M. d'Avezac first showed to whom this account must apply, and the subject has more recently been set forth with great completeness and learning by Dr. Gustavus Oppert. The conqueror in question was the founder of Kara Khitai, which existed as a great Empire in Asia during the last two-thirds of the 12th century. This chief was a prince of the Khitan dynasty of Liao, who escaped with a body of followers from Northern China on the overthrow of that dynasty by the Kin or Niuchen about 1125. He is called by the Chinese historians Yeliu Tashi; by Abulghazi, Nuzi Taigri Ili; and by Rashiduddin, Nushi (or Fushi) Taifu. Being well received by the Uighurs and other tribes west of the Desert who had been subject to the Khitan Empire, he gathered an army and commenced a course of conquest which eventually extended over Eastern and Western Turkestan, including Khwarizm, which became tributary to him. He took the title of Gurkhan, said to mean Universal or Suzerain Khan, and fixed at Bala Sagun, north of the Thian Shan, the capital of his Empire, which became known as Kara (Black) Khitai.[1] [The dynasty being named by the Chinese Si-Liao (Western Liao) lasted till it was destroyed in 1218.—H. C.] In 1141 he came to the aid of the King of Khwarizm against Sanjar the Seljukian sovereign of Persia (whence the Samiard of the Syrian Bishop), who had just taken Samarkand, and defeated that prince with great slaughter. Though the Gurkhan himself is not described to have extended his conquests into Persia, the King of Khwarizm followed up the victory by an invasion of that country, in which he plundered the treasury and cities of Sanjar.

Admitting this Karacathayan prince to be the first conqueror (in Asia, at all events) to whom the name of Prester John was applied, it still remains obscure how that name arose. Oppert supposes that Gurkhan or Kurkhan, softened in West Turkish pronunciation into Yurkan, was confounded with Yochanan or Johannes; but he finds no evidence of the conqueror's profession of Christianity except the fact, notable certainly, that the daughter of the last of his brief dynasty is recorded to have been a Christian. Indeed, D'Ohsson says that the first Gurkhan was a Buddhist, though on what authority is not clear. There seems a probability at least that it was an error in the original ascription of Christianity to the Karacathayan prince, which caused the confusions as to the identity of Prester John which appear in the next century, of which we shall presently speak. Leaving this doubtful point, it has been plausibly suggested that the title of Presbyter Johannes was connected with the legends of the immortality of John the Apostle ([Greek: ho presbyteros], as he calls himself in the 2nd and 3rd epistles), and the belief referred to by some of the Fathers that he would be the Forerunner of our Lord's second coming, as John the Baptist had been of His first.

A new theory regarding the original Prester John has been propounded by Professor Bruun of Odessa, in a Russian work entitled The Migrations of Prester John. The author has been good enough to send me large extracts of this essay in (French) translation; and I will endeavour to set forth the main points as well as the small space that can be given to the matter will admit. Some remarks and notes shall be added, but I am not in a position to do justice to Professor Bruun's views, from the want of access to some of his most important authorities, such as Brosset's History of Georgia, and its appendices.

It will be well, before going further, to give the essential parts of the passage in the History of Bishop Otto of Freisingen (referred to in vol i. p. 229), which contains the first allusion to a personage styled Prester John:

"We saw also there [at Rome in 1145] the afore-mentioned Bishop of Gabala, from Syria.... We heard him bewailing with tears the peril of the Church beyond-sea since the capture of Edessa, and uttering his intention on that account to cross the Alps and seek aid from the King of the Romans and the King of the Franks. He was also telling us how, not many years before, one JOHN, KING and PRIEST, who dwells in the extreme Orient beyond Persia and Armenia, and is (with his people) a Christian, but a Nestorian, had waged war against the brother Kings of the Persians and Medes who are called the Samiards, and had captured Ecbatana, of which we have spoken above, the seat of their dominion. The said Kings having met him with their forces made up of Persians, Medes, and Assyrians, the battle had been maintained for 3 days, either side preferring death to flight. But at last PRESBYTER JOHN (for so they are wont to style him), having routed the Persians, came forth the victor from a most sanguinary battle. After this victory (he went on to say) the aforesaid John was advancing to fight in aid of the Church at Jerusalem; but when he arrived at the Tigris, and found there no possible means of transport for his army, he turned northward, as he had heard that the river in that quarter was frozen over in winter-time. Halting there for some years[2] in expectation of a frost, which never came, owing to the mildness of the season, he lost many of his people through the unaccustomed climate, and was obliged to return homewards. This personage is said to be of the ancient race of those Magi who are mentioned in the Gospel, and to rule the same nations that they did, and to have such glory and wealth that he uses (they say) only an emerald sceptre. It was (they say) from his being fired by the example of his fathers, who came to adore Christ in the cradle, that he was proposing to go to Jerusalem, when he was prevented by the cause already alleged."

Professor Bruun will not accept Oppert's explanation, which identifies this King and Priest with the Gur-Khan of Karacathay, for whose profession of Christianity there is indeed (as has been indicated—supra) no real evidence; who could not be said to have made an attack upon any pair of brother Kings of the Persians and the Medes, nor to have captured Ecbatana (a city, whatever its identity, of Media); who could never have had any intention of coming to Jerusalem; and whose geographical position in no way suggested the mention of Armenia.

Professor Bruun thinks he finds a warrior much better answering to the indications in the Georgian prince John Orbelian, the general-in-chief under several successive Kings of Georgia in that age.

At the time when the Gur-Khan defeated Sanjar the real brothers of the latter had been long dead; Sanjar had withdrawn from interference with the affairs of Western Persia; and Hamadan (if this is to be regarded as Ecbatana) was no residence of his. But it was the residence of Sanjar's nephew Mas'ud, in whose hands was now the dominion of Western Persia; whilst Mas'ud's nephew, Daud, held Media, i.e. Azerbeijan, Arran, and Armenia. It is in these two princes that Professor Bruun sees the Samiardi fratres of the German chronicler.

Again the expression "extreme Orient" is to be interpreted by local usage. And with the people of Little Armenia, through whom probably such intelligence reached the Bishop of Gabala, the expression the East signified specifically Great Armenia (which was then a part of the kingdom of Georgia and Abkhasia), as Dulaurier has stated.[3]

It is true that the Georgians were not really Nestorians, but followers of the Greek Church. It was the fact, however, that in general, the Armenians, whom the Greeks accused of following the Jacobite errors, retorted upon members of the Greek Church with the reproach of the opposite heresy of Nestorianism. And the attribution of Nestorianism to a Georgian Prince is, like the expression "extreme East," an indication of the Armenian channel through which the story came.

The intention to march to the aid of the Christians in Palestine is more like the act of a Georgian General than that of a Karacathayan Khan; and there are in the history of the Kingdom of Jerusalem several indications of the proposal at least of Georgian assistance.

The personage in question is said to have come from the country of the Magi, from whom he was descended. But these have frequently been supposed to come from Great Armenia. E.g. Friar Jordanus says they came from Moghan.[4]

The name Ecbatana has been so variously applied that it was likely to lead to ambiguities. But it so happens that, in a previous passage of his History, Bishop Otto of Freisingen, in rehearsing some Oriental information gathered apparently from the same Bishop of Gabala, has shown what was the place that he had been taught to identify with Ecbatana, viz. the old Armenian city of ANI.[5] Now this city was captured from the Turks, on behalf of the King of Georgia, David the Restorer, by his great sbasalar,[6] John Orbelian, in 1123-24.

Professor Bruun also lays stress upon a passage in a German chronicle of date some years later than Otho's work:

"1141. Liupoldus dux Bawariorum obiit, Henrico fratre ejus succedente in ducatu. Iohannes Presbyter Rex Armeniae et Indiae cum duobus regibus fratribus Persarum et Medorum pugnavit et vicit."[7]

He asks how the Gur-Khan of Karakhitai could be styled King of Armenia and of India? It may be asked, per contra, how either the King of Georgia or his Peshwa (to use the Mahratta analogy of John Orbelian's position) could be styled King of Armenia and of India? In reply to this, Professor Bruun adduces a variety of quotations which he considers as showing that the term India was applied to some Caucasian region.

My own conviction is that the report of Otto of Freisingen is not merely the first mention of a great Asiatic potentate called Prester John, but that his statement is the whole and sole basis of good faith on which the story of such a potentate rested; and I am quite as willing to believe, on due evidence, that the nucleus of fact to which his statement referred, and on which such a pile of long-enduring fiction was erected, occurred in Armenia as that it occurred in Turan. Indeed in many respects the story would thus be more comprehensible. One cannot attach any value to the quotation from the Annalist in Pertz, because there seems no reason to doubt that the passage is a mere adaptation of the report by Bishop Otto, of whose work the Annalist makes other use, as is indeed admitted by Professor Bruun, who (be it said) is a pattern of candour in controversy. But much else that the Professor alleges is interesting and striking. The fact that Azerbeijan and the adjoining regions were known as "the East" is patent to the readers of this book in many a page, where the Khan and his Mongols in occupation of that region are styled by Polo Lord of the LEVANT, Tartars of the LEVANT (i.e. of the East), even when the speaker's standpoint is in far Cathay.[8] The mention of Ani as identical with the Ecbatana of which Otto had heard is a remarkable circumstance which I think even Oppert has overlooked. That this Georgian hero was a Christian and that his name was John are considerable facts. Oppert's conversion of Korkhan into Yokhanan or John is anything but satisfactory. The identification proposed again makes it quite intelligible how the so-called Prester John should have talked about coming to the aid of the Crusaders; a point so difficult to explain on Oppert's theory, that he has been obliged to introduce a duplicate John in the person of a Greek Emperor to solve that knot; another of the weaker links in his argument. In fact, Professor Bruun's thesis seems to me more than fairly successful in paving the way for the introduction of a Caucasian Prester John; the barriers are removed, the carpets are spread, the trumpets sound royally—but the conquering hero comes not!

He does very nearly come. The almost royal power and splendour of the Orbelians at this time is on record: "They held the office of Sbasalar or Generalissimo of all Georgia. All the officers of the King's Palace were under their authority. Besides that they had 12 standards of their own, and under each standard 1000 warriors mustered. As the custom was for the King's flag to be white and the pennon over it red, it was ruled that the Orpelian flag should be red and the pennon white.... At banquets they alone had the right to couches whilst other princes had cushions only. Their food was served on silver; and to them it belonged to crown the kings."[9] Orpel Ivane, i.e. John Orbelian, Grand Sbasalar, was for years the pride of Georgia and the hammer of the Turks. In 1123-1124 he wrested from them Tiflis and the whole country up to the Araxes, including Ani, as we have said. His King David, the Restorer, bestowed on him large additional domains from the new conquests; and the like brilliant service and career of conquest was continued under David's sons and successors, Demetrius and George; his later achievements, however, and some of the most brilliant, occurring after the date of the Bishop of Gabala's visit to Rome. But still we hear of no actual conflict with the chief princes of the Seljukian house, and of no event in his history so important as to account for his being made to play the part of Presbyter Johannes in the story of the Bishop of Gabala. Professor Bruun's most forcible observation in reference to this rather serious difficulty is that the historians have transmitted to us extremely little detail concerning the reign of Demetrius II., and do not even agree as to its duration. Carebat vate sacro: "It was," says Brosset, "long and glorious, but it lacked a commemorator." If new facts can be alleged, the identity may still be proved. But meantime the conquests of the Gur-Khan and his defeat of Sanjar, just at a time which suits the story, are indubitable, and this great advantage Oppert's thesis retains. As regards the claim to the title of Presbyter nothing worth mentioning is alleged on either side.

When the Mongol Conquests threw Asia open to Frank travellers in the middle of the 13th century, their minds were full of Prester John; they sought in vain for an adequate representative, but it was not in the nature of things but they should find some representative. In fact they found several. Apparently no real tradition existed among the Eastern Christians of any such personage, but the persistent demand produced a supply, and the honour of identification with Prester John, after hovering over one head and another, settled finally upon that of the King of the Keraits, whom we find to play the part in our text.

Thus in Plano Carpini's single mention of Prester John as the King of the Christians of India the Greater, who defeats the Tartars by an elaborate stratagem, Oppert recognizes Sultan Jalaluddin of Khwarizm and his temporary success over the Mongols in Afghanistan. In the Armenian Prince Sempad's account, on the other hand, this Christian King of India is aided by the Tartars to defeat and harass the neighbouring Saracens, his enemies, and becomes the Mongol's vassal. In the statement of Rubruquis, though distinct reference is made to the conquering Gurkhan (under the name of Coir Cham of Caracatay), the title of King John is assigned to the Naiman Prince (Kushluk), who had married the daughter of the last lineal sovereign of Karakhitai, and usurped his power, whilst, with a strange complication of confusion, UNC, Prince of the Crit and Merkit (Kerait and Merkit, two great tribes of Mongolia)[10] and Lord of Karakorum, is made the brother and successor of this Naiman Prince. His version of the story, as it proceeds, has so much resemblance to Polo's, that we shall quote the words. The Crit and Merkit, he says, were Nestorian Christians. "But their Lord had abandoned the worship of Christ to follow idols, and kept by him those priests of the idols who are all devil-raisers and sorcerers. Beyond his pastures, at the distance of ten or fifteen days' journey, were the pastures of the MOAL (Mongol), who were a very poor people, without a leader and without any religion except sorceries and divinations, such as all the people of those parts put so much faith in. Next to Moal was another poor tribe called TARTAR. King John having died without an heir, his brother Unc got his wealth, and caused himself to be proclaimed Cham, and sent out his flocks and herds even to the borders of Moal. At that time there was a certain blacksmith called Chinghis among the tribe of Moal, and he used to lift the cattle of Unc Chan as often as he had a chance, insomuch that the herdsmen of Unc Chan made complaint to their master. The latter assembled an army, and invaded the land of the Moal in search of Chinghis, but he fled and hid himself among the Tartars. So Unc, having plundered the Moal and Tartars, returned home. And Chinghis addressed the Tartars and Moal, saying: 'It is because we have no leader that we are thus oppressed by our neighbours.' So both Tartars and Moal made Chinghis himself their leader and captain. And having got a host quietly together, he made a sudden onslaught upon Unc and conquered him, and compelled him to flee into Cathay. On that occasion his daughter was taken, and given by Chinghis to one of his sons, to whom she bore Mangu, who now reigneth.... The land in which they (the Mongols) first were, and where the residence of Chinghis still exists, is called Onan Kerule.[11] But because Caracoran is in the country which was their first conquest, they regard it as a royal city, and there hold the elections of their Chan."

Here we see plainly that the Unc Chan of Rubruquis is the Unc Can or Unecan of Polo. In the narrative of the former, Unc is only connected with King or Prester John; in that of the latter, rehearsing the story as heard some 20 or 25 years later, the two are identified. The shadowy role of Prester John has passed from the Ruler of Kara Khitai to the Chief of the Keraits. This transfer brings us to another history.

We have already spoken of the extensive diffusion of Nestorian Christianity in Asia during the early and Middle Ages. The Christian historian Gregory Abulfaraj relates a curious history of the conversion, in the beginning of the 11th century, of the King of Kerith with his people, dwelling in the remote north-east of the land of the Turks. And that the Keraits continued to profess Christianity down to the time of Chinghiz is attested by Rashiduddin's direct statement, as well as by the numerous Christian princesses from that tribe of whom we hear in Mongol history. It is the chief of this tribe of whom Rubruquis and Polo speak under the name of Unc Khan, and whom the latter identifies with Prester John. His proper name is called Tuli by the Chinese, and Togrul by the Persian historians, but the Kin sovereign of Northern China had conferred on him the title of Wang or King, from which his people gave him the slightly corrupted cognomen of [Arabic], which some scholars read Awang, and Avenk Khan, but which the spelling of Rubruquis and Polo shows probably to have been pronounced as Aung or Ung Khan.[12] The circumstance stated by Rubruquis of his having abandoned the profession of Christianity, is not alluded to by Eastern writers; but in any case his career is not a credit to the Faith. I cannot find any satisfactory corroboration of the claims of supremacy over the Mongols which Polo ascribes to Aung Khan. But that his power and dignity were considerable, appears from the term Padshah which Rashiduddin applies to him. He had at first obtained the sovereignty of the Keraits by the murder of two of his brothers and several nephews. Yessugai, the father of Chinghiz, had been his staunch friend, and had aided him effectually to recover his dominion from which he had been expelled. After a reign of many years he was again ejected, and in the greatest necessity sought the help of Temujin (afterwards called Chinghiz Khan), by whom he was treated with the greatest consideration. This was in 1196. For some years the two chiefs conducted their forays in alliance, but differences sprang up between them; the son of Aung Khan entered into a plot to kill Temujin, and in 1202-1203 they were in open war. The result will be related in connection with the next chapters.

We may observe that the idea which Joinville picked up in the East about Prester John corresponds pretty closely with that set forth by Marco. Joinville represents him as one of the princes to whom the Tartars were tributary in the days of their oppression, and as "their ancient enemy"; one of their first acts, on being organized under a king of their own, was to attack him and conquer him, slaying all that bore arms, but sparing all monks and priests. The expression used by Joinville in speaking of the original land of the Tartars, "une grande berrie de sablon," has not been elucidated in any edition that I have seen. It is the Arabic [Arabic] Baeriya, "a Desert." No doubt Joinville learned the word in Palestine. (See Joinville, p. 143 seqq.; see also Oppert, Der Presb. Johannes in Sage und Geschichte, and Cathay, etc., pp. 173-182.) [Fried. Zarncke, Der Priester Johannes; Cordier, Odoric.—H. C.]

[1] A passage in Mirkhond extracted by Erdmann (Temudschin, p. 532) seems to make Bala Saghun the same as Bishbalik, now Urumtsi, but this is inconsistent with other passages abstracted by Oppert (Presbyter Johan. 131-32); and Vambery indicates a reason for its being sought very much further west (H. of Bokhara, 116). [Dr. Bretschneider (Med. Res.) has a chapter on Kara-Khitai (I. 208 seqq.) and in a long note on Bala Sagun, which he calls Belasagun, he says (p. 226) that "according to the Tarikh Djihan Kushai (d'Ohsson, i. 433), the city of Belasagun had been founded by Buku Khan, sovereign of the Uigurs, in a well-watered plain of Turkestan with rich pastures. The Arabian geographers first mention Belasagun, in the ninth or tenth century, as a city beyond the Sihun or Yaxartes, depending on Isfidjab (Sairam, according to Lerch), and situated east of Taras. They state that the people of Turkestan considered Belasagun to represent 'the navel of the earth,' on account of its being situated in the middle between east and west, and likewise between north and south." (Sprenger's Poststr. d. Or., Mavarannahar). Dr. Bretschneider adds (p. 227): "It is not improbable that ancient Belasagun was situated at the same place where, according to the T'ang history, the Khan of one branch of the Western T'u Kue (Turks) had his residence in the seventh century. It is stated in the T'ang shu that Ibi Shabolo Shehu Khan, who reigned in the first half of the seventh century, placed his ordo on the northern border of the river Sui ye. This river, and a city of the same name, are frequently mentioned in the T'ang annals of the seventh and eighth centuries, in connection with the warlike expeditions of the Chinese in Central Asia. Sui ye was situated on the way from the river Ili to the city of Ta-lo-sz' (Talas). In 679 the Chinese had built on the Sui ye River a fortress; but in 748 they were constrained to destroy it." (Comp. Visdelou in Suppl. Bibl. Orient. pp. 110-114; Gaubil's Hist. de la Dyn. des Thang, in Mem. conc. Chin. xv. p. 403 seqq.).—H. C.]

[2] Sic: Per aliquot annos, but an evident error.

[3] J. As. ser. V. tom. xi. 449.

[4] The Great Plain on the Lower Araxes and Cyrus. The word Moghan = Magi: and Abulfeda quotes this as the etymology of the name. (Reinaud's Abulf. I. 300.)—Y. [Cordier, Odoric, 36.]

[5] Here is the passage, which is worth giving for more reasons than one:

"That portion of ancient Babylon which is still occupied is (as we have heard from persons of character from beyond sea) styled BALDACH, whilst the part that lies, according to the prophecy, deserted and pathless extends some ten miles to the Tower of Babel The inhabited portion called Baldach is very large and populous; and though it should belong to the Persian monarchy it has been conceded by the Kings of the Persians to their High Priest, whom they call the Caliph; in order that in this also a certain analogy [quaedam habitudo] such as has been often remarked before, should be exhibited between Babylon and Rome. For the same (privilege) that here in the city of Rome has been made over to our chief Pontiff by the Christian Emperor, has there been conceded to their High Priest by the Pagan Kings of Persia, to whom Babylonia has for a long time been subject. But the Kings of the Persians (just as our Kings have their royal city, like Aachen) have themselves established the seat of their kingdom at Egbatana, which, in the Book of Judith, Arphaxat is said to have founded, and which in their tongue is called HANI, containing as they allege 100,000 or more fighting men, and have reserved to themselves nothing of Babylon except the nominal dominion. Finally, the place which is now vulgarly called Babylonia, as I have mentioned, is not upon the Euphrates (at all) as people suppose, but on the Nile, about 6 days' journey from Alexandria, and is the same as Memphis, to which Cambyses, the son of Cyrus, anciently gave the name of Babylon."—Ottonis Frising. Lib. VII. cap. 3, in Germanic Hist. Illust. etc. Christiani Urstisii Basiliensis, Francof. 1585.—Y.

[6] Sbasalar, or "General-in-chief," = Pers. Sipahsalar.—Y.

[7] Continuatio Ann. Admutensium, in Pertz, Scriptores, IX. 580.

[8] E.g. ii. 42.

[9] St. Martin, Mem. sur l'Armenie, II. 77.

[10] ["The Keraits," says Mr. Rockhill (Rubruck, 111, note), "lived on the Orkhon and the Tula, south-east of Lake Baikal; Abulfaraj relates their conversion to Christianity in 1007 by the Nestorian Bishop of Merv. Rashideddin, however, says their conversion took place in the time of Chingis Khan. (D'Ohsson, I. 48; Chabot, Mar Jabalaha, III. 14.) D'Avezac (536) identifies, with some plausibility, I think, the Keraits with the Ki-le (or T'ieh-le) of the early Chinese annals. The name K'i-le was applied in the 3rd century A.D. to all the Turkish tribes, such as the Hui-hu (Uigurs), Kieh-Ku (Kirghiz) Alans, etc., and they are said to be the same as the Kao-ch'e, from whom descended the Cangle of Rubruck. (T'ang shu, Bk. 217, i.; Ma Tuan-lin, Bk. 344, 9, Bk. 347, 4.) As to the Merkits, or Merkites, they were a nomadic people of Turkish stock, with a possible infusion of Mongol blood. They are called by Mohammedan writers Uduyut, and were divided into four tribes. They lived on the Lower Selinga and its feeders. (D'Ohsson, i. 54; Howorth, History, I., pt. i. 22, 698.)"—H. C.]

[11] [Onan Kerule is "the country watered by the Orkhon and Kerulun Rivers, i.e. the country to the south and south-east of Lake Baikal. The headquarters (ya-chang) of the principal chief of the Uigurs in the eighth century was 500 li (about 165 miles) south-west of the confluence of the Wen-Kun ho (Orkhon) and the Tu-lo ho (Tura). Its ruins, sometimes, but wrongly, confounded with those of the Mongol city of Karakorum, some 20 miles from it, built in 1235 by Ogodai, are now known by the name of Kara Balgasun, 'Black City.'" [See p. 228.] The name Onankerule seems to be taken from the form Onan-ou- Keloran, which occurs in Mohammedan writers. (Quatremere, 115 et seq.; see also T'ang shu, Bk. 43b; Rockhill, Rubruck, 116, note.)—H. C.]

[12] Vambery makes Ong an Uighur word, signifying "right." [Palladius (l.c. 23) says: "The consonance of the names of Wang-Khan and Wang-Ku (Ung-Khan and Ongu—Ongot of Rashiduddin, a Turkish Tribe) led to the confusion regarding the tribes and persons, which at M. Polo's time seems to have been general among the Europeans in China; M. Polo and Johannes de Monte Corvino transfer the title of Prester John from Wang-Khan, already perished at that time, to the distinguished family of Wang-Ku."—H. C.]



CHAPTER XLVII.

OF CHINGHIS, AND HOW HE BECAME THE FIRST KAAN OF THE TARTARS.

Now it came to pass in the year of Christ's Incarnation 1187 that the Tartars made them a King whose name was CHINGHIS KAAN.[NOTE 1] He was a man of great worth, and of great ability (eloquence), and valour. And as soon as the news that he had been chosen King was spread abroad through those countries, all the Tartars in the world came to him and owned him for their Lord. And right well did he maintain the Sovereignty they had given him. What shall I say? The Tartars gathered to him in astonishing multitude, and when he saw such numbers he made a great furniture of spears and arrows and such other arms as they used, and set about the conquest of all those regions till he had conquered eight provinces. When he conquered a province he did no harm to the people or their property, but merely established some of his own men in the country along with a proportion of theirs, whilst he led the remainder to the conquest of other provinces. And when those whom he had conquered became aware how well and safely he protected them against all others, and how they suffered no ill at his hands, and saw what a noble prince he was, then they joined him heart and soul and became his devoted followers. And when he had thus gathered such a multitude that they seemed to cover the earth, he began to think of conquering a great part of the world. Now in the year of Christ 1200 he sent an embassy to Prester John, and desired to have his daughter to wife. But when Prester John heard that Chinghis Kaan demanded his daughter in marriage he waxed very wroth, and said to the Envoys, "What impudence is this, to ask my daughter to wife! Wist he not well that he was my liegeman and serf? Get ye back to him and tell him that I had liever set my daughter in the fire than give her in marriage to him, and that he deserves death at my hand, rebel and traitor that he is!" So he bade the Envoys begone at once, and never come into his presence again. The Envoys, on receiving this reply, departed straightway, and made haste to their master, and related all that Prester John had ordered them to say, keeping nothing back.[NOTE 2]

NOTE 1.—Temujin was born in the year 1155, according to all the Persian historians, who are probably to be relied on; the Chinese put the event in 1162. 1187 does not appear to be a date of special importance in his history. His inauguration as sovereign under the name of Chinghiz Kaan was in 1202 according to the Persian authorities, in 1206 according to the Chinese.

In a preceding note (p. 236) we have quoted a passage in which Rubruquis calls Chinghiz "a certain blacksmith." This mistaken notion seems to have originated in the resemblance of his name Temujin to the Turki Temurji, a blacksmith; but it was common throughout Asia in the Middle Ages, and the story is to be found not only in Rubruquis, but in the books of Hayton, the Armenian prince, and of Ibn Batuta, the Moor. That cranky Orientalist, Dr. Isaac Jacob Schmidt, positively reviles William Rubruquis, one of the most truthful and delightful of travellers, and certainly not inferior to his critic in mother-wit, for adopting this story, and rebukes Timkowski—not for adopting it, but for merely telling us the very interesting fact that the story was still, in 1820, current in Mongolia. (Schmidt's San. Setz. 376, and Timkowski, I. 147.)

NOTE 2.—Several historians, among others Abulfaraj, represent Chinghiz as having married a daughter of Aung Khan; and this is current among some of the mediaeval European writers, such as Vincent of Beauvais. It is also adopted by Petis de la Croix in his history of Chinghiz, apparently from a comparatively late Turkish historian; and both D'Herbelot and St. Martin state the same; but there seems to be no foundation for it in the best authorities: either Persian or Chinese. (See Abulfaragius, p. 285; Speculum Historiale, Bk. XXIX. ch. lxix.; Hist. of Genghiz Can, p. 29; and Golden Horde, pp. 61-62.) But there is a real story at the basis of Polo's, which seems to be this: About 1202, when Aung Khan and Chinghiz were still acting in professed alliance, a double union was proposed between Aung Khan's daughter Jaur Bigi and Chinghiz's son Juji, and between Chinghiz's daughter Kijin Bigi and Togrul's grandson Kush Buka. From certain circumstances this union fell through, and this was one of the circumstances which opened the breach between the two chiefs. There were, however, several marriages between the families. (Erdmann, 283; others are quoted under ch. lix., note 2.)



CHAPTER XLVIII.

HOW CHINGHIS MUSTERED HIS PEOPLE TO MARCH AGAINST PRESTER JOHN.

When Chinghis Kaan heard the brutal message that Prester John had sent him, such rage seized him that his heart came nigh to bursting within him, for he was a man of a very lofty spirit. At last he spoke, and that so loud that all who were present could hear him: "Never more might he be prince if he took not revenge for the brutal message of Prester John, and such revenge that insult never in this world was so dearly paid for. And before long Prester John should know whether he were his serf or no!"

So then he mustered all his forces, and levied such a host as never before was seen or heard of, sending word to Prester John to be on his defence. And when Prester John had sure tidings that Chinghis was really coming against him with such a multitude, he still professed to treat it as a jest and a trifle, for, quoth he, "these be no soldiers." Natheless he marshalled his forces and mustered his people, and made great preparations, in order that if Chinghis did come, he might take him and put him to death. In fact he marshalled such an host of many different nations that it was a world's wonder.

And so both sides gat them ready to battle. And why should I make a long story of it? Chinghis Kaan with all his host arrived at a vast and beautiful plain which was called Tanduc, belonging to Prester John, and there he pitched his camp; and so great was the multitude of his people that it was impossible to number them. And when he got tidings that Prester John was coming, he rejoiced greatly, for the place afforded a fine and ample battle-ground, so he was right glad to tarry for him there, and greatly longed for his arrival.

But now leave we Chinghis and his host, and let us return to Prester John and his people.



CHAPTER XLIX.

HOW PRESTER JOHN MARCHED TO MEET CHINGHIS.

Now the story goes that when Prester John became aware that Chinghis with his host was marching against him, he went forth to meet him with all his forces, and advanced until he reached the same plain of Tanduc, and pitched his camp over against that of Chinghis Kaan at a distance of 20 miles. And then both armies remained at rest for two days that they might be fresher and heartier for battle.[NOTE 1]

So when the two great hosts were pitched on the plains of Tanduc as you have heard, Chinghis Kaan one day summoned before him his astrologers, both Christians and Saracens, and desired them to let him know which of the two hosts would gain the battle, his own or Prester John's. The Saracens tried to ascertain, but were unable to give a true answer; the Christians, however, did give a true answer, and showed manifestly beforehand how the event should be. For they got a cane and split it lengthwise, and laid one half on this side and one half on that, allowing no one to touch the pieces. And one piece of cane they called Chinghis Kaan, and the other piece they called Prester John. And then they said to Chinghis: "Now mark! and you will see the event of the battle, and who shall have the best of it; for whose cane soever shall get above the other, to him shall victory be." He replied that he would fain see it, and bade them begin. Then the Christian astrologers read a Psalm out of the Psalter, and went through other incantations. And lo! whilst all were beholding, the cane that bore the name of Chinghis Kaan, without being touched by anybody, advanced to the other that bore the name of Prester John, and got on the top of it. When the Prince saw that he was greatly delighted, and seeing how in this matter he found the Christians to tell the truth, he always treated them with great respect, and held them for men of truth for ever after.[NOTE 2]

NOTE 1.—Polo in the preceding chapter has stated that this plain of Tanduc was in Prester John's country. He plainly regards it as identical with the Tanduc of which he speaks more particularly in ch. lix. as belonging to Prester John's descendants, and which must be located near the Chinese Wall. He is no doubt wrong in placing the battle there. Sanang Setzen puts the battle between the two, the only one which he mentions, "at the outflow of the Onon near Kulen Buira." The same action is placed by De Mailla's authorities at Calantschan, by P. Hyacinth at Kharakchin Schatu, by Erdmann after Rashid in the vicinity of Hulun Barkat and Kalanchinalt, which latter was on the borders of the Churche or Manchus. All this points to the vicinity of Buir Nor and Hulan or Kalon Nor (though the Onon is far from these). But this was not the final defeat of Aung Khan or Prester John, which took place some time later (in 1203) at a place called the Chacher Ondur (or Heights), which Gaubil places between the Tula and the Kerulun, therefore near the modern Urga. Aung Khan was wounded, and fled over the frontier of the Naiman; the officers of that tribe seized and killed him. (Schmidt, 87, 383; Erdmann, 297; Gaubil, p. 10.)

NOTE 2.—A Tartar divination by twigs, but different from that here employed, is older than Herodotus, who ascribes it to the Scythians. We hear of one something like the last among the Alans, and (from Tacitus) among the Germans. The words of Hosea (iv. 12), "My people ask counsel at their stocks, and their staff declareth unto them," are thus explained by Theophylactus: "They stuck up a couple of sticks, whilst murmuring certain charms and incantations; the sticks then, by the operation of devils, direct or indirect, would fall over, and the direction of their fall was noted," etc. The Chinese method of divination comes still nearer to that in the text. It is conducted by tossing in the air two symmetrical pieces of wood or bamboo of a peculiar form. It is described by Mendoza, and more particularly, with illustrations, by Doolittle.[1]

But Rubruquis would seem to have witnessed nearly the same process that Polo describes. He reprehends the conjuring practices of the Nestorian priests among the Mongols, who seem to have tried to rival the indigenous Kams or Medicine-men. Visiting the Lady Kuktai, a Christian Queen of Mangu Kaan, who was ill, he says: "The Nestorians were repeating certain verses, I know not what (they said it was part of a Psalm), over two twigs which were brought into contact in the hands of two men. The monk stood by during the operation" (p. 326).[2] Petis de la Croix quotes from Thevenot's travels, a similar mode of divination as much used, before a fight, among the Barbary corsairs. Two men sit on the deck facing one another and each holding two arrows by the points, and hitching the notches of each pair of arrows into the other pair. Then the ship's writer reads a certain Arabic formula, and it is pretended that whilst this goes on, the two sets of arrows, of which one represents the Turks and the other the Christians, struggle together in spite of the resistance of the holders, and finally one rises over the other. This is perhaps the divination by arrows which is prohibited in the Koran. (Sura, V. v. 92.) It is related by Abulfeda that Mahomed found in the Kaaba an image of Abraham with such arrows in his hand.

P. della Valle describes the same process, conducted by a Mahomedan conjuror of Aleppo: "By his incantations he made the four points of the arrows come together without any movement of the holders, and by the way the points spontaneously placed themselves, obtained answers to interrogatories."

And Mr. Jaeschke writes from Lahaul: "There are many different ways of divination practised among the Buddhists; and that also mentioned by Marco Polo is known to our Lama, but in a slightly different way, making use of two arrows instead of a cane split up, wherefore this kind is called da-mo, 'Arrow-divination.'" Indeed the practice is not extinct in India, for in 1833 Mr. Vigne witnessed its application to detect the robber of a government chest at Lodiana.

As regards Chinghiz's respect for the Christians there are other stories. Abulfaragius has one about Chinghiz seeing in a dream a religious person who promised him success. He told the dream to his wife, Aung Khan's daughter, who said the description answered to that of the bishop who used to visit her father. Chinghiz then inquired for a bishop among the Uighur Christians in his camp, and they indicated Mar Denha. Chinghiz thenceforward was milder towards the Christians, and showed them many distinctions (p. 285). Vincent of Beauvais also speaks of Rabbanta, a Nestorian monk, who lived in the confidence of Chinghiz's wife, daughter of "the Christian King David or Prester John," and who used by divination to make many revelations to the Tartars. We have already said that there seems no ground for assigning a daughter of Aung Khan as wife to Chinghiz. But there was a niece of the former, named Abika, among the wives of Chinghiz. And Rashiduddin does relate a dream of the Kaan's in relation to her. But it was to the effect that he was divinely commanded to give her away; and this he did next morning!

(Rawlins. Herod. IV. 67; Amm. Marcell. XXXI. 2; Delvio, Disq. Magic. 558; Mendoza, Hak. Soc. I. 47; Doolittle, 435-436; Hist. of Genghizcan, pp. 52-53; Preston's al-Hariri, p. 183; P. della V. II. 865-866; Vigne, I. 46; D'Ohsson, I. 418-419).

[1] [On the Chinese divining-twig, see Dennys, Folk-lore of China, 57.—H. C.]

[2] [With reference to this passage from Rubruck, Mr. Rockhill says (195, note): "The mode of divining here referred to is apparently the same as that described by Polo. It must not however be confounded with rabdomancy, in which bundles of wands or arrows were used." Ammianus Marcellinus (XXXI. 2. 350) says this mode of divination was practised by the Alans. "They have a singular way of divining: they take straight willow wands and make bundles of them, and on examining them at a certain time, with certain secret incantations, they know what is going to happen."—H. C.]



CHAPTER L.

THE BATTLE BETWEEN CHINGHIS KAAN AND PRESTER JOHN.



And after both sides had rested well those two days, they armed for the fight and engaged in desperate combat; and it was the greatest battle that ever was seen. The numbers that were slain on both sides were very great, but in the end Chinghis Kaan obtained the victory. And in the battle Prester John was slain. And from that time forward, day by day, his kingdom passed into the hands of Chinghis Kaan till the whole was conquered.

I may tell you that Chinghis Kaan reigned six years after this battle, engaged continually in conquest, and taking many a province and city and stronghold. But at the end of those six years he went against a certain castle that was called CAAJU, and there he was shot with an arrow in the knee, so that he died of his wound. A great pity it was, for he was a valiant man and a wise.[NOTE 1]

I will now tell you who reigned after Chinghis, and then about the manners and customs of the Tartars.

NOTE 1.—Chinghiz in fact survived Aung Khan some 24 years, dying during his fifth expedition against Tangut, 18th August 1227, aged 65 according to the Chinese accounts, 72 according to the Persian. Sanang Setzen says that Kurbeljin Goa Khatun, the beautiful Queen of Tangut, who had passed into the tents of the conqueror, did him some bodily mischief (it is not said what), and then went and drowned herself in the Karamuren (or Hwang-ho), which thenceforth was called by the Mongols the Khatun-gol, or Lady's River, a name which it in fact still bears. Carpini relates that Chinghiz was killed by lightning. The Persian and Chinese historians, however, agree in speaking of his death as natural. Gaubil calls the place of his death Lou-pan, which he says was in lat. 38 deg.. Rashiduddin calls it Leung-Shan, which appears to be the mountain range still so called in the heart of Shensi.

The name of the place before which Polo represents him as mortally wounded is very variously given. According to Gaubil, Chinghiz was in reality dangerously wounded by an arrow-shot at the siege of Taitongfu in 1212. And it is possible, as Oppert suggests, that Polo's account of his death before Caagiu (as I prefer the reading), arose out of a confusion between this circumstance and those of the death of Mangku Kaan, which is said to have occurred at the assault of Hochau in Sze-ch'uan, a name which Polo would write Caagiu, or nearly so. Abulfaragius specifically says that Mangku Kaan died by an arrow; though it is true that other authors say he died of disease, and Haiton that he was drowned; all which shows how excusable were Polo's errors as to events occurring 50 to 100 years before his time. (See Oppert's Presbyter Johannes, p. 76; De Mailla, IX. 275, and note; Gaubil, 18, 50, 52, 121; Erdmann, 443; Ss. Setzen, 103.)

It is only by referring back to ch. xlvii., where we are told that Chinghiz "began to think of conquering a great part of the world," that we see Polo to have been really aware of the vast extent and aim of the conquests of Chinghiz; the aim being literally the conquest of the world as he conceived it; the extent of the empire which he initiated actually covering (probably) one half of the whole number of the human race. (See remarks in Koeppen, Die Relig. des Buddha, II. 86.)



CHAPTER LI.

OF THOSE WHO DID REIGN AFTER CHINGHIS KAAN, AND OF THE CUSTOMS OF THE TARTARS.

Now the next that reigned after Chinghis Kaan, their first Lord,[NOTE 1] was CUY KAAN, and the third Prince was BATUY KAAN, and the fourth was ALACOU KAAN, the fifth MONGOU KAAN, the sixth CUBLAY KAAN, who is the sovereign now reigning, and is more potent than any of the five who went before him; in fact, if you were to take all those five together, they would not be so powerful as he is.[NOTE 2] Nay, I will say yet more; for if you were to put together all the Christians in the world, with their Emperors and their Kings, the whole of these Christians,—aye, and throw in the Saracens to boot,—would not have such power, or be able to do so much as this Cublay, who is the Lord of all the Tartars in the world, those of the Levant and of the Ponent included; for these are all his liegemen and subjects. I mean to show you all about this great power of his in this book of ours.

You should be told also that all the Grand Kaans, and all the descendants of Chinghis their first Lord, are carried to a mountain that is called ALTAY to be interred. Wheresoever the Sovereign may die, he is carried to his burial in that mountain with his predecessors; no matter an the place of his death were 100 days' journey distant, thither must he be carried to his burial.[NOTE 3]

Let me tell you a strange thing too. When they are carrying the body of any Emperor to be buried with the others, the convoy that goes with the body doth put to the sword all whom they fall in with on the road, saying: "Go and wait upon your Lord in the other world!" For they do in sooth believe that all such as they slay in this manner do go to serve their Lord in the other world. They do the same too with horses; for when the Emperor dies, they kill all his best horses, in order that he may have the use of them in the other world, as they believe. And I tell you as a certain truth, that when Mongou Kaan died, more than 20,000 persons, who chanced to meet the body on its way, were slain in the manner I have told.[NOTE 4]

NOTE 1.—Before parting with Chinghiz let me point out what has not to my knowledge been suggested before, that the name of "Cambuscan bold" in Chaucer's tale is only a corruption of the name of Chinghiz. The name of the conqueror appears in Fr. Ricold as Camiuscan, from which the transition to Cambuscan presents no difficulty. Camius was, I suppose, a clerical corruption out of Canjus or Cianjus. In the chronicle of St. Antonino, however, we have him called "Chinghiscan rectius Tamgius Cam" (XIX. c. 8). If this is not merely the usual blunder of t for c, it presents a curious analogy to the form Tankiz Khan always used by Ibn Batuta. I do not know the origin of the latter, unless it was suggested by tankis (Ar.) "Turning upside down." (See Pereg. Quat., p. 119; I. B. III. 22, etc.)

NOTE 2.—Polo's history here is inadmissible. He introduces into the list of the supreme Kaans Batu, who was only Khan of Kipchak (the Golden Horde), and Hulaku who was Khan of Persia, whilst he omits Okkodai, the immediate successor of Chinghiz. It is also remarkable that he uses the form Alacou here instead of Alaue as elsewhere; nor does he seem to mean the same person, for he was quite well aware that Alaue was Lord of the Levant, who sent ambassadors to the Great Khan Cublay, and could not therefore be one of his predecessors. The real succession ran: 1. Chinghiz; 2. Okkodai; 3. Kuyuk; 4. Mangku; 5. Kublai.

There are quite as great errors in the history of Haiton, who had probably greater advantages in this respect than Marco. And I may note that in Teixeira's abridgment of Mirkhond, Hulaku is made to succeed Mangku Kaan on the throne of Chinghiz. (Relaciones, p. 338.)

NOTE 3.—The ALTAI here certainly does not mean the Great South Siberian Range to which the name is now applied. Both Altai and Altun-Khan appear sometimes to be applied by Sanang Setzen to the Khingan of the Chinese, or range running immediately north of the Great Wall near Kalgan. (See ch. lxi. note I.) But in reference to this matter of the burial of Chinghiz, he describes the place as "the district of Yekeh Utek, between the shady side of the Altai-Khan and the sunny side of the Kentei-Khan." Now the Kentei-Khan (khan here meaning "mountain") is near the sources of the Onon, immediately to the north-east of Urga; and Altai-Khan in this connection cannot mean the hills near the Great Wall, 500 miles distant.

According to Rashiduddin, Chinghiz was buried at a place called Burkan Kaldun ("God's Hill"), or Yekeh Kuruk ("The Great Sacred or Tabooed Place"); in another passage he calls the spot Budah Undur (which means, I fancy, the same as Burkan Kaldun), near the River Selenga. Burkan Kaldun is often mentioned by Sanang Setzen, and Quatremere seems to demonstrate the identity of this place with the mountain called by Pallas (and Timkowski) Khanoolla. This is a lofty mountain near Urga, covered with dense forest, and is indeed the first woody mountain reached in travelling from Peking. It is still held sacred by the Mongols and guarded from access, though the tradition of Chinghiz's grave seems to be extinct. Now, as this Khanoolla ("Mount Royal," for khan here means "sovereign," and oolla "mountain") stands immediately to the south of the Kentei mentioned in the quotation from S. Setzen, this identification agrees with his statement, on the supposition that the Khanoolla is the Altai of the same quotation. The Khanoolla must also be the Han mountain which Mongol chiefs claiming descent from Chinghiz named to Gaubil as the burial-place of that conqueror. Note that the Khanoolla, which we suppose to be the Altai of Polo, and here of Sanang Setzen, belongs to a range known as Khingan, whilst we see that Setzen elsewhere applies Altai and Altan-Khan to the other Khingan near the Great Wall.

Erdmann relates, apparently after Rashiduddin, that Chinghiz was buried at the foot of a tree which had taken his fancy on a hunting expedition, and which he had then pointed out as the place where he desired to be interred. It was then conspicuous, but afterwards the adjoining trees shot up so rapidly, that a dense wood covered the whole locality, and it became impossible to identify the spot. (Q. R. 117 seqq.; Timk. I. 115 seqq., II. 475-476; San. Setz. 103, 114-115, 108-109; Gaubil, 54; Erd. 444.)

["There are no accurate indications," says Palladius (l.c. pp. 11-13), "in the documents of the Mongol period on the burial-places of Chingiz Khan and of the Khans who succeeded him. The Yuan-shi or 'History of the Mongol Dynasty in China,' in speaking of the burial of the Khans, mentions only that they used to be conveyed from Peking to the north, to their common burial-ground in the K'i-lien Valley. This name cannot have anything in common with the ancient K'i-lien of the Hiung-nu, a hill situated to the west of the Mongol desert; the K'i-lien of the Mongols is to be sought more to the east. When Khubilai marched out against Prince Nayan, and reached the modern Talnor, news was received of the occupation of the Khan's burial-ground by the rebels. They held out there very long, which exceedingly afflicted Khubilai [Yuan shi lui pien]; and this goes to prove that the tombs could not be situated much to the west. Some more positive information on this subject is found in the diary of the campaign in Mongolia in 1410, of the Ming Emperor Yung-lo [Pe ching lu]. He reached the Kerulen at the place where this river, after running south, takes an easterly direction. The author of the diary notes, that from a place one march and a half before reaching the Kerulen, a very large mountain was visible to the north-east, and at its foot a solitary high and pointed hillock, covered with stones. The author says, that the sovereigns of the house of Yuan used to be buried near this hill. It may therefore be plausibly supposed that the tombs of the Mongol Khans were near the Kerulen, and that the 'K'i-lien' of the Yuan shi is to be applied to this locality; it seems to me even, that K'i-lien is an abbreviation, customary to Chinese authors, of Kerulen. The way of burying the Mongol Khans is described in the Yuan shi (ch. 'On the national religious rites of the Mongols'), as well as in the Ch'ue keng lu, 'Memoirs of the time of the Yuan Dynasty.' When burying, the greatest care was taken to conceal from outside people the knowledge of the locality of the tomb. With this object in view, after the tomb was closed, a drove of horses was driven over it, and by this means the ground was, for a considerable distance, trampled down and levelled. It is added to this (probably from hearsay) in the Ts'ao mu tze Memoirs (also of the time of the Yuan Dynasty), that a young camel used to be killed (in the presence of its mother) on the tomb of the deceased Khan; afterwards, when the time of the usual offerings of the tomb approached, the mother of this immolated camel was set at liberty, and she came crying to the place where it was killed; the locality of the tomb was ascertained in this way."

The Archimandrite Palladius adds in a footnote: "Our well-known Mongolist N. Golovkin has told us, that according to a story actually current among the Mongols, the tombs of the former Mongol Khans are situated near Tasola Hill, equally in the vicinity of the Kerulen. He states also that even now the Mongols are accustomed to assemble on that hill on the seventh day of the seventh moon (according to an ancient custom), in order to adore Chingiz Khan's tomb. Altan tobchi (translated into Russian by Galsan Gomboeff), in relating the history of the Mongols after their expulsion from China, and speaking of the Khans' tombs, calls them Naiman tzagan gher, i.e. 'Eight White Tents' (according to the number of chambers for the souls of the chief deceased Khans in Peking), and sometimes simply Tzagan gher, 'the White Tent,' which, according to the translator's explanation, denotes only Chingiz Khan's tomb."

"According to the Chinese Annals (T'ung kien kang mu), quoted by Dr. E. Bretschneider (Med. Res. I. p. 157), Chinghiz died near the Liu p'an shan in 1227, after having subdued the Tangut empire. On modern Chinese maps Liu p'an shan is marked south of the city of Ku yuean chou, department of P'ing liang, in Kan suh. The Yuean shi however, implies that he died in Northern Mongolia. We read there, in the annals, s.a. 1227, that in the fifth intercalary month the Emperor moved to the mountain Liu p'an shan in order to avoid the heat of the summer. In the sixth month the empire of the Hia (Tangut) submitted. Chinghiz rested on the river Si Kiang in the district of Ts'ing shui (in Kansuh; it has still the same name). In autumn, in the seventh month (August), on the day jen wu, the Emperor fell ill, and eight days later died in his palace Ha-lao-t'u on the River Sa-li. This river Sali is repeatedly mentioned in the Yuean shi, viz. in the first chapter, in connection with the first military doings of Chinghiz. Rashid reports (D'Ohsson, I. 58) that Chinghiz in 1199 retired to his residence Sari Kihar. The Yuean chao pi shi (Palladius' transl., 81) writes the same name Saari Keher (Keher in modern Mongol means 'a plain'). On the ancient map of Mongolia found in the Yuean shi lei pien, Sa-li K'ie-rh is marked south of the river Wa-nan (the Onon of our maps), and close to Sa-li K'ie-rh we read: 'Here was the original abode of the Yuean' (Mongols). Thus it seems the passage in the Yuean history translated above intimates that Chinghiz died in Mongolia, and not near the Liu p'an shan, as is generally believed. The Yuean ch'ao pi shi (Palladius' transl., 152) and the 'Ts'in cheng lu (Palladius' transl., 195) both agree in stating that, after subduing the Tangut empire, Chinghiz returned home, and then died. Colonel Yule, in his Marco Polo (I. 245), states 'that Rashid calls the place of Chinghiz' death Leung shan, which appears to be the mountain range still so-called in the heart of Shensi.' I am not aware from what translation of Rashid, Yule's statement is derived, but d'Ohsson (I. 375, note) seems to quote the same passage in translating from Rashid: 'Liu-p'an-shan was situated on the frontiers of the Churche (empire of the Kin), Nangias (empire of the Sung) and Tangut;' which statement is quite correct."

We now come to the Mongol tradition, which places the tomb of Chinghiz in the country of the Ordos, in the great bend of the Yellow River.

Two Belgian missionaries, MM. de Vos and Verlinden, who visited the tomb of Chinghiz Khan, say that before the Mahomedan invasion, on a hill a few feet high, there were two courtyards, one in front of the other, surrounded by palisades. In the second courtyard, there were a building like a Chinese dwelling-house and six tents. In a double tent are kept the remains of the bokta (the Holy). The neighbouring tents contained various precious objects, such as a gold saddle, dishes, drinking-cups, a tripod, a kettle, and many other utensils, all in solid silver. (Missions Catholiques, No. 315, 18th June, 1875.)—This periodical gives (p. 293) a sketch of the tomb of the Conqueror, according to the account of the two missionaries.

Prjevalsky (Mongolia and Tangut) relates the story of the Khatun Gol (see supra, p. 245), and says that her tomb is situated at 11 versts north-east of lake of Dzaidemin Nor, and is called by the Mongols Tumir-Alku, and by the Chinese Djiou-Djin Fu; one of the legends mentioned by the Russian traveller gives the Ordo country as the burial-place of Chinghiz, 200 versts south of lake Dabasun Nor; the remains are kept in two coffins, one of wood, the other of silver; the Khan prophesied that after eight or ten centuries he would come to life again and fight the Emperor of China, and being victorious, would take the Mongols from the Ordos back to their country of Khalka; Prjevalsky did not see the tomb, nor did Potanin.

"Their holiest place [of the Mongols of Ordos] is a collection of felt tents called 'Edjen-joro,' reputed to contain the bones of Jenghiz Khan. These sacred relics are entrusted to the care of a caste of Darhats, numbering some fifty families. Every summer, on the twenty-first day of the sixth moon, sacrifices are offered up in his honour, when numbers of people congregate to join in the celebration, such gatherings being called tailgan." On the southern border of the Ordos are the ruins of Boro-balgasun [Grey town], said to date from Jenghiz Khan's time. (Potanin, Proc. R. G. S. IX. 1887, p. 233.)

The last traveller who visited the tomb of Chinghiz is M. C. E. Bonin, in July 1896; he was then on the banks of the Yellow River in the northern part of the Ordo country, which is exclusively inhabited by nomadic and pastoral Mongols, forming seven tribes or hords, Djungar, Talat, Wan, Ottok, Djassak, Wushun and Hangkin, among which are eastward the Djungar and in the centre the Wan; according to their own tradition, these tribes descend from the seven armies encamped in the country at the time of Chinghiz's death; the King of Djungar was 67 years of age, and was the chief of all the tribes, being considered the 37th descendant of the conqueror in a direct line. His predecessor was the Wushun Wang. M. Bonin gives (Revue de Paris, 15th February 1898) the following description of the tomb and of the country surrounding it. Between the yamen (palace) of the King (Wang) of Djungar and the tomb of Chinghiz-Khan, there are five or six marches made difficult by the sands of the Gobi, but horses and camels may be used for the journey. The road, southward through the desert, passes near the great lama-monastery called Barong-tsao or Si-tsao (Monastery of the West), and in Chinese San-t'ang sse (Three Temples). This celebrated monastery was built by the King of Djungar to hold the tablets of his ancestors—on the ruins of an old temple, said to have been erected by Chinghiz himself. More than a thousand lamas are registered there, forty of them live at the expense of the Emperor of China. Crossing afterwards the two upper branches of the Ulan Muren (Red River) on the banks of which Chinghiz was murdered, according to local tradition, close to the lake of Chahan Nor (White Lake), near which are the tents of the Prince of Wan, one arrives at last at the spot called Yeke-Etjen-Koro, in Mongol: the abode of the Great Lord, where the tomb is to be found. It is erected to the south-east of the village, comprising some twenty tents or tent-like huts built of earth. Two large white felt tents, placed side by side, similar to the tents of the modern Mongols, but much larger, cover the tomb; a red curtain, when drawn, discloses the large and low silver coffin, which contains the ashes of the Emperor, placed on the ground of the second tent; it is shaped like a big trunk, with great rosaces engraved upon it. The Emperor, according to local tradition, was cremated on the bank of the Ulan Muren, where he is supposed to have been slain. On the twenty-first day of the third moon the anniversary fete of Mongolia takes place; on this day of the year only are the two mortuary tents opened, and the coffin is exhibited to be venerated by people coming from all parts of Mongolia. Many other relics, dispersed all over the Ordo land, are brought thither on this occasion; these relics called in Mongol Chinghiz Bogdo (Sacred remains of Chinghiz) number ten; they are in the order adopted by the Mongols: the saddle of Chinghiz, hidden in the Wan territory; the bow, kept at a place named Hu-ki-ta-lao Hei, near Yeke Etjen-Koro; the remains of his war-horse, called Antegan-tsegun (more), preserved at Kebere in the Djungar territory; a fire-arm kept in the palace of the King of Djungar; a wooden and leather vase called Pao-lao-antri, kept at the place Shien-ni-chente; a wax figure containing the ashes of the Khan's equerry, called Altaqua-tosu, kept at Ottok (one of the seven tribes); the remains of the second wife, who lay at Kiasa, on the banks of the Yellow River, at a place called on Prjevalsky's map in Chinese Djiou-Djin-fu, and in Mongol Tumir-Alku; the tomb of the third wife of Chinghiz, who killed him, and lay to-day at Bagha-Ejen-Koro, "the abode of the little Sovereign," at a day's march to the south of the Djungar King's palace; the very tomb of Yeke-Etjen-Koro, which is supposed to contain also the ashes of the first wife of the Khan; and last, his great standard, a black wood spear planted in the desert, more than 150 miles to the south of the tomb; the iron of it never gets rusty; no one dares touch it, and therefore it is not carried to Yeke-Etjen-Koro with the other relics for the yearly festival. (See also Rockhill, Diary, p. 29.) —H. C.]

NOTE 4.—Rashiduddin relates that the escort, in carrying Chinghiz to his burial, slew all whom they met, and that forty noble and beautiful girls were despatched to serve him in the other world, as well as superb horses. As Mangku Kaan died in the heart of China, any attempt to carry out the barbarous rule in his case would involve great slaughter. (Erd. 443; D'Ohsson, I. 381, II. 13; and see Cathay, 507-508.)

Sanang Setzen ignores these barbarities. He describes the body of Chinghiz as removed to his native land on a two-wheeled waggon, the whole host escorting it, and wailing as they went: "And Kiluken Bahadur of the Sunid Tribe (one of the Khan's old comrades) lifted up his voice and sang—

'Whilom Thou didst swoop like a Falcon: A rumbling waggon now trundles thee off: O My King! Hast thou in truth then forsaken thy wife and thy children and the Diet of thy People? O My King! Circling in pride like an Eagle whilom Thou didst lead us, O My King! But now Thou hast stumbled and fallen, like an unbroken Colt, O My King!'" (p. 108.)

["The burying of living men with the dead was a general custom with the tribes of Eastern Asia. Favourite servants and wives were usually buried in this way. In China, the chief wives and those concubines who had already borne children, were exempted from this lot. The Tunguz and other tribes were accustomed to kill the selected victims by strangulation. In China they used to be buried alive; but the custom of burying living men ceased in A.D. 1464. [Hwang ming ts'ung sin lu.] In the time of the present Manchu Dynasty, the burying of living men was prohibited by the Emperor Kang-hi, at the close of the 17th century, i.e. the forced burying; but voluntary sepulture remained in force [Yu chi wen]. Notwithstanding this prohibition, cases of forced burying occurred again in remote parts of Manchuria; when a concubine refused to follow her deceased master, she was forcibly strangled with a bow-string [Ninguta chi]. I must observe, however, that there is no mention made in historical documents of the existence of this custom with the Mongols; it is only an hypothesis based on the analogy between the religious ideas and customs of the Mongols and those of other tribes." (Palladius, p. 13.)

In his Religious System of China, II., Dr. J. J. M. de Groot devotes a whole chapter (ix. 721 seqq.), Concerning the Sacrifice of Human Beings at Burials, and Usages connected therewith. The oldest case on record in China dates as far back as B.C. 677, when sixty-six men were killed after the ruler Wu of the state of Ts'in died.

The Official Annals of the Tartar Dynasty of Liao, quoted by Professor J. J. M. de Groot (Religious System of China, vol. ii. 698), state that "in the tenth year of the T'ung hwo period (A.D. 692) the killing of horses for funeral and burial rites was interdicted, as also the putting into the tombs of coats of mail, helmets, and articles and trinkets of gold and silver." Professor de Groot writes (l.c. 709): "But, just as the placing of victuals in the graves was at an early date changed into sacrifices of food outside the graves, so burying horses with the dead was also modified under the Han Dynasty into presenting them to the dead without interring them, and valueless counterfeits were on such occasions substituted for the real animals."—H. C.]



CHAPTER LII.

CONCERNING THE CUSTOMS OF THE TARTARS.

Now that we have begun to speak of the Tartars, I have plenty to tell you on that subject. The Tartar custom is to spend the winter in warm plains, where they find good pasture for their cattle, whilst in summer they betake themselves to a cool climate among the mountains and valleys, where water is to be found as well as woods and pastures.

Their houses are circular, and are made of wands covered with felts.[NOTE 1] These are carried along with them whithersoever they go; for the wands are so strongly bound together, and likewise so well combined, that the frame can be made very light. Whenever they erect these huts the door is always to the south. They also have waggons covered with black felt so efficaciously that no rain can get in. These are drawn by oxen and camels, and the women and children travel in them.[NOTE 2] The women do the buying and selling, and whatever is necessary to provide for the husband and household; for the men all lead the life of gentlemen, troubling themselves about nothing but hunting and hawking, and looking after their goshawks and falcons, unless it be the practice of warlike exercises.

They live on the milk and meat which their herds supply, and on the produce of the chase; and they eat all kinds of flesh, including that of horses and dogs, and Pharaoh's rats, of which last there are great numbers in burrows on those plains.[NOTE 3] Their drink is mare's milk.

They are very careful not to meddle with each other's wives, and will not do so on any account, holding that to be an evil and abominable thing. The women too are very good and loyal to their husbands, and notable housewives withal.[NOTE 4] [Ten or twenty of them will dwell together in charming peace and unity, nor shall you ever hear an ill word among them.]

The marriage customs of Tartars are as follows. Any man may take a hundred wives an he so please, and if he be able to keep them. But the first wife is ever held most in honour, and as the most legitimate [and the same applies to the sons whom she may bear]. The husband gives a marriage payment to his wife's mother, and the wife brings nothing to her husband. They have more children than other people, because they have so many wives. They may marry their cousins, and if a father dies, his son may take any of the wives, his own mother always excepted; that is to say the eldest son may do this, but no other. A man may also take the wife of his own brother after the latter's death. Their weddings are celebrated with great ado.[NOTE 5]

NOTE 1.—The word here in the G. T. is "fennes," which seems usually to mean ropes, and in fact Pauthier's text reads: "Il ont mesons de verges et les cueuvrent de cordes." Ramusio's text has feltroni, and both Muller and the Latin of the S. G. have filtro. This is certainly the right reading. But whether fennes was ever used as a form of feltres (as pennes means peltry) I cannot discover. Perhaps some words have dropped out. A good description of a Kirghiz hut (35 feet in diameter), and exactly corresponding to Polo's account, will be found in Atkinson's Siberia, and another in Vambery's Travels. How comfortable and civilised the aspect of such a hut may be, can be seen also in Burnes's account of a Turkoman dwelling of this kind. This description of hut or tent is common to nearly all the nomade tribes of Central Asia. The trellis-work forming the skeleton of the tent-walls is (at least among the Turkomans) loosely pivoted, so as to draw out and compress like "lazy-tongs."



Rubruquis, Pallas, Timkowski, and others, notice the custom of turning the door to the south; the reason is obvious. (Atkinson, 285; Vamb. 316; Burnes, III. 51; Conolly, I. 96) But throughout the Altai, Mr. Ney Elias informs me, K'alkas, Kirghiz, and Kalmaks all pitch their tents facing east. The prevailing winter wind is there westerly.

[Mr. Rockhill (Rubruck, p. 56, note) says that he has often seen Mongol tents facing east and south-east. He adds: "It is interesting to find it noted in the Chou Shu (Bk. 50, 3) that the Khan of the Turks, who lived always on the Tu-kin mountains, had his tent invariably facing south, so as to show reverence to the sun's rising place."—H. C.]

NOTE 2.—Aeschylus already knows the

"wandering Scyths who dwell In latticed huts high-poised on easy wheels." (Prom. Vinct. 709-710.)

And long before him Hesiod says Phineus was carried by the Harpies—

"To the Land of the Milk-fed nations, whose houses are waggons." (Strabo, vii. 3-9.)

Ibn Batuta describes the Tartar waggon in which he travelled to Sarai as mounted on four great wheels, and drawn by two or more horses:—

"On the waggon is put a sort of pavilion of wands laced together with narrow thongs. It is very light, and is covered with felt or cloth, and has latticed windows, so that the person inside can look out without being seen. He can change his position at pleasure, sleeping or eating, reading or writing, during the journey." These waggons were sometimes of enormous size. Rubruquis declares that he measured between the wheel-tracks of one and found the interval to be 20 feet. The axle was like a ship's mast, and twenty-two oxen were yoked to the waggon, eleven abreast. (See opposite cut.) He describes the huts as not usually taken to pieces, but carried all standing. The waggon just mentioned carried a hut of 30 feet diameter, for it projected beyond the wheels at least 5 feet on either side. In fact, Carpini says explicitly, "Some of the huts are speedily taken to pieces and put up again; such are packed on the beasts. Others cannot be taken to pieces, but are carried bodily on the waggons. To carry the smaller tents on a waggon one ox may serve; for the larger ones three oxen or four, or even more, according to the size." The carts that were used to transport the Tartar valuables were covered with felt soaked in tallow or ewe's milk, to make them waterproof. The tilts of these were rectangular, in the form of a large trunk. The carts used in Kashgar, as described by Mr. Shaw, seem to resemble these latter. (I. B. II. 381-382; Rub. 221; Carp. 6, 16.)

The words of Herodotus, speaking generally of the Scyths, apply perfectly to the Mongol hordes under Chinghiz: "Having neither cities nor forts, and carrying their dwellings with them wherever they go; accustomed, moreover, one and all, to shoot from horseback; and living not by husbandry but on their cattle, their waggons the only houses that they possess, how can they fail of being unconquerable?" (Bk. IV. ch. 46, p. 41, Rawlins.) Scythian prisoners in their waggons are represented on the Column of Theodosius at Constantinople; but it is difficult to believe that these waggons, at least as figured in Banduri, have any really Scythian character.

It is a curious fact that the practice of carrying these yurts or felt tents upon waggons appears to be entirely obsolete in Mongolia. Mr. Ney Elias writes: "I frequently showed your picture [that opposite] to Mongols, Chinese, and Russian border-traders, but none had ever seen anything of the kind. The only cart I have ever seen used by Mongols is a little low, light, roughly-made bullock-dray, certainly of Chinese importation." The old system would, however, appear to have been kept up to our own times by the Nogai Tartars, near the Sea of Azof. (See note from Heber, in Clark's Travels, 8vo ed. I. 440, and Dr. Clark's vignette at p. 394 in the same volume.)



NOTE 3.—Pharaoh's Rat was properly the Gerboa of Arabia and North Africa, which the Arabs also regard as a dainty. There is a kindred animal in Siberia, called Alactaga, and a kind of Kangaroo-rat (probably the same) is mentioned as very abundant on the Mongolian Steppe. There is also the Zieselmaus of Pallas, a Dormouse, I believe, which he says the Kalmaks, even of distinction, count a delicacy, especially cooked in sour milk. "They eat not only the flesh of all their different kinds of cattle, including horses and camels, but also that of many wild animals which other nations eschew, e.g. marmots and zieselmice, beavers, badgers, otters, and lynxes, leaving none untouched except the dog and weasel kind, and also (unless very hard pressed) the flesh of the fox and the wolf." (Pallas, Samml. I. 128; also Rubr. 229-230.)

["In the Mongol biography of Chinghiz Khan (Mongol text of the Yuan ch'ao pi shi), mention is made of two kinds of animals (mice) used for food; the tarbagat (Aritomys Bobac) and kuchugur." (Palladius, l.c. p. 14.) Regarding the marmots called Sogur by Rubruquis, Mr. Rockhill writes (p. 69): "Probably the Mus citillus, the Suslik of the Russians.... M. Grenard tells me that Soghur, more usually written sour in Turki, is the ordinary name of the marmot."—H. C.]

NOTE 4.—"Their wives are chaste; nor does one ever hear any talk of their immodesty," says Carpini;—no Boccaccian and Chaucerian stories.

NOTE 5.—"The Mongols are not prohibited from having a plurality of wives; the first manages the domestic concerns, and is the most respected." (Timk. II. 310.) Naturally Polygamy is not so general among the Mongols as when Asia lay at their feet. The Buraets, who seem to retain the old Mongol customs in great completeness, are polygamists, and have as many wives as they choose. Polygamy is also very prevalent among the Yakuts, whose lineage seems to be Eastern Turk. (Ritter, III. 125; Erman, II. 346.)

Of the custom that entitled the son on succeeding to take such as he pleased of his deceased father's wives, we have had some illustration (see Prologue, ch. xvii. note 2), and many instances will be found in Hammer's or other Mongol Histories. The same custom seems to be ascribed by Herodotus to the Scyths (IV. 78). A number of citations regarding the practice are given by Quatremere. (Q. R. p. 92.) A modern Mongol writer in the Melanges Asiatiques of the Petersburg Academy, states that the custom of taking a deceased brother's wives is now obsolete, but that a proverb preserves its memory (II. 656). It is the custom of some Mahomedan nations, notably of the Afghans, and is one of those points that have been cited as a supposed proof of their Hebrew lineage.

"The Kalin is a present which the Bridegroom or his parents make to the parents of the Bride. All the Pagan nations of Siberia have this custom; they differ only in what constitutes the present, whether money or cattle." (Gmelin, I. 29; see also Erman, II. 348.)



CHAPTER LIII.

CONCERNING THE GOD OF THE TARTARS.

This is the fashion of their religion. [They say there is a Most High God of Heaven, whom they worship daily with thurible and incense, but they pray to Him only for health of mind and body. But] they have [also] a certain [other] god of theirs called NATIGAY, and they say he is the god of the Earth, who watches over their children, cattle, and crops. They show him great worship and honour, and every man hath a figure of him in his house, made of felt and cloth; and they also make in the same manner images of his wife and children. The wife they put on the left hand, and the children in front. And when they eat, they take the fat of the meat and grease the god's mouth withal, as well as the mouths of his wife and children. Then they take of the broth and sprinkle it before the door of the house; and that done, they deem that their god and his family have had their share of the dinner.[NOTE 1]

Their drink is mare's milk, prepared in such a way that you would take it for white wine; and a right good drink it is, called by them Kemiz.[NOTE 2]

The clothes of the wealthy Tartars are for the most part of gold and silk stuffs, lined with costly furs, such as sable and ermine, vair and fox-skin, in the richest fashion.

NOTE 1.—There is no reference here to Buddhism, which was then of recent introduction among the Mongols; indeed, at the end of the chapter, Polo speaks of their new adoption of the Chinese idolatry, i.e. Buddhism. We may add here that the Buddhism of the Mongols decayed and became practically extinct after their expulsion from China (1368-1369). The old Shamanism then apparently revived; nor was it till 1577 that the great reconversion of Mongolia to Lamaism began. This reconversion is the most prominent event in the Mongol history of Sanang Setzen, whose great-grandfather Khutuktai Setzen, Prince of the Ordos, was a chief agent in the movement.

The Supreme Good Spirit appears to have been called by the Mongols Tengri (Heaven), and Khormuzda, and is identified by Schmidt with the Persian Hormuzd. In Buddhist times he became identified with Indra.

Plano Carpini's account of this matter is very like Marco's: "They believe in one God, the Maker of all things, visible and invisible, and the Distributor of good and evil in this world; but they worship Him not with prayers or praises or any kind of service. Natheless, they have certain idols of felt, imitating the human face, and having underneath the face something resembling teats; these they place on either side of the door. These they believe to be the guardians of the flocks, from whom they have the boons of milk and increase. Others they fabricate of bits of silk, and these are highly honoured;... and whenever they begin to eat or drink, they first offer these idols a portion of their food or drink."

The account agrees generally with what we are told of the original Shamanism of the Tunguses, which recognizes a Supreme Power over all, and a small number of potent spirits called Ongot. These spirits among the Buraets are called, according to one author, Nougait or Nogat, and according to Erman Ongotui. In some form of this same word, Nogait, Ongot, Onggod, Ongotui, we are, I imagine, to trace the Natigay of Polo. The modern representative of this Shamanist Lar is still found among the Buraets, and is thus described by Pallas under the name of Immegiljin: "He is honoured as the tutelary god of the sheep and other cattle. Properly, the divinity consists of two figures, hanging side by side, one of whom represents the god's wife. These two figures are merely a pair of lanky flat bolsters with the upper part shaped into a round disk, and the body hung with a long woolly fleece; eyes, nose, breasts, and navel, being indicated by leather knobs stitched on. The male figure commonly has at his girdle the foot-rope with which horses at pasture are fettered, whilst the female, which is sometimes accompanied by smaller figures representing her children, has all sorts of little nicknacks and sewing implements." Galsang Czomboyef, a recent Russo-Mongol writer already quoted, says also: "Among the Buryats, in the middle of the hut and place of honour, is the Dsaiagachi or 'Chief Creator of Fortune.' At the door is the Emelgelji, the Tutelary of the Herds and Young Cattle, made of sheepskins. Outside the hut is the Chandaghatu, a name implying that the idol was formed of a white hare-skin, the Tutelary of the Chase and perhaps of War. All these have been expelled by Buddhism except Dsaiagachi, who is called Tengri, and introduced among the Buddhist divinities."



[Dorji Banzaroff, in his dissertation On the Black Religion, i.e. Shamanism, 1846, "is disposed to see in Natigay of M. Polo, the Ytoga of other travellers, i.e. the Mongol Etugen—'earth,' as the object of veneration of the Mongol Shamans. They look upon it as a divinity, for its power as Delegei in echen, i.e. 'the Lord of Earth,' and on account of its productiveness, Altan delegei, i.e. 'Golden Earth.'" Palladius (l.c. pp. 14-16) adds one new variant to what the learned Colonel Yule has collected and set forth with such precision, on the Shaman household gods. "The Dahurs and Barhus have in their dwellings, according to the number of the male members of the family, puppets made of straw, on which eyes, eyebrows, and mouth are drawn; these puppets are dressed up to the waist. When some one of the family dies, his puppet is taken out of the house, and a new puppet is made for every newly-born member of the family. On New Year's Day offerings are made to the puppets, and care is taken not to disturb them (by moving them, etc.), in order to avoid bringing sickness upon the family." (He lung kiang wai ki.)

(Cf. Rubruck, 58-59, and Mr. Rockhill's note, 59-60.)—H. C.]

NOTE 2.—KIMIZ or KUMIZ, the habitual drink of the Mongols, as it still is of most of the nomads of Asia. It is thus made. Fresh mare's milk is put in a well-seasoned bottle-necked vessel of horse-skin; a little kurut (see note 5, ch. liv.) or some sour cow's milk is added; and when acetous fermentation is commencing it is violently churned with a peculiar staff which constantly stands in the vessel. This interrupts fermentation and introduces a quantity of air into the liquid. It is customary for visitors who may drop in to give a turn or two at the churn-stick. After three or four days the drink is ready.

Kumiz keeps long; it is wonderfully tonic and nutritious, and it is said that it has cured many persons threatened with consumption. The tribes using it are said to be remarkably free from pulmonary disease; and indeed I understand there is a regular Galactopathic establishment somewhere in the province of Orenburg for treating pulmonary patients with Kumiz diet.

It has a peculiar fore- and after-taste which, it is said, everybody does not like. Yet I have found no confession of a dislike to Kumiz. Rubruquis tells us it is pungent on the tongue, like vinum raspei (vin rape of the French), whilst you are drinking it, but leaves behind a pleasant flavour like milk of almonds. It makes a man's inside feel very cosy, he adds, even turning a weak head, and is strongly diuretic. To this last statement, however, modern report is in direct contradiction. The Greeks and other Oriental Christians considered it a sort of denial of the faith to drink Kumiz. On the other hand, the Mahomedan converts from the nomad tribes seem to have adhered to the use of Kumiz even when strict in abstinence from wine; and it was indulged in by the early Mamelukes as a public solemnity. Excess on such an occasion killed Bibars Bundukdari, who was passionately fond of this liquor.

The intoxicating power of Kumiz varies according to the brew. The more advanced is the vinous fermentation the less acid is the taste and the more it sparkles. The effect, however, is always slight and transitory, and leaves no unpleasant sensation, whilst it produces a strong tendency to refreshing sleep. If its good qualities amount to half what are ascribed to it by Dr. W. F. Dahl, from whom we derive some of these particulars, it must be the pearl of all beverages. "With the nomads it is the drink of all from the suckling upwards, it is the solace of age and illness, and the greatest of treats to all!"

There was a special kind called Kara Kumiz, which is mentioned both by Rubruquis and in the history of Wassaf. It seems to have been strained and clarified. The modern Tartars distil a spirit from Kumiz of which Pallas gives a detailed account. (Dahl, Ueber den Kumyss in Baer's Beitraege, VII.; Lettres sur le Caucase et la Crimee, Paris, 1859, p. 81; Makrizi, II. 147; J. As. XI. 160; Levchine, 322-323; Rubr. 227-228, 335; Gold. Horde, p. 46; Erman, I. 296; Pallas, Samml. I. 132 seqq.)

[In the Si yu ki, Travels to the West of Ch'ang ch'un, we find a drink called tung lo. "The Chinese characters, tung lo," says Bretschneider (Med. Res. I. 94), "denote according to the dictionaries preparations from mare's or cow's milk, as Kumis, sour milk, etc. In the Yuan shi (ch. cxxviii.) biography of the Kipchak prince Tu-tu-ha, it is stated that 'black mare's milk' (evidently the cara cosmos of Rubruck), very pleasant to the taste, used to be sent from Kipchak to the Mongol court in China." (On the drinks of the Mongols, see Mr. Rockhill's note, Rubruck, p. 62.)—The Mongols indulge in sour milk (tarak) and distilled mare's milk (arreki), but Mr. Rockhill (Land of the Lamas, 130) says he never saw them drink kumiz.—H. C.]

The mare's-milk drink of Scythian nomads is alluded to by many ancient authors. But the manufacture of Kumiz is particularly spoken of by Herodotus. "The (mare's) milk is poured into deep wooden casks, about which the blind slaves are placed, and then the milk is stirred round. That which rises to the top is drawn off, and considered the best part; the under portion is of less account." Strabo also speaks of the nomads beyond the Cimmerian Chersonesus, who feed on horse-flesh and other flesh, mare's-milk cheese, mare's milk, and sour milk ([Greek: oxygalakta]) "which they have a particular way of preparing." Perhaps Herodotus was mistaken about the wooden tubs. At least all modern attempts to use anything but the orthodox skins have failed. Priscus, in his narrative of the mission of himself and Maximin to Attila, says the Huns brought them a drink made from barley which they called [Greek: Kamos]. The barley was, no doubt, a misapprehension of his. (Herod. Bk. iv. p. 2, in Rawl.; Strabo, VII. 4, 6; Excerpta de Legationibus, in Corp. Hist. Byzant. I. 55.)



CHAPTER LIV.

CONCERNING THE TARTAR CUSTOMS OF WAR.

All their harness of war is excellent and costly. Their arms are bows and arrows, sword and mace; but above all the bow, for they are capital archers, indeed the best that are known. On their backs they wear armour of cuirbouly, prepared from buffalo and other hides, which is very strong.[NOTE 1] They are excellent soldiers, and passing valiant in battle. They are also more capable of hardships than other nations; for many a time, if need be, they will go for a month without any supply of food, living only on the milk of their mares and on such game as their bows may win them. Their horses also will subsist entirely on the grass of the plains, so that there is no need to carry store of barley or straw or oats; and they are very docile to their riders. These, in case of need, will abide on horseback the livelong night, armed at all points, while the horse will be continually grazing.

Of all troops in the world these are they which endure the greatest hardship and fatigue, and which cost the least; and they are the best of all for making wide conquests of country. And this you will perceive from what you have heard and shall hear in this book; and (as a fact) there can be no manner of doubt that now they are the masters of the biggest half of the world. Their troops are admirably ordered in the manner that I shall now relate.

You see, when a Tartar prince goes forth to war, he takes with him, say, 100,000 horse. Well, he appoints an officer to every ten men, one to every hundred, one to every thousand, and one to every ten thousand, so that his own orders have to be given to ten persons only, and each of these ten persons has to pass the orders only to other ten, and so on; no one having to give orders to more than ten. And every one in turn is responsible only to the officer immediately over him; and the discipline and order that comes of this method is marvellous, for they are a people very obedient to their chiefs. Further, they call the corps of 100,000 men a Tuc; that of 10,000 they call a Toman; the thousand they call...; the hundred Guz; the ten....[NOTE 2] And when the army is on the march they have always 200 horsemen, very well mounted, who are sent a distance of two marches in advance to reconnoitre, and these always keep ahead. They have a similar party detached in the rear, and on either flank, so that there is a good look-out kept on all sides against a surprise. When they are going on a distant expedition they take no gear with them except two leather bottles for milk; a little earthenware pot to cook their meat in, and a little tent to shelter them from rain.[NOTE 3] And in case of great urgency they will ride ten days on end without lighting a fire or taking a meal. On such an occasion they will sustain themselves on the blood of their horses, opening a vein and letting the blood jet into their mouths, drinking till they have had enough, and then staunching it.[NOTE 4]

They also have milk dried into a kind of paste to carry with them; and when they need food they put this in water, and beat it up till it dissolves, and then drink it. [It is prepared in this way; they boil the milk, and when the rich part floats on the top they skim it into another vessel, and of that they make butter; for the milk will not become solid till this is removed. Then they put the milk in the sun to dry. And when they go on an expedition, every man takes some ten pounds of this dried milk with him. And of a morning he will take a half pound of it and put it in his leather bottle, with as much water as he pleases. So, as he rides along, the milk-paste and the water in the bottle get well churned together into a kind of pap, and that makes his dinner.[NOTE 5]]

When they come to an engagement with the enemy, they will gain the victory in this fashion. [They never let themselves get into a regular medley, but keep perpetually riding round and shooting into the enemy. And] as they do not count it any shame to run away in battle, they will [sometimes pretend to] do so, and in running away they turn in the saddle and shoot hard and strong at the foe, and in this way make great havoc. Their horses are trained so perfectly that they will double hither and thither, just like a dog, in a way that is quite astonishing. Thus they fight to as good purpose in running away as if they stood and faced the enemy, because of the vast volleys of arrows that they shoot in this way, turning round upon their pursuers, who are fancying that they have won the battle. But when the Tartars see that they have killed and wounded a good many horses and men, they wheel round bodily, and return to the charge in perfect order and with loud cries; and in a very short time the enemy are routed. In truth they are stout and valiant soldiers, and inured to war. And you perceive that it is just when the enemy sees them run, and imagines that he has gained the battle, that he has in reality lost it; for the Tartars wheel round in a moment when they judge the right time has come. And after this fashion they have won many a fight.[NOTE 6]