Kublai Khan, who was as wise in statecraft as in battle, took care not to interfere with the institutions of his new subjects; all the officials who submitted to him were allowed to retain their posts, and the Chinese themselves were exempted from military service. This of course concentrated all the power in the hands of the Mongols, and did more than anything else could have done to consolidate the new dynasty, though the Celestials themselves do not seem to have realized its full significance. The new Emperor was visited at his Court of Khan-balegh, or Cambalu, by Marco Polo, that most venturesome traveller and astute observer, whose account of his sojourn with the great Mongol conqueror gives so vivid a picture of life in China in the thirteenth century. Hospitably received by the Khan, the Venetian dwelt much in his book on the magnificence of his court, and makes the sage and humorous remark: "Kublai, who was the first to invent paper-money made from the inner bark of the mulberry-tree, had discovered the true philosopher's stone, for he could create wealth at his own desire." [Sidenote: THE GREAT CANAL] A far greater boon than the introduction of paper currency was the making of the great canal, which rivals the celebrated wall in the skill of its construction, and has been of far more lasting value to the people of China than that monument of the energy and presumption of Shih-Hwang-Ti. One hundred and seventy thousand men were employed in this useful enterprise, which was not completed until after the death of its promoter. The wonderful waterway, before it fell into disrepair, extended from the capital to Hang-Chan in the province of Che-kiang, and was more than three hundred miles long. Marco Polo said of it: "He (Kublai Khan) has caused a water communication to be made in the shape of a wide and deep channel dug between stream and stream, between lake and lake, forming as it were a great river on which large vessels can ply." [Illustration: FIG. 50.--A CHINESE GENERAL IN HIS WAR-CHARIOT. (_Univers Pittoresque._)] [Sidenote: SAYINGS OF KUBLAI KHAN]