At my request, Pierre explained the workings of the earthquake engine in the Khakhan’s chambers—which, as I have told, enabled me later to impress Kubilai. However, Pierre refused, with good humor but with firmness, to satisfy my curiosity about the banquet hall’s drink-dispensing serpent tree and animated gold peacocks.
“Like the earthquake urn, they were invented by my father, but they are considerably more complex. If you will forgive my obstinacy, Marco—and Prince Chingkim”—he made a little French bow to each of us—“I will keep secret the workings of the banquet engines. I like being the Court Goldsmith, and there are many other artisans who would like to take my place. Since I am only an outlander, vous savez, I must guard what advantage I possess. As long as there are at least a few contrivances which only I can keep in operation, I am safe against usurpers.”
The Prince smiled understandingly and said, “Of course, Master Boucher.”
So did I, and then I added, “Speaking of the banquet hall, I wondered at another thing there. Though the hall was crowded, the air never got stale, but stayed cool and fresh. Is that done by some other apparatus of yours, Pierre?”
“Non,” he said. “That is a very simple affair, devised long ago by the Han, and presently in the charge of the Palace Engineer.”
“Come, Marco,” said Chingkim. “We can pay him a visit. His workshop is very near.”
So we said au revoir to the Court Goldsmith, and went on our way, and I was next introduced to one Master Wei. He spoke only Han, so Chingkim repeated my query about the banquet hall’s ventilation, and translated to me the Engineer’s explanation.
“A very simple affair,” he said also. “It is well-known that cool air from below will always displace warm air above. There are cellars beneath all the palace buildings, and passages connecting them. Under each building is a cellar room used only as a repository for ice. We are continuously supplied with ice blocks cut by slaves in the ever cold northern mountains, wrapped in straw and brought here by swift-traveling trains. At any time, by the judicious opening of doors and passages here and there, I can make breezes waft the ice stores’ coolness wherever it is wanted, or shut it off when it is not.”
Without my asking, Master Wei went on to boast of some other devices under his control.
“By the agency of a waterwheel of Han design, some of the water from the gardens’ decorative streams is diverted and forced into tanks under the peaks of all the palace buildings’ roofs. From each tank the water can be loosed, at my direction, to flow through pipes over the ice rooms or over the kitchen ovens. Then, when it has been cooled or warmed, I can command it to make artificial weather.”
“Artificial weather?” I said, marveling.
“In every garden are pavilions in which the lords and ladies take their leisure. If a day is very warm, and some lord or lady wishes the refreshment of a rain, without getting rained on—or if some poet merely wishes to meditate in a mood of melancholy—I have only to twist a wheel. From the roof eaves of the pavilion a curtain of rain will fall gently all around the outside. Also in the garden pavilions, there are seats that appear to be of solid stone, but they are hollow. By directing cool water through them in summer, or warm water in spring or fall, I make the seats more comfortable to the august rumps that repose on them. When the new Kara Hill is completed, I shall install in the pavilions there some even more pleasurable devices. The piped waters will move linkages to wave cooling fans, and will bubble through jug flutes to play a warbling soft music.”
And they did. I know they did, for in after years I passed many a dreamy afternoon with Hui-sheng in those pavilions, and I translated the murmurous music for her into gentle touches and soft caresses … . But that was in after years.
I have so far mentioned only a very few of the novelties and marvels I encountered in Kithai and in Khanbalik and within the confines of the Khakhan’s palace—perhaps insufficiently to illustrate how different Kithai was from any other place I had known. But different it was; I should like to emphasize that difference. Be it remembered that the Khan Kubilai owned an empire comprising all sorts of peoples and communities and terrains and climates. He could have made his residence in the Mongols’ earlier, far-northern capital of Karakoren, or in the Mongols’ original, very-far-north homeland of Sibir, or he could have chosen to locate his habitation anywhere else on the continent. But of all his lands he deemed Kithai the most appealing, and so did I, and so it was.
I had been seeing exotic countries and cities all the long way from Acre, but their differences were mainly in the
foreground
of them. By that I mean: whenever I entered a new city, my eye naturally lighted first on the things closest. They would be people of strange complexions and comportment, wearing strange costumes, and behind them would be buildings of unfamiliar architecture. But at ground level would always be street dogs and cats, no different from those anywhere else, and overhead would be the trash-picker birds—pigeons or gulls or kites or whatever—as in any other city in the world. And around the outskirts of the city would stretch humdrum hills or mountains or plains. The countryside and its wildlife might sometimes, at first, be striking—like the mighty snowclad crags of the high Pai-Mir and the magnificent “Marco’s sheep”—but after long journeying, one finds repetition and familiarity even in most landscapes and their fauna and flora.
By contrast, almost anywhere in Kithai, not only was the foreground of interest to an observer, but so also was the least glimpse of things going on at the corner of one’s eye, and the sounds at the edge of one’s hearing, and the smells wafting from all sides. On a walk through the streets of Khanbalik, I might fix my gaze anywhere, from the swooping, curly-eaved rooflines to the multifarious faces and garments of the passersby, and still be conscious that much else worth notice was awaiting my glance.
If I dropped my gaze to street level, I would see cats and dogs, but I would not mistake them for the scavengers of Suvediye or Balkh or anywhere else. Most of the Kithai cats were small and handsomely colored, all-over dun except for brown ears and paws and tail, or silvery-gray with extremities almost indigo-blue, and the cats’ tails were oddly short and even more oddly kinked at the very tip, like hooks for hanging them up with. Some of the dogs running about resembled tiny lions, bushy-maned, with pushed-in muzzles and bulging eyes. Another breed looked like no thing ever seen before on this earth, except maybe an ambulatory tree stump, if there ever was such a thing. Indeed, that kind of dog was called shu-pei, meaning “loose-barked,” for its skin was so voluminously too large for it that none of the dog’s features was perceptible, nor even its shape; it was only a grotesque, waddling heap of wrinkles.
Yet another breed of dog I saw employed in a way I almost hesitate to tell, for I would probably not believe anyone else telling of it. That dog was large, of a reddish and bristly pelt, and was called xiang-gou. Every one wore a harness like a pony, and walked with great care and dignity, because its harness had an upstanding handle, by which the dog led a man or woman. The person holding to the handle was blind—not a beggar, but a man or woman going forth on business or to the market or just for a stroll. It is true. The xiang-gou, meaning “leader-dog,” was bred and trained to lead a blind master about his own premises, without a stumble or collision, and just as confidently through teeming crowds and clashing cart traffic.
Besides the sights, there were the sounds and smells, which sometimes proceeded from the same source. On every corner was a stall or handcart selling hot cooked foods for the outdoor workers or busy passersby who had to eat on the run. So the smell of fish or meat morsels frying came to one’s nose simultaneously with the sizzle coming to one’s ears. Or the faint garlicky smell of miàn boiling was accompanied by the slurping of its eaters shoveling the pasta from bowl to mouth with nimble tongs. Khanbalik being the Khan’s own city, it was continuously patrolled by street cleaners wielding brooms and buckets. So it was generally free of noxious odors like that of human excrement—more so than any other Kithai city, and ineffably more so than cities elsewhere in the East. The basic odor of Khanbalik was a mingled smell of spices and frying oil. To that, as I walked by different shops and market stalls, were variously added the smells of jasmine, cha, brazier smoke, sandalwood, fruits, incense, occasionally the fragrance of a passing lady’s perfumed hand-fan.
Most of the street noises went on incessantly, day and night: the chatter and jabber and singsong of the constantly talking street people, the rumble and clatter of wagon and cart wheels—and as often the jingly music of them, for many carters strung little bells to slide along the spokes of their wheels—the thud of horse and yak hoofs, the lighter patter of asses’ hoofs, the shuffle of camels’ big pads, the rustle of the straw sandals worn by the ceaselessly scampering porters. That continuous blend of noise was frequently punctuated by the wail of a fish vendor, or the howl of a fruit vendor, or the
thwock-thwock
of a poultry vendor pounding on his hollow wooden duck, or the reverberating
boom-boom-boom
that was one of the city drum towers sounding the alarm of a fire somewhere. Only now and again would the street noise diminish to a respectful hush—when a troop of palace guards came trotting through, one of the men playing a fanfare by beating on a sort of lyre of brass rods, the others swinging quarterstaffs to clear the way for the noble lord coming behind them on horseback or being carried in a palanquin.
Sometimes, above the street noise—literally above it—could be heard a thin melodious fluting in the air. The first few times, I was puzzled by it. But then I realized that at least one in every flock of the city’s common pigeons had been banded with a little whistle that sang as it flew. Also, among the more ordinary pigeons was a very fluffy sort I have never seen anywhere else. In its flight it would suddenly pause in midair and somehow, like a tightrope tumbler but without a tightrope, it would topple end for end, merrily making a perfect somersault in the air, and then fly on as sedately as if it had done nothing wonderful.
And if I lifted my gaze even higher above the city roofs, on any breezy autumn day I would see flocks of feng-zheng flying. These were not birds, though some were shaped and painted like birds; others were made to resemble immense butterflies or small dragons. The feng-zheng was a construction of light sticks and very thin paper, and to it a string from a reel was tied. A man would run with the feng-zheng and let the breeze take it, and then, by subtle twitches at his end of the string, he could make it ascend and fly and swoop and curvet in the sky. (Myself, I never could master the art of it.) The height of its ascent was limited only by the amount of string on the flyer’s reel, and sometimes one would go up almost out of sight. Men liked to engage in feng-zheng battles. They would glue on their string an abrasive grit of powdered porcelain or Muscovy glass and then let their feng-zheng fly, and try to guide them so that one’s string would saw and cut another’s, and make that contraption come tumbling down from the sky. The flyers and other men would make heavy wagers on the battle’s outcome. But women and children liked to fly the feng-zheng just for enjoyment.
In the nighttimes, I did not have to make any special effort to observe the peculiar things that happened in the Kithai sky—for my head would be jerked up, volente o nolente, by the noises of those things. I mean the violent booms and bangs and sputters of the artificial lightnings and thunders, the so-called fiery trees and sparkling flowers. As in so many other Eastern countries, in Kithai too every day seemed to mark some folk holiday or anniversary requiring celebration. But only in Kithai did the festivities go on into the night, so there would be reason to send those curious fires flying skyward to burst into brighter fires and then into corpuscles of multicolored fire drifting down to the ground. I regarded the displays with admiration and awe, which was not lessened when later I discovered how those marvels were effected.
Outside the cities, Kithai’s variegated landscape also differed from those of other countries. I have already described a few of Kithai’s distinctive terrains, and will speak of others in their turn. But let me here say this. While I lived in Khanbalik I could, whenever I wished to spend a day in the country, command a horse from the palace stables and in just a morning’s ride go to look at something to be seen in no other landscape on this earth. It may be a relic of total uselessness and vainglory, but the Great Wall, that monster serpent petrified in the act of wriggling from horizon to horizon, is still a fantastic feast for the eyes.
I do not mean to give the impression that everything in Kithai, or even within the Khan’s capital city, was all beautiful, easy, rich and sweet. I would not have wished things so, for an unrelieved niceness can be as tiresome as the monotonously grand landscape of the Pai-Mir. Kubilai could have located his capital in a city of more temperate climate, for instance—there were places to the south that enjoyed perpetual springtime, and some much farther south that basked in perpetual summer. But the people who lived in such places, I found when I visited them, also were boringly bland. The climate of Khanbalik was very like that of Venice: springtime rains, winter snows and a sometimes oppressive summer heat. While its inhabitants did not have to contend with the mildewing dampness of Venice, their houses and clothes and furnishings were pervaded by the yellow dust forever being blown from the western deserts.