The Po, for it is longer than it
is broad," and so on, relating how his host took him to see a great
monastery of the idolaters, where there was a garden full of grottoes, and
therein many animals of divers kinds, which they believed to be inhabited
by the souls of gentlemen. "But if any one should desire to tell all the
vastness and great marvels of this city, a good quire of stationery would
not hold the matter, I trow. For 'tis the greatest and noblest city, and
the finest for merchandize that the whole world containeth." (Cathay,
113 seqq.)
The Archbishop of Soltania (circa 1330): - "And so vast is the number of
people that the soldiers alone who are posted to keep ward in the city of
Cambalec are 40,000 men by sure tale. And in the city of CASSAY there be
yet more, for its people is greater in number, seeing that it is a city of
very great trade. And to this city all the traders of the country come to
trade; and greatly it aboundeth in all manner of merchandize." (Ib.
244-245.)
John Marignolli (in China 1342-1347): - "Now Manzi is a country which has
countless cities and nations included in it, past all belief to one who
has not seen them.... And among the rest is that most famous city of
CAMPSAY, the finest, the biggest, the richest, the most populous, and
altogether the most marvellous city, the city of the greatest wealth and
luxury, of the most splendid buildings (especially idol-temples, in some
of which there are 1000 and 2000 monks dwelling together), that exists now
upon the face of the earth, or mayhap that ever did exist." (Ib. p.
354.) He also speaks, like Odoric, of the "cloister at Campsay, in that
most famous monastery where they keep so many monstrous animals, which
they believe to be the souls of the departed" (384). Perhaps this
monastery may yet be identified. Odoric calls it Thebe. [See A.
Vissiere, Bul. Soc. Geog. Com., 1901, pp. 112-113. - H.C.]
Turning now to Asiatic writers, we begin with Wassaf (A.D. 1300): -
"KHANZAI is the greatest city of the cities of Chin,
"'Stretching like Paradise through the breadth of Heaven.'
"Its shape is oblong, and the measurement of its perimeter is about 24
parasangs. Its streets are paved with burnt brick and with stone. The
public edifices and the houses are built of wood, and adorned with a
profusion of paintings of exquisite elegance. Between one end of the city
and the other there are three Yams (post-stations) established. The
length of the chief streets is three parasangs, and the city contains 64
quadrangles corresponding to one another in structure, and with parallel
ranges of columns.
