, previous to B.C. 222, when it was captured by the
Prince of the T'sin Dynasty. [Under the T'ang dynasty (618-907) it was
known under the name of Yu-chau.] It became one of the capitals of the
Khitans in A.D. 936, and of the Kin sovereigns, who took it in 1125, in
1151 under the name of Chung-tu. Under the name of Yenking, [given to this
city in 1013] it has a conspicuous place in the wars of Chinghiz against
the latter dynasty. He captured it in 1215. In 1264, Kublai adopted it as
his chief residence, and founded in 1267, the new city of TATU ("Great
Court"), called by the Mongols TAIDU or DAITU since 1271 (see Bk. I. ch.
lxi. note 1), at a little distance--Odoric says half a mile--to the
north-east of the old Yenking. Tatu was completed in the summer of 1267.

Old Yenking had, when occupied by the Kin, a circuit of 27 _li_ (commonly
estimated at 9 miles, but in early works the _li_ is not more than 1/5 of
a mile), afterwards increased to 30 _li_. But there was some kind of outer
wall about the city and its suburbs, the circuit of which is called 75
_li_. ["At the time of the Yuen the walls still existed, and the ancient
city of the Kin was commonly called Nan-ch'eng (Southern city), whilst the
Mongol capital was termed the northern city." _Bretschneider, Peking_,
10.--H. C.] (_Lockhart_; and see _Amyot_, II. 553, and note 6 to last
chapter.)

Polo correctly explains the name _Cambaluc_, i.e. _Kaan-baligh_, "The City
of the Kaan."

NOTE 2.--The river that ran between the old and new city must have been
the little river _Yu_, which still runs through the modern Tartar city,
and fills the city ditches.

[Dr. Bretschneider (_Peking_, 49) thinks that there is a strong
probability that Polo speaks of the _Wen-ming ho_, a river which,
according to the ancient descriptions, ran near the southern wall of the
Mongol capital.--H. C.]

[Illustration: South Gate of Imperial City at Peking.

"Elle a donze portes, et sor chascune porte a une grandisme palais et
biaus."]

NOTE 3.--This height is from Pauthier's Text; the G. Text has, "_twenty_
paces," i.e. 100 feet. A recent French paper states the dimensions of the
existing walls as 14 metres (45-1/2 feet) high, and 14.50 (47-1/4 feet)
thick, "the top forming a paved promenade, unique of its kind, and
recalling the legendary walls of Thebes and Babylon." (_Ann. d'Hygiene
Publique_, 2nd s. tom, xxxii. for 1869, p. 21.)

[According to the French astronomers (Fleuriais and La