When He Wishes To Speak With Any One He Causes The Person To Be
Summoned To That Other Tent.
Immediately behind the great tent there is a
fine large chamber where the Lord sleeps; and there are also many other
tents and chambers, but they are not in contact with the Great Tent as
these are.
The two audience-tents and the sleeping-chamber are constructed
in this way. Each of the audience-tents has three poles, which are of
spice-wood, and are most artfully covered with lions' skins, striped with
black and white and red, so that they do not suffer from any weather. All
three apartments are also covered outside with similar skins of striped
lions, a substance that lasts for ever.[NOTE 7] And inside they are all
lined with ermine and sable, these two being the finest and most costly
furs in existence. For a robe of sable, large enough to line a mantle, is
worth 2000 bezants of gold, or 1000 at least, and this kind of skin is
called by the Tartars "The King of Furs." The beast itself is about the
size of a marten.[NOTE 8] These two furs of which I speak are applied and
inlaid so exquisitely, that it is really something worth seeing. All the
tent-ropes are of silk. And in short I may say that those tents, to wit
the two audience-halls and the sleeping-chamber, are so costly that it is
not every king could pay for them.
Round about these tents are others, also fine ones and beautifully
pitched, in which are the Emperor's ladies, and the ladies of the other
princes and officers. And then there are the tents for the hawks and their
keepers, so that altogether the number of tents there on the plain is
something wonderful. To see the many people that are thronging to and fro
on every side and every day there, you would take the camp for a good big
city. For you must reckon the Leeches, and the Astrologers, and the
Falconers, and all the other attendants on so great a company; and add
that everybody there has his whole family with him, for such is their
custom.
The Lord remains encamped there until the spring, and all that time he
does nothing but go hawking round about among the canebrakes along the
lakes and rivers that abound in that region, and across fine plains on
which are plenty of cranes and swans, and all sorts of other fowl. The
other gentry of the camp also are never done with hunting and hawking, and
every day they bring home great store of venison and feathered game of all
sorts. Indeed, without having witnessed it, you would never believe what
quantities of game are taken, and what marvellous sport and diversion they
all have whilst they are in camp there.
There is another thing I should mention; to wit, that for 20 days' journey
round the spot nobody is allowed, be he who he may, to keep hawks or
hounds, though anywhere else whosoever list may keep them. And furthermore
throughout all the Emperor's territories, nobody however audacious dares
to hunt any of these four animals, to wit, hare, stag, buck, and roe, from
the month of March to the month of October. Anybody who should do so would
rue it bitterly. But those people are so obedient to their Lord's command,
that even if a man were to find one of those animals asleep by the
roadside he would not touch it for the world! And thus the game multiplies
at such a rate that the whole country swarms with it, and the Emperor gets
as much as he could desire. Beyond the term I have mentioned, however, to
wit that from March to October, everybody may take these animals as he
list.[NOTE 9]
After the Emperor has tarried in that place, enjoying his sport as I have
related, from March to the middle of May, he moves with all his people,
and returns straight to his capital city of Cambaluc (which is also the
capital of Cathay, as you have been told), but all the while continuing to
take his diversion in hunting and hawking as he goes along.
NOTE 1. - "Vait vers midi jusques a la Mer Occeane, ou il y a deux
journees." It is not possible in any way to reconcile this description as
it stands with truth, though I do not see much room for doubt as to the
direction of the excursion. Peking is 100 miles as the crow flies from the
nearest point of the coast, at least six or seven days' march for such a
camp, and the direction is south-east, or nearly so. The last circumstance
would not be very material as Polo's compass-bearings are not very
accurate. We shall find that he makes the general line of bearing from
Peking towards Kiangnan, Sciloc or S. East, hence his Midi ought in
consistency to represent S. West, an impossible direction for the Ocean.
It is remarkable that Ramusio has Greco or N. East, which would by the
same relative correction represent East. And other circumstances point
to the frontier of Liao-tong as the direction of this excursion. Leaving
the two days out of question, therefore, I should suppose the "Ocean
Sea" to be struck at Shan-hai-kwan near the terminus of the Great Wall,
and that the site of the standing hunting-camp is in the country to the
north of that point. The Jesuit Verbiest accompanied the Emperor Kanghi on
a tour in this direction in 1682, and almost immediately after passing the
Wall the Emperor and his party seem to have struck off to the left for
sport. Kublai started on the "1st of March," probably however the 1st of
the second Chinese month. Kanghi started from Peking on the 23rd of March,
on the hunting-journey just referred to.
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