It Is Reckoned That This Prodigious Work Required 100,000
Loads Of Brass.
The top of the temple is exquisitely finished, and
terminates in an open hall.
It is surrounded by eight mounts or eminences,
which may be ascended both on the outside and the inside; and these have
several grottos, the walls of which are adorned with various paintings,
representing priests, idols, hermits, tigers, leopards, serpents, and
trees. These, with the idols, mountains, and arches, seem all to be
composed of plaster. Around this great temple there are many fine
buildings, and among these a turning tower, similar to that of Kan-chew,
but larger and finer.
Continuing their journey, at the rate of four or five pharasangs each
day[32], the ambassadors arrived before day-break of the eighth of
Zu'lhajieh, at the imperial city of Khanbalik[33], or Pekin. This city is
so great that each side is a pharasang in length, or about four and a
quarter English miles. But at this time 100,000 houses within its walls lay
in ruins. The ambassadors and their retinue were conducted on foot along a
causeway 700 feet long, to the palace gate, where there stood five
elephants on either side. On passing this outward gate, they entered a very
beautiful paved court of great extent, where they found 100,000 men waiting
at the emperors gate, although it was not yet day. Facing this court there
was a great kiosk or pavilion, the basis of which was thirty cubits high,
on which stood pillars fifty cubits high, supporting a gallery sixty cubits
long and forty cubits wide.
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