And now when Marco Polo was rested and had recovered, they brought him from the Convent of the Red Monks to where the khan was in the city of Chandu.

Now, there were two palaces in Chandu; there was the winter palace, which was of marble, and the summer palace, which was of gilt cane.

Around these palaces there was built a wall sixteen miles in compass, and inside of it was a park of fountains, and rivers and brooks with the speckled trout in them, and meadows with the lark at her ease in the grass, and trees of all varieties where the little birds do be building and none to grudge them a home.

And all the wild animals were abundant, the timid hare and the wild deer and the wee croaking frogs, long-legged colts by their white mothers, and little dogs tumbling over themselves with the sport of spring.

Brown bees among the clover, strawberries in profusion, trees would delight your eyes, and brown cows and black cows, and dappled moilies under the great leaves of them, and lambs would be snowy of fleece.