When The City Was In Its Glory Under The Sung, The
Luh-Ho-Ta Pagoda May Be Taken As Marking The Extreme S.W. Another Known
Point Marks Approximately The Chief North Gate Of That Period, At A Mile
And A Half Or Two Miles Beyond The Present North Wall.
The S.E. angle was
apparently near the river bank.
But, on the other hand, the waist of the
city seems to have been a good deal narrower than it now is. Old
descriptions compare its form to that of a slender-waisted drum (dice-box
or hour-glass shape).
Under the Mongols the walls were allowed to decay; and in the disturbed
years that closed that dynasty (1341-1368) they were rebuilt by an
insurgent chief on a greatly reduced compass, probably that which they
still retain. Whatever may have been the facts, and whatever the origin of
the estimate, I imagine that the ascription of 100 miles of circuit to
Kinsay had become popular among Westerns. Odoric makes the same statement.
Wassaf calls it 24 parasangs, which will not be far short of the same
amount. Ibn Batuta calls the length of the city three days' journey.
Rashiduddin says the enceinte had a diameter of 11 parasangs, and that
there were three post stages between the two extremities of the city,
which is probably what Ibn Batuta had heard. The Masalak-al-Absar calls
it one day's journey in length, and half a day's journey in breadth. The
enthusiastic Jesuit Martini tries hard to justify Polo in this as in other
points of his description.
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