sh each other happiness and good luck for the
coming year. On that day, I can assure you, among the customary presents
there shall be offered to the Kaan from various quarters more than 100,000
white horses, beautiful animals, and richly caparisoned. [And you must
know 'tis their custom in offering presents to the Great Kaan (at least
when the province making the present is able to do so), to present nine
times nine articles. For instance, if a province sends horses, it sends
nine times nine or 81 horses; of gold, nine times nine pieces of gold, and
so with stuffs or whatever else the present may consist of.][NOTE 2]

On that day also, the whole of the Kaan's elephants, amounting fully to
5000 in number, are exhibited, all covered with rich and gay housings of
inlaid cloth representing beasts and birds, whilst each of them carries on
his back two splendid coffers; all of these being filled with the
Emperor's plate and other costly furniture required for the Court on the
occasion of the White Feast.[NOTE 3] And these are followed by a vast
number of camels which are likewise covered with rich housings and laden
with things needful for the Feast. All these are paraded before the
Emperor, and it makes the finest sight in the world.

Moreover, on the morning of the Feast, before the tables are set, all the
Kings, and all the Dukes, Marquesses, Counts, Barons, Knights, and
Astrologers, and Philosophers, and Leeches, and Falconers, and other
officials of sundry kinds from all the places round about, present
themselves in the Great Hall before the Emperor; whilst those who can find
no room to enter stand outside in such a position that the Emperor can see
them all well. And the whole company is marshalled in this wise. First are
the Kaan's sons, and his nephews, and the other Princes of the Blood
Imperial; next to them all Kings; then Dukes, and then all others in
succession according to the degree of each. And when they are all seated,
each in his proper place, then a great prelate rises and says with a loud
voice: "Bow and adore!" And as soon as he has said this, the company bow
down until their foreheads touch the earth in adoration towards the
Emperor as if he were a god. And this adoration they repeat four times,
and then go to a highly decorated altar, on which is a vermilion tablet
with the name of the Grand Kaan inscribed thereon, and a beautiful censer
of gold. So they incense the tablet and the altar with great revere