The Palace In Chagannor
Was Built In 1280" (According To The Siu T'ung Kien).
- H. C.]
NOTE 2. - Chandu, called more correctly in Ramusio Xandu, i.e. SHANDU,
and by Fr. Odorico Sandu, viz. SHANG-TU or "Upper Court," the Chinese
title of Kublai's summer residence at Kaipingfu, Mongolice Keibung (see
ch. xiii. of Prologue) [is called also Loan king, i.e. "the capital on
the Loan River," according to Palladius, p. 26. - H. C.]. The ruins still
exist, in about lat. 40 deg. 22', and a little west of the longitude of
Peking. The site is 118 miles in direct line from Chaghan-nor, making
Polo's three marches into rides of unusual length.[1] The ruins bear the
Mongol name of Chao Naiman Sume Khotan, meaning "city of the 108
temples," and are about 26 miles to the north-west of Dolon-nor, a
bustling, dirty town of modern origin, famous for the manufactory of
idols, bells, and other ecclesiastical paraphernalia of Buddhism. The site
was visited (though not described) by Pere Gerbillon in 1691, and since
then by no European traveller till 1872, when Dr. Bushell of the British
Legation at Peking, and the Hon. T. G. Grosvenor, made a journey thither
from the capital, by way of the Nan-kau Pass (supra p. 26), Kalgan, and
the vicinity of Chaghan-nor, the route that would seem to have been
habitually followed, in their annual migration, by Kublai and his
successors.
The deserted site, overgrown with rank weeds and grass, stands but little
above the marshy bed of the river, which here preserves the name of Shang-
tu, and about a mile from its north or left bank.
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