The Travels of Marco Polo — Volume 1 by Marco Polo and da Pisa Rusticiano

CONCERNING THE KAAN’S PALACE OF CHAGANNOR. At the end of those three days you find a city called CHAGAN NOR [which is as much as to say White Pool], at which there is a great Palace of the Grand Kaan’s;{1} and he likes much to reside there on account of the Lakes and Rivers in the neighbourhood, which are the haunt of swans{2} and of a great variety of other birds. The adjoining plains too abound with cranes, partridges, pheasants, and other game birds, so that the Emperor takes all the more delight in staying there, in order to go a-hawking with his gerfalcons and other falcons, a sport of which he is very fond.{3} There are five different kinds of cranes found in those tracts, as I shall tell you. First, there is one which is very big, and all over as black as a crow; the second kind again is all white, and is the biggest of all; its wings are really beautiful, for they are adorned with round eyes like those of a peacock, but of a resplendent golden colour, whilst the head is red and black on a white ground. The third kind is the same as ours. The fourth is a small kind, having at the ears beautiful long pendent feathers of red and black. The fifth kind is grey all over and of great size, with a handsome head, red and black.{4} Near this city there is a valley in which the Emperor has had several little houses erected in which he keeps in mew a huge number of _cators_, which are what we call the Great Partridge. You would be astonished to see what a quantity there are, with men to take charge of them. So whenever the Kaan visits the place he is furnished with as many as he wants.{5} NOTE 1.—[According to the _Siu t’ung kien_, quoted by Palladius, the palace in Chagannor was built in 1280.—H. C.] NOTE 2.—“_Ou demeurent_ sesnes.” _Sesnes, Cesnes, Cecini, Cesanae_, is a mediæval form of _cygnes, cigni_, which seems to have escaped the dictionary-makers. It occurs in the old Italian version of _Brunetto Latini’s Tresor_, Bk. V. ch. xxv., as _cecino_; and for other examples, see _Cathay_, p. 125. NOTE 3.—The city called by Polo CHAGAN-NOR (meaning in Mongol, as he says, “White Lake”) is the _Chaghan Balghasun_ mentioned by Timkowski as an old city of the Mongol era, the ruined rampart of which he passed about 30 miles north of the Great Wall at Kalgan, and some 55 miles from Siuen-hwa, adjoining the Imperial pastures. It stands near a lake still called Chaghan-Nor, and is called by the Chinese Pe-ching-tzu, or White City, a translation of Chaghan Balghasun. Dr. Bushell says of one of the lakes (Ichi-Nor), a few miles east of Chaghan-Nor: “We ... found the water black with waterfowl, which rose in dense flocks, and filled the air with discordant noises. _Swans_, geese, and ducks predominated, and _three different species of cranes_ were distinguished.” The town appears as _Tchahan Toloho_ in D’Anville. It is also, I imagine, the _Arulun Tsaghan Balghasun_ which S. Setzen says Kúblái built about the same time with Shangtu and another city “on the shady side of the Altai,” by which here he seems to mean the Khingan range adjoining the Great Wall. (_Timk._ II. 374, 378–379; _J. R. G. S._ vol. xliii.; _S. Setz._ 115.) I see Ritter has made the same identification of Chaghan-Nor (II. 141). NOTE 4.—The following are the best results I can arrive at in the identification of these five cranes.