And this constitutes the modern (so-called) “Tatar city” of Peking, the south front of which is identical with the south front of the city of Kublai. The walls were completed in 1437. Population gathered about the southern front, probably using the material of the old city of Yenking, and the excrescence so formed was, in 1544, enclosed by a wall and called the “outer city.” It is the same that is usually called by Europeans “the Chinese city.” The ruins of the retrenched northern portion of Kublai’s great rampart are still prominent along their whole extent, so that there is no room for question as to the position or true dimensions of the Cambaluc of the middle ages; and it is most probable, indeed it is almost a necessity, that the present palace stands on the lines of Kublai’s palace.
The city, under the name of Cambaluc, was constituted into an archiepiscopal see by Pope Clement V. in 1307, in favour of the missionary Franciscan John of Montecorvino (d. 1330); but though some successors were nominated it seems probable that no second metropolitan ever actually occupied the seat.
Maps of the 16th and 17th centuries often show Cambaluc in an imaginary region to the north of China, a part of the misconception that has prevailed regarding Cathay. The name is often in popular literature written Cambalu, and is by Longfellow accented in verse Cámbălú. But this spelling originates in an accidental error in Ramusio’s Italian version, which was the chief channel through which Marco Polo’s book was popularly known. The original (French) MSS. all agree with the etymology in calling it Cambaluc, which should be accented Cămbáluc.
CAMBAY, a native state of India, within the Gujarat division of Bombay. It has an area of 350 sq. m. Pop. (1901) 75,225, showing a decrease of 16% in the decade, due to the famine of 1899-1900. The estimated gross revenue is £27,189; the tribute, £1460. In physical character Cambay is entirely an alluvial plain. As a separate state it dates only from about 1730, the time of the dismemberment of the Mogul empire. The present chiefs are descended from Momin Khan II., the last of the governors of Gujarat, who in 1742 murdered his brother-in-law, Nizam Khan, governor of Cambay, and established himself there.
The town of Cambay had a population in 1901 of 31,780. It is supposed to be the Camanes of Ptolemy, and was formerly a very flourishing city, the seat of an extensive trade, and celebrated for its manufactures of silk, chintz and gold stuffs; but owing principally to the gradually increasing difficulty of access by water, owing to the silting up of the gulf, its commerce has long since fallen away, and the town has become poor and dilapidated. The spring tides rise upwards of 30 ft., and in a channel usually so shallow form a serious danger to shipping. The trade is chiefly confined to the export of cotton. The town is celebrated for its manufacture of agate and carnelian ornaments, of reputation principally in China. The houses in many instances are built of stone (a circumstance which indicates the former wealth of the city, as the material had to be brought from a very considerable distance); and remains of a brick wall, 3 m. in circumference, which formerly surrounded the town, enclose four large reservoirs of good water and three bazaars. To the south-east there are very extensive ruins of subterranean temples and other buildings half-buried in the sand by which the ancient town was overwhelmed. These temples belong to the Jains, and contain two massive statues of their deities, the one black, the other white. The principal one, as the inscription intimates, is Pariswanath, or Parswanath, carved in the reign of the emperor Akbar; the black one has the date of 1651 inscribed. In 1780 Cambay was taken by the army of General Goddard, was restored to the Mahrattas in 1783, and was afterwards ceded to the British by the peshwa under the treaty of 1803. It was provided with a railway in 1901 by the opening of the 11 m. required to connect with the gaekwar of Baroda’s line through Petlad.
CAMBAY, GULF OF, an inlet in the coast of India, in the Gujarat division of Bombay. It is about 80 m. in length, but is shallow and abounds in shoals and sandbanks. It is supposed that the depth of water in this gulf has been decreasing for more than two centuries past. The tides, which are very high, run into it with amazing velocity, but at low water the bottom is left nearly dry for some distance below the latitude of the town of Cambay. It is, however, an important inlet, being the channel by which the valuable produce of central Gujarat and the British districts of Ahmedabad and Broach is exported; but the railway from Bombay to Baroda and Ahmedabad, near Cambay, has for some time past been attracting the trade to itself.