A. de
Lapparent, Lecons de Geographie Physique, 2'e ed. 1898, p. 566.) - H.C.]
Though we do not expect to find Polo taking note of geological features, we
are surprised to find no mention of a characteristic of Shan-si and the
adjoining districts, which is due to the loess; viz. the practice of
forming cave dwellings in it; these in fact form the habitations of a
majority of the people in the loess country. Polo has noticed a similar
usage in Badakhshan (I. p. 161), and it will be curious if a better
acquaintance with that region should disclose a surface formation analogous
to the loess. (Richthofen's Letters, VII. 13 et passim.)
NOTE 2. - Taianfu is, as Magaillans pointed out, T'AI-YUAN FU, the capital
of the Province of Shan-si, and Shan-si is the "Kingdom." The city was,
however, the capital of the great T'ang Dynasty for a time in the 8th
century, and is probably the Tajah or Taiyunah of old Arab writers. Mr.
Williamson speaks of it as a very pleasant city at the north end of a most
fertile and beautiful plain, between two noble ranges of mountains. It was
a residence, he says, also of the Ming princes, and is laid out in Peking
fashion, even to mimicking the Coal-Hill and Lake of the Imperial Gardens.
It stands about 3000 feet above the sea [on the left bank of the
Fen-ho.
