In the year of our Lord 1267, the Tartar emperor _Koublay han_ (in Chinese _Yuen chi tsou_) built the city called _Ta tou_. It is the principal part of the present city of _King tching_. It contained the _Kin chun_, a palace _Yng tay_, _Hoang tching_, _Tse kin_, &c. the walls of the city, an observatory, the towers of the Drum and the Bell. _Yong lo_, emperor of the last dynasty _Tay ming_, made great alterations in the city built by _Yuen chi tsou_. In the year 1406 the emperor _Yong lo_ undertook to build stronger and higher walls, and more magnificent gates, to the city; to rebuild the _Hoang tching_, the emperor and empress’s proper habitation, and the several parts of _Tse kin_, the courts, hall of the throne or of _Tay ho tien_, the _Kou leou_, the _Tchong leou_. He undertook also to build the _Sien nong tan_ and _Tien tan_, which are now in the Chinese city. On account of the wars with the Tartars, the works undertaken by _Yong lo_ were not finished till the year of our Lord 1421. Since that time, in the _Kin tchin_ some alterations have been made in the palace, and a good number of new _miao_ and palaces have been built. The emperor _Kia tsing_ built the Chinese city in the year of Christ 1544. The gates and walls of the Chinese city are not all equal in beauty to those in the city _King tching_. The streets are neither so broad, nor so well kept in repair. More than a third of the space of the Chinese city is not inhabited. It consists only of fields and gardens. The spaces occupied by the _Sien nong tan_ and the _Tien tan_ are vast; and between these two there is a very broad road. In this Chinese city are some mosques for the Mahometans. The inhabited part of this city is much more so than the city _King tching_ and _Hoang tching_. In the Chinese city are vast inns for those, who come out of the southern provinces to Peking. Here are likewise a curious manufacture of _lieou ly_ or Chinese glass, rich merchants of women’s ornaments, of gold, of the plant _gin cheng_ so much esteemed and so dear here, of varnished furniture, tea, stuffs of value, _&c._ The booksellers shops are also in this city. It is to be remarked, that the walls of the Chinese city and _King tching_ do not run directly north and south and east and west, but decline towards the north-west 2° 30´, and as much south-east. It is probable, that the architects employed in directing the building of these walls made use of a compass; and that the declinatiation of the needle was then what is mentioned above. What I have said of the walls of the city is likewise to be said of the walls of _Hoang tching_ and of _Tse king_. At the time of building the city _King tching_, and the Chinese city, the Chinese astronomers very well understood, that the north and south of the compass was not the north and south of the heavens at Peking; they knew, that the needle declined to the north-west and south-east; but that this declination was not considerable.