n relate
that in the middle of the pavilion of Dizabulus, the Khan of the Turks,
there were set out drinking-vessels, and flagons and great jars, all of
gold; corresponding to the _coupes_ (or _hanas a mances_), the
_verniques_, and the _grant peitere_ and _petietes peiteres_ of Polo's
account. Rubruquis describes in Batu Khan's tent a buffet near the
entrance, where _Kumiz_ was set forth, with great goblets of gold and
silver, etc., and the like at the tent of the Great Kaan. At a festival at
the court of Oljaitu, we are told, "Before the throne stood golden buffets
... set out with full flagons and goblets." Even in the private huts of
the Mongols there was a buffet of a humbler kind exhibiting a skin of
_Kumiz_, with other kinds of drink, and cups standing ready; and in a
later age at the banquets of Shah Abbas we find the great buffet in a
slightly different form, and the golden flagon still set to every two
persons, though it no longer contained the liquor, which was handed round.
(_Cathay_, clxiv., cci.; _Rubr._ 224, 268, 305; _Ilch._ II. 183; _Della
Valle_, I. 654 and 750-751.)

[Referring to the "large and very beautiful piece of workmanship," Mr.
Rockhill, _Rubruck_, 208-209, writes: "Similar works of art and mechanical
contrivances were often seen in Eastern courts. The earliest I know of is
the golden plane-tree and grape vine with bunches of grapes in precious
stones, which was given to Darius by Pythius the Lydian, and which shaded
the king's couch. (Herodotus, IV. 24.) The most celebrated, however, and
that which may have inspired Mangu with the desire to have something like
it at his court, was the famous Throne of Solomon ([Greek: Solomonteos
Thronos]) of the Emperor of Constantinople, Theophilus (A.D. 829-842)....
Abulfeda states that in A.D. 917 the envoys of Constantine Porphyrogenitus
to the Caliph el Moktader saw in the palace of Bagdad a tree with eighteen
branches, some of gold, some of silver, and on them were gold and silver
birds, and the leaves of the tree were of gold and silver. By means of
machinery, the leaves were made to rustle and the birds to sing. Mirkhond
speaks also of a tree of gold and precious stones in the city of
Sultanieh, in the interior of which were conduits through which flowed
drinks of different kinds. Clavijo describes a somewhat similar tree at
the court of Timur."

Dr. Bretschneider (_Peking_, 28, 29) mentions a clepsydra with a lantern.
By means of machinery put in