But Marco’s pack held stories of a more tangible kind--tales of the Palace of Cublay Kaan, with its hall that held six thousand men, the inside walls covered with gold and silver and pictures of great beasts, and the outside rainbow-coloured, shining like crystal in the sun, and a landmark far and wide. And within the circuit of the palace walls was a green pleasure mound covered with trees from all parts and with a green palace on its summit. “And I tell you that the mound and the trees and the palace are so fair to see that all who see them have joy and gladness, and therefore has the great Sire had them made, to have that beautiful view and to receive from it joy and solace.” He tells of the wonderful Zecca where coins of the Great Kaan are stamped--not made of metal, but of black paper--which may be refused nowhere throughout the Kaan’s dominions on pain of death. All who are possessed of gold and treasure are obliged to bring goods several times in the year, and receive coins of bark in exchange; and therefore, Marco explains, “is Cublay richer than all else in the world.” He describes the posting system, the rich palaces built for the housing of messengers, the trees planted along the merchant routes to act as signposts on the road; “for,” he says, “you will find these trees along the desert way, and they are a great comfort to merchant and messenger.” Visitors to the chapel of San Giorgio dei Schiavoni will recall the use that Carpaccio has made of these palm-tree signposts in the _Death of St. Jerome_ and the _Victory of St. George_. Marco tells of magnificent feasts made by the Great Kaan on his birthday and on New Year’s Day. He delights in stories of the chase within the domain of Cublay’s palace of Chandu (perhaps the Xanadu of Coleridge) the walls of which enclosed a sixteen-mile circuit, with fountains and rivers and lawns and beasts of every kind. He describes in detail, as of special interest to his hearers, the size and construction of the rods of which the Palace of Canes was built and the two hundred silken cords with which it was secured during the summer months of its existence. He speaks of the “weather magic” by which rain and fog are warded off from this palace; and of the Great Kaan’s fancy that the blood of a royal line should not be spilt upon the ground to be seen of sun and air, and of his consequent device for the murder of his uncle Nayan, whom he tossed to death in a carpet. Baudas (Baghdad), he says, is the chief city of the Saracens. A great river flows through it to the Indian Ocean, which may be reached in eighteen days. The city is full of merchants and of traffic; it produces _nasich_ and _nac_ and _cramoisy_, and gold and silver brocades richly embroidered with design of birds and of beasts; and the woods of Bastra, between Baudas and the sea, produce the finest dates in the world. He recounts the taking of this Baudas in the year 1255 by Alaü, the Great Kaan’s brother, who, when he had taken it,