HOW THE GREAT KAAN ENJOINETH HIS PEOPLE TO SUPPLY HIM
WITH GAME.
The three months of December, January, and February, during which the
Emperor resides at his Capital City, are assigned for hunting and
fowling, to the extent of some 40 days’ journey round the city; and
it is ordained that the larger game taken be sent to the Court. To be
more particular: of all the larger beasts of the chase, such as boars,
roebucks, bucks, stags, lions, bears, etc., the greater part of what
is taken has to be sent, and feathered game likewise. The animals are
gutted and despatched to the Court on carts. This is done by all the
people within 20 or 30 days’ journey, and the quantity so despatched
is immense. Those at a greater distance cannot send the game, but they
have to send the skins after tanning them, and these are employed in
the making of equipments for the Emperor’s army.{1}
NOTE 1.—So Magaillans: “Game is so abundant, especially at the
capital, that every year during the three winter months you see
at different places, intended for despatch thither, besides great
piles of every sort of wildfowl, rows of four-footed game of a
gunshot or two in length: the animals being all frozen and standing
on their feet. Among other species you see three sundry kinds
of bears ... and great abundance of other animals, as stags and
deer of different sorts, boars, elks, hares, rabbits, squirrels,
wild-cats, rats, geese, ducks, very fine jungle-fowl, etc., and all
so cheap that I never could have believed it” (pp. 177–178). As
this writer mentions _wild-cats_, we may presume that the “lions”
of Polo also were destined to be eaten.
[“Kubilai Khan kept a whole army, 14,000 men, huntsmen, distributed
in Peking and other cities in the present province of Chili
(_Yuen-shi_). The Khan used to hunt in the Peking plain from the
beginning of spring, until his departure to Shang-tu. There are in
the Peking department many low and marshy places, stretching often
to a considerable extent and abounding in game. In the biography
of _Ai-sie_ (_Yuen shi_, chap. cxxxiv.), who was a Christian, it
is mentioned that Kubilai was hunting also in the department of
Pao-ting fu.” (_Palladius_, p. 45.)—H. C.]