Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-04-18
FREERE EXPEDITION
PLANS EXCAVATION
OF TABLED XANADU
KubIai Kahn Summer Capital
in Mongolia Is Thirteenth
Century Landmark.
DREAM OF COLERlDGE
RAISES PSYCHIC POINT
Way Cleared to Begin Work, but
Chaos in China Will Delay
Scientific Efforts.
BY THOMAS r. HENRY.

Gallery expedition.
A Chinese collaboration of the Freer
Gallery, it is announced by G. w.
Bishop, associate curator, already has
visited the site of this vanished wonder
CITY of 108 temples and established
friendly relations with Mongol ofhclals
in the neighborhood. Thus the way has
been prepared for possible excavation.
with the return of settled conditions IN
China.
"Xanadu," the Portuguese spelling of
the Chinese Shang-Tu, was the SUM-
mer capital of the famous Mongol con-
uueror Kublai Khan, located about 200
miles north of Peking in Inner Mon
golia and dating from the thirteenth
century. Here Kublai, who also was the
founder of Peking maintained his court
from March to May of each year,
gathered the treasures collected in his
conuuestS and erected buildings which
were the marvelS of their time. Here
he was visited by the Venetian traveller
Marco Polo, who left one of the few
accounts of the wonders of the SUM-
mer capital.
For Western readers, however, KAN
adu'' is mystical word connected with
one of the most curious psychological
GAOeIlcUCSS Ou 1CCOl0, SAAC obAebA46S
dream of the English poet, Samuel
Taylor Coleridge, which resulted in one
of the most celebrated poems in British
literature. The excavation of the buried
city by expert psychologists might be
expected to reveal whether Coleridge's
dream represented some inexpllcable
phenomenon of mental telepathy out OF
a distant past or was entirely the effect
of opium on the poets brain cells.
7 Experience of Coleridge.
Coleridge. according to his own ac-
count of the phantastic experience,
during the Summer Of 1877 was in Ill
health and retired to lonely farm
house. Here. en-. PHYSICIANS orders;
he took a small dose of opium and fell
asleep in a chair while reading. Con-
seriousness left him while his eyes were
resting on these lines in an old book,
Here the Khan Kublia commanded a
palace to be built and stately garden
thereunto: and thus 1oARilesa of fertile
ground were inclosed with wall"
1.-The author" continues Celeridge,
CONTINUED for about three hours in q
profound sleep, at least of the external
senses, during which, he has the most
vivid confidence, he could not have COM
posed less than two or three hundred
lines, if that indeed can be called COM
position in which all the images rose
before him as things with parallel
production of the corresponding ex-
pressions. without any sensation OF
consciousness of effort. On awakening,
he appeared to himself to have a dis
tinct recollection of the whole and
taking his pen, ink and paper instantly
and eagerly wrote down the lines that
are here preserved
"At this moment he was unfortu-
nately called out by person on busi-
ness from Porlock and detained by him
above an hour, and on his return to the
room he found. to his no small surprise
and modification. that all the rest had
passed away like the images on the sur
face of stream into which stone
has been cast"
He published the poem as fragment
of weird, unearthly beauty almost I'M
rivaled in all literature and it has re-
manned a mystery to psychologists ever
since. If the experience had been only
a dream of phantastic imagery it might
be explained easily as resulting from the
drugs Coleridge had taken. Through
out the vision when his higher intel
lectual centerS presumably would have
been dormant however, Coleridge con-
tinued to perform highly intellectual
work
Mr.. Bishop, however, has little ex-
pectation of being able to discover any
of the buried marvels which came to
Coleridge in his dream vision. The
buildings erected by Kublai doubtless
we're magnificent enough at the time,
but they were made of bamboo and mud
materials were ill-suited to Withstand
the ravages of time and probably have
entirely disappeared. Some of the
Kings belongings, however, might still
be intact. =.
The site of xanadu still is almost in
accessible to Psychologists. K. S. Tung.
the Smithsonian collaboration, reached
the place only after two attempts. The
first almost cost him his life before he
got back to Peking. The second was
successful, largely through the. friend
ship of the former abbot of the lama
Temple at Peking.
Although the way has been cleared,
according to Mr.. Bishop, 1t is unlikely
that any effort will be made to uncover
the buried city at present because of
the unsettled conditions. Relations be-
tween the Chinese and Mongolians are
far from friendly. Meantime the Freer
Gallery expedition which will leave
washington this Spring or early this
Summer has made arrangements to ex-
cayate other sites from a much earlier
period and which are expected to yield
valuable antiquities throwing light on
early Chinese culture. After that, If
conditions remain peaceful, they may
turn to Xanadu.
This site. where there was flourish
ing civilization when Europe was just
emerging from the Dark Ages, now is
place of the utmost desolation, as de-
scribed by Mr.. Tung. The palace of
Kublai, his great game preserves and
the tabled temples are represented only
by grass-covered mounds rising little
above the marsly river level, with little
from natural hillocks. These also might
cover the "caverns measureless to man"
described by Coleridge, from the depths
of which Kublai "heard ancestral
voices prophesying war;" The site sell
dom has been visited by Psychologists
and what lies beneath the mounds is
purely matter of conjecture.
Monks Home Now.
About 20 miles away is small Mon
rolian city, whose chief industry is the
manufacture of Bhuddist religious OBJ
iectS. On the actual site of Xanadu the
human beings are a small group OF
wretchedly poor Lamist monks.
The Freer Gallery is laying down q
broad general background for archeo-
logical research in China. This work
consists of locating sites and establish
ing friendly relations with local ofilcials.
THE American portion Of the expedition
returned ii the Spring of 1927 when
the troubled conditions of the country
MADE further work virtually impossible.