CHAPTER LX.

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.

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.

NOTE 5.—_Cator_ occurs only in the G. Text and the Crusca, in

the latter with the interpolated explanation “_cioè contornici_”

(_i.e._ quails), whilst the S. G. Latin has _coturnices_ only. I

suspect this impression has assisted to corrupt the text, and

that it was originally written or dictated _ciacor_ or _çacor_,

viz. _chakór_, a term applied in the East to more than one kind

of “Great Partridge.” Its most common application in India is

to the Himalayan red-legged partridge, much resembling on a

somewhat larger scale the bird so called in Europe. It is the

“Francolin” of Moorcroft’s Travels, and the _Caccabis Chukor_

of Gray. According to Cunningham the name is applied in Ladak to

the bird sometimes called the Snow-pheasant, Jerdan’s Snow-cock,

_Tetraogallus himalayensis_ of Gray. And it must be the latter

which Moorcroft speaks of as “the gigantic Chukor, much larger than

the common partridge, found in large coveys on the edge of the

snow; ... one plucked and drawn weighed 5 lbs.”; described by Vigne

as “a partridge as large as a hen-turkey”; the original perhaps

of that partridge “larger than a vulture” which formed one of the

presents from an Indian King to Augustus Caesar. [With reference

to the large Tibetan partridge found in the Nan-shan Mountains

in the meridian of Sha-chau by Prjevalsky, M. E. D. Morgan in a

note (_P. R. Geog. S._ ix. 1887, p. 219), writes: “_Megaloperdrix

thibetanus_. Its general name in Asia is _ullar_, a word of Kirghiz

or Turkish origin; the Mongols call it _hailik_, and the Tibetans

_kung-mo_. There are two other varieties of this bird found in the

Himalaya and Altai Mountains, but the habits of life and call-note

of all three are the same.”] From the extensive diffusion of the

term, which seems to be common to India, Tibet, and Persia (for

the latter, see _Abbott_ in _J. R. G. S._ XXV. 41), it is likely

enough to be of Mongol origin, not improbably _Tsokhor_, “dappled

or pied.” (_Kovalevsky_, No. 2196, and _Strahlenberg’s_ Vocabulary;

see also _Ladak_, 205; _Moorcr._ I. 313, 432; _Jerdan’s Birds of

India_, III. 549, 572; _Dunlop, Hunting in Himalaya_, 178; _J. A.

S. B._ VI. 774.)

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.”