The Rashīdī History 7.3.4

7.3.4

and as for the palace, the abbey of St. Dennis is worth ten of it! There are two streets in the town, one of which is occupied by the Saracens, and in that is the market-place. The other street is occupied by the Cathayans, who are all craftsmen.... There are also twelve idol temples belonging to different nations, two Mahummeries, in which the law of Mahomet is preached, and one Church of the Christians at the extremity of the town. The town is enclosed by a mud wall and has four gates." The Chinese travellers of the thirteenth century give no description of the inhabited centres of Moghulistan which they passed through, though one of them, Chang Te (who seems to have had an eye for irrigation) mentions briefly that at Almaligh there were reservoirs in the market-places, "connected by running water." Farther westward also, in the valley of the Chu, he remarks that the country was intersected in all directions by canals which irrigated the fields, while numerous ancient walls and other ruins were seen which he attributed to the days of the Kitan or the Kara Khitai. But all these marks of civilisation had been swept away in Mirza Haidar's time, as he himself implies in his description of the antiquities of that part of the Khanate which, he says, was formerly known as 'Kora Khitai.'