[Through the kindness of the late Father H. Havret, S.J., of Zi-ka-wei, I am enabled to give two plans from the Chronicles of Yang-chau, _Yang-chau fu ché_ (ed. 1733); one bears the title: “The Three Cities under the Sung,” and the other: “The Great City under the Sung.” The three cities are _Pao yew cheng_, built in 1256, _Sin Pao-cheng_ or _Kia cheng_, built after 1256, and _Tacheng_, the “Great City,” built in 1175; in 1357, Ta cheng was rebuilt, and in 1557 it was augmented, taking the place of the three cities; from 553 B.C. until the 12th century, Yang-chau had no less than five enclosures; the governor’s yamen stood where a cross is marked in the Great City. Since Yang-chau has been laid in ruins by the T’aï-P’ing insurgents, these plans offer now a new interest.—H. C.] [Illustration: Yang-chau: the Great City under the Sung.] NOTE 3.—What I have rendered “Twelve _Sings_” is in the G. T. “douze _sajes_,” and in Pauthier’s text “_sieges_.” It seems to me a reasonable conclusion that the original word was _Sings_ (see I. 432, _supra_); anyhow that was the proper term for the thing meant. In his note on this chapter, Pauthier produces evidence that Yang-chau was the seat of a _Lu_ or circuit[1] from 1277, and also of a _Sing_ or Government-General, but only for the first year after the conquest, viz. 1276–1277, and he seems (for his argument is obscure) to make from this the unreasonable deduction that at this period Kúblái placed Marco Polo—who could not be more than twenty-three years of age, and had been but two years in Cathay—in charge either of the general government, or of an important district government in the most important province of the empire. In a later note M. Pauthier speaks of 1284 as the date at which the _Sing_ of the province of Kiang-ché was transferred from Yang-chau to Hang-chau; this is probably to be taken as a correction of the former citations, and it better justifies Polo’s statement. (_Pauthier_, pp. 467, 492.)