Tibet and the Indo-Chinese regions, our traveller
will return, whimsically enough, not to the capital to take a fresh
departure, but to this bifurcation outside of Chochau, and thence carry us
south with him to Manzi, or China south of the Yellow River.
Of a part of the road of which Polo speaks in the latter part of the
chapter Williamson says: "The drive was a very beautiful one. Not only were
the many villages almost hidden by foliage, but the road itself hereabouts
is lined with trees.... The effect was to make the journey like a ramble
through the avenues of some English park." Beyond Tingchau however the
country becomes more barren. (I. 268.)
CHAPTER XXXVII.
THE KINGDOM OF TAIANFU.
After riding then those ten days from the city of Juju, you find yourself
in a kingdom called TAIANFU, and the city at which you arrive, which is the
capital, is also called Taianfu, a very great and fine city. [But at the
end of five days' journey out of those ten, they say there is a city
unusually large and handsome called ACBALUC, whereat terminate in this
direction the hunting preserves of the Emperor, within which no one dares
to sport except the Emperor and his family, and those who are on the books
of the Grand Falconer.
