Travels Of Marco Polo: Twenty One: The City of Kambalu

Having described to you of city of Kambalu, I will tell you of city of Cathay, which contains them. Near it is another large splendid one, named Kambalu or Khanblaiq or Dadu the modern day Beijing. Some astrologers advised him to move away because they foresaw the people of the city would revolt against him. So a new palace was built on the other side of river. It was bigger than the existing one. It was of square shape, six miles on each side, and twenty four miles in circumstance. It had earth walls, ten paces thick and twenty paces high. The upper part thinner than the lower part. At the top had only three paces thickness. There are twelve gates, each gate containing an edifice, filled with men who guard the palace. The streets are so broad and straight that from one gate another is visible. It contains beautiful houses and palaces, and a very large one in the midst, containing a steeple wit a large bell, which at nighty sounds three times; after which no man must leave the city, without some urgent necessity, as of sickness, or a women about to bear child. At each gate thousand men keep guard, not from dread of any enemy, but in reverence of the monarch, who dwells within it.

____________________________________1. Cathay: It is the name by which North China was known in medieval Europe. The word is derived from Khaitay, or Khaitan, the seminomadic people who left southeastern Mongolia in the 10th century CE to conquer part of Manchuria and Northern China which they held for about 200 years. From the time of Genghis Khan the Mongols had been referring North China as Kaitai and South China as Mangi. Kaitai is still the Russian word for China.

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