Note {2} — Chapter LXI

Note 2.—Chandu, called more correctly in Ramusio Xandu, i.e. Shandu, and by Fr. Odorico Sandu, viz. Shang-Tu or “Upper Court,” the Chinese title of Kúblái’s summer residence at Kaipingfu, Mongolicè Keibung (see ch. xiii. of Prologue) [is called also Loan king, i.e. “the capital on the Loan River,” according to Palladius, p. 26.—H. C.]. The ruins still exist, in about lat. 40° 22′, and a little west of the longitude of Peking. The site is 118 miles in direct line from Chaghan-nor, making Polo’s three marches into rides of unusual length.[1] The ruins bear the Mongol name of Chao Naiman Sumé Khotan, meaning “city of the 108 temples,” and are about 26 miles to the north-west of Dolon-nor, a bustling, dirty town of modern origin, famous for the manufactory of idols, bells, and other ecclesiastical paraphernalia of Buddhism. The site was visited (though not described) by Père Gerbillon in 1691, and since then by no European traveller till 1872, when Dr. Bushell of the British Legation at Peking, and the Hon. T. G. Grosvenor, made a journey thither from the capital, by way of the Nan-kau Pass (supra p. 26), Kalgan, and the vicinity of Chaghan-nor, the route that would seem to have been habitually followed, in their annual migration, by Kúblái and his successors.