(fonte citata da J.J.lowes, The road to Xanadu, 1927 )
J.L.Lowes riporta la descrizione di "Xamdu" contenuta nel "Pilgrimage" di S.Purchas (*):
In Xamdu did Cublai Can Build a stately Palace, encompassing sixteene miles of plaine ground with a wall, wherein are fertile Meddowes, pleasant springs, delightful Streams, and all sorts of beasts of chase and gam, and in the middest thereof a sumptuous house of pleasure, which may removed from place to place. 
ed ecco i primi versi del Kubla Khan di Coleridge:
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree :
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round :
( *) il libro, scritto nel 1625 (Relations of the World and the Religions observed in all Ages and Places discovered, from the Creation unto this Present... ) e' un riassunto della versione latina del Milione di Marco Polo scritta da Pipino (Anversa nel 1485) confrontata con la versione del Ramusio (cfr. la versione franco-italiana del Milione).
fonti "ispiratrici" del poema di Coleridge citate nel libro di Lowes:
Purchas (Old man of the Mountain) • Purchas (Xamdu) • Bartram • Bruce • Rennel