Very vivid is the light thrown by these quotations on the civilization of the capital of China under the Mongol ruler, and, thanks once more to Marco Polo, we are able to form a very accurate idea of the personal appearance of Kublai Khan. "The great Lord of lords," the celebrated traveller tells us, "is of a good stature, neither little nor big, but of medium height ... his limbs are well formed ... his face is white, with cheeks like a rose; his nose is well shaped and prominent." The chronicler further tells us that Kublai Khan had four wives, whom he treated exactly alike, and that his eldest, no matter by which mother, would succeed him when he died. According to other authorities, one wife alone enjoyed the title of Empress, and she had three hundred female slaves to attend upon her. [Sidenote: A DEGENERATE EMPEROR] The founder alike of the Mongol, or, as it is sometimes called, the Yuan dynasty, and of Pekin, lived to the advanced age of eighty-three, and was succeeded by his grandson Timur; but able as that prince was, he was by no means equal to his predecessor. Later members of the Tartar race, who occupied the Chinese throne, did not follow the example of the old Manchu rulers, so that the wonderfully-organized government of Kublai Khan gradually fell to pieces, and at the end of seventy-three years yet another new dynasty supplanted that which had appeared so firmly established. No one can wonder at this who reads the stories told of Shun-Ti, the ninth and last Mongol sovereign, who, called to the supreme power at the early age of thirteen, amused himself by watching the dancing of sixteen young girls, called the sixteen spirits, and wasted time and treasure in endeavouring to pry into the future, with the aid of soothsayers, whilst he neglected every duty he owed to God and to his subjects. Marco Polo left a glowing description of the Imperial Palace at Kambala, or Pekin, where, he tells us, "twice five miles of fertile ground, with walls and towers, were girdled round," and as late as 1793, when Lord Macartney visited the city, he found that it was still very much what it had been in the thirteenth century. On the change of dynasty, after the expulsion of Shun-Ti, the capital was transferred to Nanking, but in 1421 Pekin was restored to its old dignity, and its walls were still further extended. In the following centuries its fortunes fluctuated greatly, and it was not until 1860, when it was taken by the Anglo-French forces, that it began to assume anything of its present appearance. The central or inner city, known as the Manchu, is divided into three parts: the Purple Forbidden Town containing the imperial residences; the Imperial or August City, with the great temples, where the imperial family worship their ancestors; and the general city, beyond which again is the so-called Chinese town, consisting of a net-work of lanes and alleys, with two wide thoroughfares intersecting each other at right angles.