<P> Marco Polo also described the gardens of the imperial palace in Khabaliq, the Mongol name for the city which eventually became Beijing . He described ramparts, balustrades and pavilions surrounding a deep lake full of fish and with swans and other aquatic birds; whose central feature was a manmade hill one hundred steps high and a thousand steps around, covered with evergreen trees and decorated with green azurite stones . </P> <P> The first Jesuit priest, Francis Xavier, arrived in China in 1552, and the priest Matteo Ricci received permission to settle in Beijing in 1601 . Jesuit priests began sending accounts of Chinese culture and gardens to Europe . Louis Le Comte, the mathematician to the King of France, travelled to China in 1685 . He described how the Chinese gardens had grottos, artificial hills and rocks piled to imitate nature, and did not arrange their gardens geometrically . </P> <P> In the 18th century, as Chinese vases and other decorative objects began to arrive in Europe, there was a surge of popularity for Chinoiserie . The painters Watteau, and François Boucher painted Chinese scenes as they imagined them, and Catherine the Great decorated a room in her palace in Chinese style . There was great interest in everything Chinsese, including gardens . </P> <P> In 1738, the French Jesuit missionary and painter Jean Denis Attiret, went to China, where he became court painter to the Qianlong Emperor . He described in great detail what he saw in the imperial gardens near Beijing: </P>

What are forest rock inscriptions in the chinese landscape