d straight from gate to gate (except, of course, where interrupted by
the palace walls), forming an oblong chess-board plan.

Ta-tu continued to be the residence of the emperors till the fall of the
Mongol power (1368). The native dynasty (Ming) which supplanted them
established their residence at Nan-king ("South Court"), but this proved
so inconvenient that Yunglo, the third sovereign of the dynasty,
reoccupied Ta-tu, giving it then, for the first time, the name of
Pe-king ("North Court"). This was the name in common use when the
Jesuits entered China towards the end of the 16th century, and began to
send home accurate information about China. But it is not so now; the
names in ordinary use being King-cheng or King-tu, both signifying
"capital." The restoration of Cambaluc was commenced in 1409. The size
of the city was diminished by the retrenchment of nearly one-third at
the northern end, which brought the enceinte more nearly to a square
form. And this constitutes the modern (so-called) "Tatar city" of
Peking, the south front of which is identical with the south front of
the city of Kublai. The walls were completed in 1437. Population
gathered about the southern front, probably using the material of the
old city of Yenking, and the excrescence so formed was, in 1544,
enclosed by a wall and called the "outer city." It is the same that is
usually called by Europeans "the Chinese city." The ruins of the
retrenched northern portion of Kublai's great rampart are still
prominent along their whole extent, so that there is no room for
question as to the position or true dimensions of the Cambaluc of the
middle ages; and it is most probable, indeed it is almost a necessity,
that the present palace stands on the lines of Kublai's palace.

The city, under the name of Cambaluc, was constituted into an
archiepiscopal see by Pope Clement V. in 1307, in favour of the
missionary Franciscan John of Montecorvino (d. 1330); but though some
successors were nominated it seems probable that no second metropolitan
ever actually occupied the seat.

Maps of the 16th and 17th centuries often show Cambaluc in an imaginary
region to the north of China, a part of the misconception that has
prevailed regarding Cathay. The name is often in popular literature
written Cambalu, and is by Longfellow accented in verse _Cambalu_. But
this spelling originates in an accidental error in Ramusio's Italian
version, which was the chief channel through whi