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Art. XV.—Notes on the old Mongolian Capital of Shangtu.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2011

S. W. Bushell
Affiliation:
Physician to H.B.M. Legation, Peking

Extract

On February 9th, 1874, I read a paper before the Royal Geographical Society entitled, “Notes of a Journey outside the Great Wall of China,” made by the Hon. T. G. Grosvenor and myself in the autumn of 1872, including an account of a visit to the ruins of the city of Shangtu, the ancient northern capital of the Yuan Dynasty, described in such glowing terms by Marco Polo, who was there in the reign of its founder, the famous Kublai Khan. They are situate on the northern bank of the Lan-ho—the Shangtu River—about twenty-five miles to the north-west of Dolonnor, the populous city founded by the Emperor Kang-hi, as a trading mart between the Chinese and the Mongolian tribes. These ruins were identified by the existence of a marble memorial tablet, with an inscription of the reign of Kublai, in an ancient form of the Chinese character. A more detailed account of the history of the city so frequently referred to by mediaeval travellers, derived from Chinese and other sources, has been drawn up; and a plan of the ruins, with a facsimile and translation of the inscription, added, in the hope that it may prove of some interest to the Members of your Society.

Type
Original Communications
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1875

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References

page 329 note 1 Huan-chou is now known by the Mongolian name Kourtu Balgasun.

page 330 note 1 See Yule's Cathay, and the Way Thither.

page 334 note 1 D'Ohsson reads this passage: “Kublai caused a palace to be built for him east of Kaipingfu; but he abandoned it in consequence of a dream.”

page 335 note 1 Souvenirs d'un Voyage dans la Tartarie, le Thibet, et la Chine, , chap. ii. p. 39.Google Scholar