Volume 1 — CHAPTER LX.
Henry Yule translation
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}
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).
1. Radde mentions as a rare crane in South Siberia Grus monachus, called by the Buraits Kará Togorü, or “Black Crane.” Atkinson also speaks of “a beautiful black variety of crane,” probably the same. The Grus monachus is not, however, jet black, but brownish rather. (Radde, Reisen, Bd. II. p. 318; Atkinson. Or. and W. Sib. 548.)
2. Grus leucogeranus (?) whose chief habitat is Siberia, but which sometimes comes as far south as the Punjab. It is the largest of the genus, snowy white, with red face and beak; the ten largest quills are black, but this barely shows as a narrow black line when the wings are closed. The resplendent golden eyes on the wings remain unaccounted for; no naturalist whom I have consulted has any knowledge of a crane or crane-like bird with such decorations. When ’tis discovered, let it be the Grus Poli!
3. Grus cinerea.
4. The colour of the pendants varies in the texts. Pauthier’s and the G. Text have red and black; the Lat. S. G. black only, the Crusca black and white, Ramusio feathers red and blue (not pendants). The red and black may have slipt in from the preceding description. I incline to believe it to be the Demoiselle, Anthropoides Virgo, which is frequently seen as far north as Lake Baikal. It has a tuft of pure white from the eye, and a beautiful black pendent ruff or collar; the general plumage purplish-grey.
5. Certainly the Indian Sáras (vulgo Cyrus), or Grus antigone, which answers in colours and grows to 52 inches high.
The chakór is mentioned by Baber (p. 282); and also by the Hindi poet Chand (Rás Mála, I. 230, and Ind. Antiquary, I. 273). If the latter passage is genuine, it is adverse to my Mongol etymology, as Chand lived before the Mongol era.
The keeping of partridges for the table is alluded to by Chaucer in his portrait of the Franklin, Prologue, Cant. Tales:
“It snewed in his hous of mete and drinke, Of alle deyntees that men coud of thinke, After the sondry sesons of the yere, So changed he his mete and his soupere. Full many a fat partrich hadde he in mewe, And many a breme and many a luce in stewe.”