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APPENDIX.
comes to describe the province of Mangi. be the southern part of China.
This province is supposed to
It contains, he says, twelve hundred cities.
T h e capital Quinsai (supposed to be the city of Hang-cheu) was twentyfive miles from the sea, but communicated by a river with a port situated on the sea-coast, and had great trade with India. T h e name Quinsai, according to Marco Polo, signifies the city of heaven ; he says he has been in it and examined it diligently, and affirms it to be the largest in the world ; and so undoubtedly it is if the measure ment of the traveler is to be taken literally, for he declares that it is one hundred miles in circuit.
This seeming exaggeration has been explained
by supposing him to mean Chinese miles or H, which are to the Italian miles in the proportion of three to eight ; and M r . Marsden observes that the walls even of the modern city, the limits of which have been consider ably contracted, are estimated by travelers at sixty K.
T h e ancient city
has evidently been of immense extent, and as Marco Polo could not be supposed to have measured the walls himself, he has probably taken the loose and incorrect estimates of the inhabitants.
H e describes it also as
built upon little islands like Venice, and has twelve thousand stone bridges,* the arches of which are so high that the largest vessels can pass under them without lowering their masts.
It has, he affirms, three thou
sand baths, and six hundred thousand families, including domestics.
It
abounds with magnificent houses, and has a lake thirty miles in circuit within its walls, on the banks of which are superb palaces of people of rank.f
T h e inhabitants of Quinsai are very voluptuous, and indulge in
all kinds of luxuries and delights, particularly the women, who are ex tremely beautiful.
There are many merchants and artisans, but the mas-
* Another blunder in translation has drawn upon Marco Polo the indigna tion of George Hornius, who (in his Origin of America, IV. 3) exclaims, " W h o can believe all that he says of the city of Quinsai ? as for example, that it has stone bridges twelve thousand miles high !" &c.
It is probable that
many of the exaggerations in the accounts of Marco Polo are in fact the errors of his translators. Mandeville, speaking of this same city, which he calls Causai, says it is built on the sea like Venice, and has twelve hundred bridges. t Sir George Staunton mentions this lake as being a beautiful sheet of wa ter, about three or four miles in diameter ; its margin ornamented with houses and gardens of Mandarines, together with temples, monasteries for the priests of Fo, and an imperial palace.