LXI. OF THE CITY OF CHANDU, AND THE KAAN’S PALACE THERE…

LXI. OF THE CITY OF CHANDU, AND THE KAAN’S PALACE THERE

And when you have ridden three days from the city last mentioned, between north-east and north, you come to a city called CHANDU,{1} which was built by the Kaan now reigning. There is at this place a very fine marble Palace, the rooms of which are all gilt and painted with figures of men and beasts and birds, and with a variety of trees and flowers, all executed with such exquisite art that you regard them with delight and astonishment.{2}

Round this Palace a wall is built, inclosing a compass of 16 miles, and inside the Park there are fountains and rivers and brooks, and beautiful meadows, with all kinds of wild animals (excluding such as are of ferocious nature), which the Emperor has procured and placed there to supply food for his gerfalcons and hawks, which he keeps there in mew. Of these there are more than 200 gerfalcons alone, without reckoning the other hawks. The Kaan himself goes every week to see his birds sitting in mew, and sometimes he rides through the park with a leopard behind him on his horse’s croup; and then if he sees any animal that takes his fancy, he slips his leopard at it,{3} and the game when taken is made over to feed the hawks in mew. This he does for diversion.

Moreover [at a spot in the Park where there is a charming wood] he has another Palace built of cane, of which I must give you a description. It is gilt all over, and most elaborately finished inside. [It is stayed on gilt and lackered columns, on each of which is a dragon all gilt, the tail of which is attached to the column whilst the head supports the architrave, and the claws likewise are stretched out right and left to support the architrave.] The roof, like the rest, is formed of canes, covered with a varnish so strong and excellent that no amount of rain will rot them. These canes are a good 3 palms in girth, and from 10 to 15 paces in length. [They are cut across at each knot, and then the pieces are split so as to form from each two hollow tiles, and with these the house is roofed; only every such tile of cane has to be nailed down to prevent the wind from lifting it.] In short, the whole Palace is built of these canes, which (I may mention) serve also for a great variety of other useful purposes. The construction of the Palace is so devised that it can be taken down and put up again with great celerity; and it can all be taken to pieces and removed whithersoever the Emperor may command. When erected, it is braced [against mishaps from the wind] by more than 200 cords of silk.{4}

The Lord abides at this Park of his, dwelling sometimes in the Marble Palace and sometimes in the Cane Palace for three months of the year, to wit, June, July, and August; preferring this residence because it is by no means hot; in fact it is a very cool place. When the 28th day of [the Moon of] August arrives he takes his departure, and the Cane Palace is taken to pieces.{5} But I must tell you what happens when he goes away from this Palace every year on the 28th of the August [Moon].

You must know that the Kaan keeps an immense stud of white horses and mares; in fact more than 10,000 of them, and all pure white without a speck. The milk of these mares is drunk by himself and his family, and by none else, except by those of one great tribe that have also the privilege of drinking it. This privilege was granted them by Chinghis Kaan, on account of a certain victory that they helped him to win long ago. The name of the tribe is HORIAD.{6}

Now when these mares are passing across the country, and any one falls in with them, be he the greatest lord in the land, he must not presume to pass until the mares have gone by; he must either tarry where he is, or go a half-day’s journey round if need so be, so as not to come nigh them; for they are to be treated with the greatest respect. Well, when the Lord sets out from the Park on the 28th of August, as I told you, the milk of all those mares is taken and sprinkled on the ground. And this is done on the injunction of the Idolaters and Idol-priests, who say that it is an excellent thing to sprinkle that milk on the ground every 28th of August, so that the Earth and the Air and the False Gods shall have their share of it, and the Spirits likewise that inhabit the Air and the Earth. And thus those beings will protect and bless the Kaan and his children and his wives and his folk and his gear, and his cattle and his horses, his corn and all that is his. After this is done, the Emperor is off and away.{7}

But I must now tell you a strange thing that hitherto I have forgotten to mention. During the three months of every year that the Lord resides at that place, if it should happen to be bad weather, there are certain crafty enchanters and astrologers in his train, who are such adepts in necromancy and the diabolic arts, that they are able to prevent any cloud or storm from passing over the spot on which the Emperor’s Palace stands. The sorcerers who do this are called TEBET and KESIMUR, which are the names of two nations of Idolaters. Whatever they do in this way is by the help of the Devil, but they make those people believe that it is compassed by dint of their own sanctity and the help of God.{8} [They always go in a state of dirt and uncleanness, devoid of respect for themselves, or for those who see them, unwashed, unkempt, and sordidly attired.]

These people also have a custom which I must tell you. If a man is condemned to death and executed by the lawful authority, they take his body and cook and eat it. But if any one die a natural death then they will not eat the body.{9}

There is another marvel performed by those BACSI, of whom I have been speaking as knowing so many enchantments.{10} For when the Great Kaan is at his capital and in his great Palace, seated at his table, which stands on a platform some eight cubits above the ground, his cups are set before him [on a great buffet] in the middle of the hall pavement, at a distance of some ten paces from his table, and filled with wine, or other good spiced liquor such as they use. Now when the Lord desires to drink, these enchanters by the power of their enchantments cause the cups to move from their place without being touched by anybody, and to present themselves to the Emperor! This every one present may witness, and there are ofttimes more than 10,000 persons thus present. ’Tis a truth and no lie! and so will tell you the sages of our own country who understand necromancy, for they also can perform it.{11}

And when the Idol Festivals come round, these Bacsi go to the Prince and say: “Sire, the Feast of such a god is come” (naming him). “My Lord, you know,” the enchanter will say, “that this god, when he gets no offerings, always sends bad weather and spoils our seasons. So we pray you to give us such and such a number of black-faced sheep,” naming whatever number they please. “And we beg also, good my lord, that we may have such a quantity of incense, and such a quantity of lignaloes, and”—so much of this, so much of that, and so much of t’other, according to their fancy—“that we may perform a solemn service and a great sacrifice to our Idols, and that so they may be induced to protect us and all that is ours.”

The Bacsi say these things to the Barons entrusted with the Stewardship, who stand round the Great Kaan, and these repeat them to the Kaan, and he then orders the Barons to give everything that the Bacsi have asked for. And when they have got the articles they go and make a great feast in honour of their god, and hold great ceremonies of worship with grand illuminations and quantities of incense of a variety of odours, which they make up from different aromatic spices. And then they cook the meat, and set it before the idols, and sprinkle the broth hither and thither, saying that in this way the idols get their bellyful. Thus it is that they keep their festivals. You must know that each of the idols has a name of his own, and a feast-day, just as our Saints have their anniversaries.{12}

They have also immense Minsters and Abbeys, some of them as big as a small town, with more than two thousand monks (i.e. after their fashion) in a single abbey.{13} These monks dress more decently than the rest of the people, and have the head and beard shaven. There are some among these Bacsi who are allowed by their rule to take wives, and who have plenty of children.{14}

Then there is another kind of devotees called SENSIN, who are men of extraordinary abstinence after their fashion, and lead a life of such hardship as I will describe. All their life long they eat nothing but bran,{15} which they take mixt with hot water. That is their food: bran, and nothing but bran; and water for their drink. ’Tis a lifelong fast! so that I may well say their life is one of extraordinary asceticism. They have great idols, and plenty of them; but they sometimes also worship fire. The other Idolaters who are not of this sect call these people heretics—Patarins as we should say{16}—because they do not worship their idols in their own fashion. Those of whom I am speaking would not take a wife on any consideration.{17} They wear dresses of hempen stuff, black and blue,{18} and sleep upon mats; in fact their asceticism is something astonishing. Their idols are all feminine, that is to say, they have women’s names.{19}

Now let us have done with this subject, and let me tell you of the great state and wonderful magnificence of the Great Lord of Lords; I mean that great Prince who is the Sovereign of the Tartars, CUBLAY by name, that most noble and puissant Lord.

NOTE 1.—[There were two roads to go from Peking to Shangtu: the eastern road through Tu-shi-k’ow, and the western (used for the return journey) road by Ye-hu ling. Polo took this last road, which ran from Peking to Siuen-te chau through the same places as now; but from the latter town it led, not to Kalgan as it does now, but more to the west, to a place called now Shan-fang pú where the pass across the Ye-hu ling range begins. “On both these roads nabo, or temporary palaces, were built, as resting-places for the Khans; eighteen on the eastern road, and twenty-four on the western.” (Palladius, p. 25.) The same author makes (p. 26) the following remarks: “M. Polo’s statement that he travelled three days from Siuen-te chau to Chagannor, and three days also from the latter place to Shang-tu, agrees with the information contained in the ‘Researches on the Routes to Shangtu.’ The Chinese authors have not given the precise position of Lake Chagannor; there are several lakes in the desert on the road to Shangtu, and their names have changed with time. The palace in Chagannor was built in 1280” (according to the Siu t’ung kien).—H. C.]

NOTE 2.—Chandu, called more correctly in Ramusio Xandu, i.e. SHANDU, and by Fr. Odorico Sandu, viz. SHANG-TU or “Upper Court,” the Chinese title of Kúblái’s summer residence at Kaipingfu, Mongolicè Keibung (see ch. xiii. of Prologue) [is called also Loan king, i.e. “the capital on the Loan River,” according to Palladius, p. 26.—H. C.]. The ruins still exist, in about lat. 40° 22′, and a little west of the longitude of Peking. The site is 118 miles in direct line from Chaghan-nor, making Polo’s three marches into rides of unusual length.[1] The ruins bear the Mongol name of Chao Naiman Sumé Khotan, meaning “city of the 108 temples,” and are about 26 miles to the north-west of Dolon-nor, a bustling, dirty town of modern origin, famous for the manufactory of idols, bells, and other ecclesiastical paraphernalia of Buddhism. The site was visited (though not described) by Père Gerbillon in 1691, and since then by no European traveller till 1872, when Dr. Bushell of the British Legation at Peking, and the Hon. T. G. Grosvenor, made a journey thither from the capital, by way of the Nan-kau Pass (supra p. 26), Kalgan, and the vicinity of Chaghan-nor, the route that would seem to have been habitually followed, in their annual migration, by Kúblái and his successors.

The deserted site, overgrown with rank weeds and grass, stands but little above the marshy bed of the river, which here preserves the name of Shang-tu, and about a mile from its north or left bank. The walls, of earth faced with brick and unhewn stone, still stand, forming, as in the Tartar city of Peking, a double enceinte, of which the inner line no doubt represents the area of the “Marble Palace” of which Polo speaks. This forms a square of about 2 li (⅔ of a mile) to the side, and has three gates—south, east, and west, of which the southern one still stands intact, a perfect arch, 20 ft. high and 12 ft. wide. The outer wall forms a square of 4 li (1⅓ mile) to the side, and has six gates. The foundations of temples and palace-buildings can be traced, and both enclosures are abundantly strewn with blocks of marble and fragments of lions, dragons, and other sculptures, testifying to the former existence of a flourishing city, but exhibiting now scarcely one stone upon another. A broken memorial tablet was found, half buried in the ground, within the north-east angle of the outer rampart, bearing an inscription in an antique form of the Chinese character, which proves it to have been erected by Kúblái, in honour of a Buddhist ecclesiastic called Yun-Hien. Yun-Hien was the abbot of one of those great minsters and abbeys of Bacsis, of which Marco speaks, and the exact date (no longer visible) of the monument was equivalent to A.D. 1288.[2]

This city occupies the south-east angle of a more extensive enclosure, bounded by what is now a grassy mound, and embracing, on Dr. Bushell’s estimate, about 5 square miles. Further knowledge may explain the discrepancy from Marco’s dimension, but this must be the park of which he speaks.[3] The woods and fountains have disappeared, like the temples and palaces; all is dreary and desolate, though still abounding in the game which was one of Kúblái’s attractions to the spot. A small monastery, occupied by six or seven wretched Lamas, is the only building that remains in the vicinity. The river Shangtu, which lower down becomes the Lan [or Loan]-Ho, was formerly navigated from the sea up to this place by flat grain-boats.

[Mgr. de Harlez gave in the T’oung Pao (x. p. 73) an inscription in Chuen character on a stele found in the ruins of Shangtu, and built by an officer with the permission of the Emperor; it is probably a token of imperial favour; the inscription means: Great Longevity.—H. C.]

In the wail which Sanang Setzen, the poetical historian of the Mongols, puts, perhaps with some traditional basis, into the mouth of Toghon Temur, the last of the Chinghizide Dynasty in China, when driven from his throne, the changes are rung on the lost glories of his capital Daïtu (see infra, Book II. ch. xi.) and his summer palace Shangtu; thus (I translate from Schott’s amended German rendering of the Mongol):

“My vast and noble Capital, My Daïtu, My splendidly adorned! And Thou my cool and delicious Summer-seat, my Shangtu-Keibung! Ye, also, yellow plains of Shangtu, Delight of my godlike Sires! I suffered myself to drop into dreams,—and lo! my Empire was gone! Ah Thou my Daïtu, built of the nine precious substances! Ah my Shangtu-Keibung, Union of all perfections! Ah my Fame! Ah my Glory, as Khagan and Lord of the Earth! When I used to awake betimes and look forth, how the breezes blew loaded with fragrance! And turn which way I would all was glorious perfection of beauty! • • • • • Alas for my illustrious name as the Sovereign of the World! Alas for my Daïtu, seat of Sanctity, Glorious work of the Immortal KÚBLÁI! All, all is rent from me!”

It was, in 1797, whilst reading this passage of Marco’s narrative in old Purchas that Coleridge fell asleep, and dreamt the dream of Kúblái’s Paradise, beginning:

“In Xanadu did Kubla Khan A stately pleasure-dome decree: Where Alph, the sacred River, ran Through caverns measureless to man Down to a sunless sea. So twice five miles of fertile ground With walls and towers were girdled round: And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree; And here were forests ancient as the hills, Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.”

It would be a singular coincidence in relation to this poem were Klaproth’s reading correct of a passage in Rashiduddin which he renders as saying that the palace at Kaiminfu was “called Langtin, and was built after a plan that Kúblái had seen in a dream, and had retained in his memory.” But I suspect D’Ohsson’s reading is more accurate, which runs: “Kúblái caused a Palace to be built for him east of Kaipingfu, called Lengten; but he abandoned it in consequence of a dream.” For we see from Sanang Setzen that the Palaces of Lengten and Kaiming or Shangtu were distinct; “Between the year of the Rat (1264), when Kúblái was fifty years old, and the year of the Sheep (1271), in the space of eight years, he built four great cities, viz. for Summer Residence SHANGTU KEIBUNG Kürdu Balgasun, for Winter Residence Yeke DAÏTU Khotan, and on the shady side of the Altai (see ch. li. note 3, supra) Arulun TSAGHAN BALGASUN, and Erchügin LANGTING Balgasun.” A valuable letter from Dr. Bushell enables me now to indicate the position of Langtin: “The district through which the river flows eastward from Shangtu is known to the Mongolians of the present day by the name of Lang-tírh (Lang-ting’rh).... The ruins of the city are marked on a Chinese map in my possession Pai-dseng-tzu, i.e. ‘White City,’ implying that it was formerly an Imperial residence. The remains of the wall are 7 or 8 li in diameter, of stone, and situated about 40 li north-north-west from Dolon-nor.”

(Gerbillon in Astley, IV. 701–716; Klaproth, in J. As. sér. II. tom. xi. 345–350; Schott, Die letzten Jahre der Mongolenherrschaft in China (Berl. Acad. d. Wissensch. 1850, pp. 502–503); Huc’s Tartary, etc., p. 14 seqq.; Cathay, 134, 261; S. Setzen, p. 115; Dr. S. W. Bushell, Journey outside the Great Wall, in J. R. G. S. for 1874, and MS. notes.)

One of the pavilions of the celebrated Yuen-ming-Yuen may give some idea of the probable style, though not of the scale, of Kúblái’s Summer Palace.

Hiuen Tsang’s account of the elaborate and fantastic ornamentation of the famous Indian monasteries at Nalanda in Bahár, where Mr. Broadley has lately made such remarkable discoveries, seems to indicate that these fantasies of Burmese and Chinese architecture may have had a direct origin in India, at a time when timber was still a principal material of construction there: “The pavilions had pillars adorned with dragons, and posts that glowed with all the colours of the rainbow, sculptured frets, columns set with jade, richly chiselled and lackered, with balustrades of vermilion, and carved open work. The lintels of the doors were tastefully ornamented, and the roofs covered with shining tiles, the splendours of which were multiplied by mutual reflection and from moment to moment took a thousand forms.” (Vie et Voyages, 157.)

NOTE 3.—[Rubruck says (Rockhill, p. 248): “I saw also the envoy of a certain Soldan of India, who had brought eight leopards and ten greyhounds, taught to sit on horses’ backs, as leopards sit.”—H. C.]

NOTE 4.—Ramusio’s is here so much more lucid than the other texts, that I have adhered mainly to his account of the building. The roof described is of a kind in use in the Indian Archipelago, and in some other parts of Transgangetic India, in which the semi-cylinders of bamboo are laid just like Roman tiles.

Rashiduddin gives a curious account of the way in which the foundations of the terrace on which this palace stood were erected in a lake. He says, too, in accord with Polo: “Inside the city itself a second palace was built, about a bowshot from the first: but the Kaan generally takes up his residence in the palace outside the town,” i.e., as I imagine, in Marco’s Cane Palace. (Cathay, pp. 261–262.)

[“The Palace of canes is probably the Palm Hall, Tsung tien, alias Tsung mao tien, of the Chinese authors, which was situated in the western palace garden of Shangtu. Mention is made also in the Altan Tobchi of a cane tent in Shangtu.” (Palladius, p. 27.)—H. C.]

Marco might well say of the bamboo that “it serves also a great variety of other purposes.” An intelligent native of Arakan who accompanied me in wanderings on duty in the forests of the Burmese frontier in the beginning of 1853, and who used to ask many questions about Europe, seemed able to apprehend almost everything except the possibility of existence in a country without bamboos! “When I speak of bamboo huts, I mean to say that posts and walls, wall-plates and rafters, floor and thatch, and the withes that bind them, are all of bamboo. In fact, it might almost be said that among the Indo-Chinese nations the staff of life is a bamboo! Scaffolding and ladders, landing-jetties, fishing apparatus, irrigation wheels and scoops, oars, masts, and yards [and in China, sails, cables, and caulking, asparagus, medicine, and works of fantastic art], spears and arrows, hats and helmets, bow, bowstring and quiver, oil-cans, water-stoups and cooking-pots, pipe-sticks [tinder and means of producing fire], conduits, clothes-boxes, pawn-boxes, dinner-trays, pickles, preserves, and melodious musical instruments, torches, footballs, cordage, bellows, mats, paper; these are but a few of the articles that are made from the bamboo;” and in China, to sum up the whole, as Barrow observes, it maintains order throughout the Empire! (Ava Mission, p. 153; and see also Wallace, Ind. Arch. I. 120 seqq.)

NOTE 5.—“The Emperor ... began this year (1264) to depart from Yenking (Peking) in the second or third month for Shangtu, not returning until the eighth month. Every year he made this passage, and all the Mongol emperors who succeeded him followed his example.” (Gaubil, p. 144.)

[“The Khans usually resorted to Shangtu in the 4th moon and returned to Peking in the 9th. On the 7th day of the 7th moon there were libations performed in honour of the ancestors; a shaman, his face to the north, uttered in a loud voice the names of Chingiz Khan and of other deceased Khans, and poured mare’s milk on the ground. The propitious day for the return journey to Peking was also appointed then.” (Palladius, p. 26.)—H. C.]

NOTE 6.—White horses were presented in homage to the Kaan on New Year’s Day (the White Feast), as we shall see below. (Bk. II. ch. xv.) Odoric also mentions this practice; and, according to Huc, the Mongol chiefs continued it at least to the time of the Emperor K’ang-hi. Indeed Timkowski speaks of annual tributes of white camels and white horses from the Khans of the Kalkas and other Mongol dignitaries, in the present century. (Huc’s Tartary, etc.; Tim. II. 33.)

By the HORIAD are no doubt intended the UIRAD or OIRAD, a name usually interpreted as signifying the “Closely Allied,” or Confederates; but Vámbéry explains it as (Turki) Oyurat, “Grey horse,” to which the statement in our text appears to lend colour. They were not of the tribes properly called Mongol, but after their submission to Chinghiz they remained closely attached to him. In Chinghiz’s victory over Aung-Khan, as related by S. Setzen, we find Turulji Taishi, the son of the chief of the Oirad, one of Chinghiz’s three chief captains; perhaps that is the victory alluded to. The seats of the Oirad appear to have been about the head waters of the Kem, or Upper Yenisei.

In A.D. 1295 there took place a curious desertion from the service of Gházán Khan of Persia of a vast corps of the Oirad, said to amount to 18,000 tents. They made their way to Damascus, where they were well received by the Mameluke Sultan. But their heathenish practices gave dire offence to the Faithful. They were settled in the Sáhil, or coast districts of Palestine. Many died speedily; the rest embraced Islam, spread over the country, and gradually became absorbed in the general population. Their sons and daughters were greatly admired for their beauty. (S. Setz. p. 87; Erdmann, 187; Pallas, Samml. I. 5 seqq.; Makrizi, III. 29; Bretschneider, Med. Res. II. p. 159 seqq.)

[With reference to Yule’s conjecture, I may quote Palladius (l.c. p. 27): “It is, however, strange that the Oirats alone enjoyed the privilege described by Marco Polo; for the highest position at the Mongol Khan’s court belonged to the Kunkrat tribe, out of which the Khans used to choose their first wives, who were called Empresses of the first ordo.”—H. C.]

NOTE 7.—Rubruquis assigns such a festival to the month of May: “On the 9th day of the May Moon they collect all the white mares of their herds and consecrate them. The Christian priests also must then assemble with their thuribles. They then sprinkle new cosmos (kumíz) on the ground, and make a great feast that day, for according to their calendar, it is their time of first drinking new cosmos, just as we reckon of our new wine at the feast of St. Bartholomew (24th August), or that of St. Sixtus (6th August), or of our fruit on the feast of St. James and St. Christopher” (25th July). [With reference to this feast, Mr. Rockhill gives (Rubruck, p. 241, note) extracts from Pallas, Voyages, IV. 579, and Professor Radloff, Aus Siberien, I. 378.—H. C.] The Yakuts also hold such a festival in June or July, when the mares foal, and immense wooden goblets of kumíz are emptied on that occasion. They also pour out kumíz for the Spirits to the four quarters of heaven.

The following passage occurs in the narrative of the Journey of Chang Te-hui, a Chinese teacher, who was summoned to visit the camp of Kúblái in Mongolia, some twelve years before that Prince ascended the throne of the Kaans:[4]

“On the 9th day of the 9th Moon (October), the Prince, having called his subjects before his chief tent, performed the libation of the milk of a white mare. This was the customary sacrifice at that time. The vessels used were made of birch-bark, not ornamented with either silver or gold. Such here is the respect for simplicity....

“At the last day of the year the Mongols suddenly changed their camping-ground to another place, for the mutual congratulation on the 1st Moon. Then there was every day feasting before the tents for the lower ranks. Beginning with the Prince, all dressed themselves in white fur clothing....[5]

“On the 9th day of the 4th Moon (May) the Prince again collected his vassals before the chief tent for the libation of the milk of a white mare. This sacrifice is performed twice a year.”

It has been seen (p. 308) that Rubruquis also names the 9th day of the May moon as that of the consecration of the white mares. The autumn libation is described by Polo as performed on the 28th day of the August moon, probably because it was unsuited to the circumstances of the Court at Cambaluc, where the Kaan was during October, and the day named was the last of his annual stay in the Mongolian uplands.

Baber tells that among the ceremonies of a Mongol Review the Khan and his staff took kumíz and sprinkled it towards the standards. An Armenian author of the Mongol era says that it was the custom of the Tartars, before drinking, to sprinkle drink towards heaven, and towards the four quarters. Mr. Atkinson notices the same practice among the Kirghiz; and I found the like in old days among the Kasias of the eastern frontier of Bengal.

The time of year assigned by Polo for the ceremony implies some change. Perhaps it had been made to coincide with the Festival of Water Consecration of the Lamas, with which the time named in the text seems to correspond. On that occasion the Lamas go in procession to the rivers and lakes and consecrate them by benediction and by casting in offerings, attended by much popular festivity.

Rubruquis seems to intimate that the Nestorian priests were employed to consecrate the white mares by incensing them. In the rear of Lord Canning’s camp in India I once came upon the party of his Shutr Suwárs, or dromedary-express riders, busily engaged in incensing with frankincense the whole of the dromedaries, which were kneeling in a circle. I could get no light on the practice, but it was very probably a relic of the old Mongol custom. (Rubr. 363; Erman, II. 397; Billings’ Journey, Fr. Tr. I. 217; Baber, 103; J. As. sér. V. tom. xi. p. 249; Atk. Amoor, p. 47; J. A. S. B. XIII. 628; Koeppen, II. 313.)

NOTE 8.—The practice of weather-conjuring was in great vogue among the Mongols, and is often alluded to in their history.

The operation was performed by means of a stone of magical virtues, called Yadah or Jadah-Tásh, which was placed in or hung over a basin of water with sundry ceremonies. The possession of such a stone is ascribed by the early Arab traveller Ibn Mohalhal to the Ḳímák, a great tribe of the Turks. In the war raised against Chinghiz and Aung Khan, when still allies, by a great confederation of the Naiman and other tribes in 1202, we are told that Sengun, the son of Aung Khan, when sent to meet the enemy, caused them to be enchanted, so that all their attempted movements against him were defeated by snow and mist. The fog and darkness were indeed so dense that many men and horses fell over precipices, and many also perished with cold. In another account of (apparently) the same matter, given by Mir-Khond, the conjuring is set on foot by the Yadachi of Buyruk Khan, Prince of the Naiman, but the mischief all rebounds on the conjurer’s own side.

In Tului’s invasion of Honan in 1231–1232, Rashiduddin describes him, when in difficulty, as using the Jadah stone with success.

Timur, in his Memoirs, speaks of the Jets using incantations to produce heavy rains which hindered his cavalry from acting against them. A Yadachi was captured, and when his head had been taken off the storm ceased.

Baber speaks of one of his early friends, Khwaja Ka Mulai, as excelling in falconry and acquainted with Yadagarí or the art of bringing on rain and snow by means of enchantment. When the Russians besieged Kazan in 1552 they suffered much from the constant heavy rains, and this annoyance was universally ascribed to the arts of the Tartar Queen, who was celebrated as an enchantress. Sháh Abbás believed he had learned the Tartar secret, and put much confidence in it. (P. Della V. I. 869.)

[Grenard says (II. p. 256) the most powerful and most feared of sorcerers [in Chinese Turkestan] is the djâduger, who, to produce rain or fine weather, uses a jade stone, given by Noah to Japhet. Grenard adds (II. 406–407) there are sorcerers (Ngag-pa-snags-pa) whose specialty is to make rain fall; they are similar to the Turkish Yadachi and like them use a stone called “water cristal,” chu shel; probably jade stone.

Mr. Rockhill (Rubruck, p. 245, note) writes: “Rashideddin states that when the Urianghit wanted to bring a storm to an end, they said injuries to the sky, the lightning and thunder. I have seen this done myself by Mongol storm-dispellers. (See Diary, 201, 203.) ‘The other Mongol people,’ he adds, ‘do the contrary. When the storm rumbles, they remain shut up in their huts, full of fear.’ The subject of storm-making, and the use of stones for that purpose, is fully discussed by Quatremère, Histoire, 438–440.” (Cf. also Rockhill, l.c. p. 254.)—H. C.]

An edict of the Emperor Shi-tsung, of the reigning dynasty, addressed in 1724–1725 to the Eight Banners of Mongolia, warns them against this rain-conjuring: “If I,” indignantly observes the Emperor, “offering prayer in sincerity have yet room to fear that it may please Heaven to leave MY prayer unanswered, it is truly intolerable that mere common people wishing for rain should at their own caprice set up altars of earth, and bring together a rabble of Hoshang (Buddhist Bonzes) and Taossé to conjure the spirits to gratify their wishes.”

[“Lamas were of various extraction; at the time of the great assemblies, and of the Khan’s festivities in Shangtu, they erected an altar near the Khan’s tent and prayed for fine weather; the whistling of shells rose up to heaven.” These are the words in which Marco Polo’s narrative is corroborated by an eye-witness who has celebrated the remarkable objects of Shangtu (Loan king tsa yung). These Lamas, in spite of the prohibition by the Buddhist creed of bloody sacrifices, used to sacrifice sheep’s hearts to Mahakala. It happened, as it seems, that the heart of an executed criminal was also considered an agreeable offering; and as the offerings could be, after the ceremony, eaten by the sacrificing priests, Marco Polo had some reason to accuse the Lamas of cannibalism. (Palladius, 28.)—H. C.]

The practice of weather-conjuring is not yet obsolete in Tartary, Tibet, and the adjoining countries.[6]

Weather-conjuring stories were also rife in Europe during the Middle Ages. One such is conspicuously introduced in connection with a magical fountain in the romance of the Chevalier au Lyon:

“Et s’i pant uns bacins d’or fin A une si longue chaainne Qui dure jusqu’a la fontainne. Lez la fontainne troveras Un perron tel con tu verras * * * * S’au bacin viaus de l’iaue prandre Et dessor le perron espandre, La verras une tel tanpeste Qu’an cest bois ne remandra beste,” etc. etc.[7]

The effect foretold in these lines is the subject of a woodcut illustrating a Welsh version of the same tale in the first volume of the Mabinogion. And the existence of such a fountain is alluded to by Alexander Neckam. (De Naturis Rerum, Bk. II. ch. vii.)

In the Cento Novelle Antiche also certain necromancers exhibit their craft before the Emperor Frederic (Barbarossa apparently): “The weather began to be overcast, and lo! of a sudden rain began to fall with continued thunders and lightnings, as if the world were come to an end, and hailstones that looked like steel-caps,” etc. Various other European legends of like character will be found in Liebrecht’s Gervasius von Tilbury, pp. 147–148.

Rain-makers there are in many parts of the world; but it is remarkable that those also of Samoa in the Pacific operate by means of a rain-stone.

Such weather conjurings as we have spoken of are ascribed by Ovid to Circe:

“Concipit illa preces, et verba venefica dicit; Ignotosque Deos ignoto carmine adorat, * * * * _Tunc quoque cantato densetur carmine caelum, Et nebulas exhalat humus_.”—Metam. XIV. 365.

And to Medea:—

————“Quum volui, ripis mirantibus, amnes In fontes rediere suos ... (another feat of the Lamas) ... _Nubila pello, Nubilaque induco; ventos abigoque, vocoque_.”—Ibid. VII. 199.

And by Tibullus to the Saga (Eleg. I. 2, 45); whilst Empedocles, in verses ascribed to him by Diogenes Laertius, claims power to communicate like secrets of potency:—

“By my spells thou may’st To timely sunshine turn the purple rains, And parching droughts to fertilising floods.”

(See Cathay, p. clxxxvii.; Erdm. 282; Oppert, 182 seqq.; Erman, I. 153; Pallas, Samml. II. 348 seqq.; Timk. I. 402; J. R. A. S. VII. 305–306; D’Ohsson, II. 614; and for many interesting particulars, Q. R. p. 428 seqq., and Hammer’s Golden Horde, 207 and 435 seqq.)

NOTE 9.—It is not clear whether Marco attributes this cannibalism to the Tibetans and Kashmirians, or brings it in as a particular of Tartar custom which he had forgotten to mention before.

The accusations of cannibalism indeed against the Tibetans in old accounts are frequent, and I have elsewhere (see Cathay, p. 151) remarked on some singular Tibetan practices which go far to account for such charges. Della Penna, too, makes a statement which bears curiously on the present passage. Remarking on the great use made by certain classes of the Lamas of human skulls for magical cups, and of human thigh bones for flutes and whistles, he says that to supply them with these the bodies of executed criminals were stored up at the disposal of the Lamas; and a Hindu account of Tibet in the Asiatic Researches asserts that when one is killed in a fight both parties rush forward and struggle for the liver, which they eat (vol. xv).

[Carpini says of the people of Tibet: “They are pagans; they have a most astonishing, or rather horrible, custom, for, when any one’s father is about to give up the ghost, all the relatives meet together, and they eat him, as was told to me for certain.” Mr. Rockhill (Rubruck, p. 152, note) writes: “So far as I am aware, this charge [of cannibalism] is not made by any Oriental writer against the Tibetans, though both Arab travellers to China in the ninth century and Armenian historians of the thirteenth century say the Chinese practised cannibalism. The Armenians designate China by the name Nankas, which I take to be Chinese Nan-kuo, ‘southern country,’ the Manzi country of Marco Polo.”—H. C.]

But like charges of cannibalism are brought against both Chinese and Tartars very positively. Thus, without going back to the Anthropophagous Scythians of Ptolemy and Mela, we read in the Relations of the Arab travellers of the ninth century: “In China it occurs sometimes that the governor of a province revolts from his duty to the emperor. In such a case he is slaughtered and eaten. In fact, the Chinese eat the flesh of all men who are executed by the sword.” Dr. Rennie mentions a superstitious practice, the continued existence of which in our own day he has himself witnessed, and which might perhaps have given rise to some such statement as that of the Arab travellers, if it be not indeed a relic, in a mitigated form, of the very practice they assert to have prevailed. After an execution at Peking certain large pith balls are steeped in the blood, and under the name of blood-bread are sold as a medicine for consumption. It is only to the blood of decapitated criminals that any such healing power is attributed. It has been asserted in the annals of the Propagation de la Foi that the Chinese executioners of M. Chapdelaine, a missionary who was martyred in Kwang-si in 1856 (28th February), were seen to eat the heart of their victim; and M. Huot, a missionary in the Yun-nan province, recounts a case of cannibalism which he witnessed. Bishop Chauveau, at Ta Ts’ien-lu, told Mr. Cooper that he had seen men in one of the cities of Yun-nan eating the heart and brains of a celebrated robber who had been executed. Dr. Carstairs Douglas of Amoy also tells me that the like practices have occurred at Amoy and Swatau.

[With reference to cannibalism in China see Medical Superstitions an Incentive to Anti-Foreign Riots in China, by D. J. Macgowan, North China Herald, 8th July, 1892, pp. 60–62. Mr. E. H. Parker (China Review, February–March, 1901, 136) relates that the inhabitants of a part of Kwang-si boiled and ate a Chinese officer who had been sent to pacify them. “The idea underlying this horrible act [cannibalism] is, that by eating a portion of the victim, especially the heart, one acquires the valour with which he was endowed.” (Dennys’ Folk-lore of China, 67.)—H. C.]

Hayton, the Armenian, after relating the treason of a Saracen, called Parwana (he was an Iconian Turk), against Abaka Khan, says: “He was taken and cut in two, and orders were issued that in all the food eaten by Abaka there should be put a portion of the traitor’s flesh. Of this Abaka himself ate, and caused all his barons to partake. And this was in accordance with the custom of the Tartars.” The same story is related independently and differently by Friar Ricold, thus: “When the army of Abaga ran away from the Saracens in Syria, a certain great Tartar baron was arrested who had been guilty of treason. And when the Emperor Khan was giving the order for his execution the Tartar ladies and women interposed, and begged that he might be made over to them. Having got hold of the prisoner they boiled him alive, and cutting his body up into mince-meat gave it to eat to the whole army, as an example to others.” Vincent of Beauvais makes a like statement: “When they capture any one who is at bitter enmity with them, they gather together and eat him in vengeance of his revolt, and like infernal leeches suck his blood,” a custom of which a modern Mongol writer thinks that he finds a trace in a surviving proverb. Among more remote and ignorant Franks the cannibalism of the Tartars was a general belief. Ivo of Narbonne, in his letter written during the great Tartar invasion of Europe (1242), declares that the Tartar chiefs, with their dog’s head followers and other Lotophagi (!), ate the bodies of their victims like so much bread; whilst a Venetian chronicler, speaking of the council of Lyons in 1274, says there was a discussion about making a general move against the Tartars, “porce qu’il manjuent la char humaine.” These latter writers no doubt rehearsed mere popular beliefs, but Hayton and Ricold were both intelligent persons well acquainted with the Tartars, and Hayton at least not prejudiced against them.

The old belief was revived in Prussia during the Seven Years’ War, in regard to the Kalmaks of the Russian army; and Bergmann says the old Kalmak warriors confessed to him that they had done what they could to encourage it by cutting up the bodies of the slain in presence of their prisoners, and roasting them! But Levchine relates an act on the part of the Kirghiz Kazaks which was no jest. They drank the blood of their victim if they did not eat his flesh.

There is some reason to believe that cannibalism was in the Middle Ages generally a less strange and unwonted horror than we should at first blush imagine, and especially that it was an idea tolerably familiar in China. M. Bazin, in the second part of Chine Moderne, p. 461, after sketching a Chinese drama of the Mongol era (“The Devotion of Chao-li”), the plot of which turns on the acts of a body of cannibals, quotes several other passages from Chinese authors which indicate this. Nor is this wonderful in the age that had experienced the horrors of the Mongol wars.

That was no doubt a fable which Carpini heard in the camp of the Great Kaan, that in one of the Mongol sieges in Cathay, when the army was without food, one man in ten of their own force was sacrificed to feed the remainder.[8] But we are told in sober history that the force of Tului in Honan, in 1231–1232, was reduced to such straits as to eat grass and human flesh. At the siege of the Kin capital Kaifongfu, in 1233, the besieged were reduced to the like extremity; and the same occurred the same year at the siege of Tsaichau; and in 1262, when the rebel general Litan was besieged in Tsinanfu. The Taiping wars the other day revived the same horrors in all their magnitude. And savage acts of the same kind by the Chinese and their Turk partisans in the defence of Kashgar were related to Mr. Shaw.

Probably, however, nothing of the kind in history equals what Abdallatif, a sober and scientific physician, describes as having occurred before his own eyes in the great Egyptian famine of A.H. 597 (1200). The horrid details fill a chapter of some length, and we need not quote from them.

Nor was Christendom without the rumour of such barbarities. The story of King Richard’s banquet in presence of Saladin’s ambassadors on the head of a Saracen curried (for so it surely was),—

“soden full hastily With powder and with spysory, And with saffron of good colour”—

fable as it is, is told with a zest that makes one shudder; but the tale in the Chanson d’Antioche, of how the licentious bands of ragamuffins, who hung on the army of the First Crusade, and were known as the Tafurs,[9] ate the Turks whom they killed at the siege, looks very like an abominable truth, corroborated as it is by the prose chronicle of worse deeds at the ensuing siege of Marrha:—

“A lor cotiaus qu’il ont trenchans et afilés Escorchoient les Turs, aval parmi les près. Voiant Paiens, les ont par pièces découpés. En l’iave et el carbon les ont bien quisinés, Volontiers les menjuent sans pain et dessalés.”[10]

(Della Penna, p. 76; Reinaud, Rel. I. 52; Rennie’s Peking, II. 244; Ann. de la Pr. de la F. XXIX. 353, XXI. 298; Hayton in Ram. ch. xvii.; Per. Quat. p. 116; M. Paris, sub. 1243; Mél. Asiat. Acad. St. Pétersb. II. 659; Canale in _Arch. Stor. Ital._ VIII.; Bergm. Nomad. Streifereien, I. 14; Carpini, 638; D’Ohsson, II. 30, 43, 52; Wilson’s Ever Victorious Army, 74; Shaw, p. 48; Abdallatif, p. 363 seqq.; Weber, II. 135; Littré, H. de la Langue Franç. I. 191; Gesta Tancredi in _Thes. Nov. Anecd._ III. 172.)

NOTE 10.—Bakhshi is generally believed to be a corruption of Bhikshu, the proper Sanscrit term for a religious mendicant, and in particular for the Buddhist devotees of that character. Bakhshi was probably applied to a class only of the Lamas, but among the Turks and Persians it became a generic name for them all. In this sense it is habitually used by Rashiduddin, and thus also in the Ain Akbari: “The learned among the Persians and Arabians call the priests of this (Buddhist) religion Bukshee, and in Tibbet they are styled Lamas.”

According to Pallas the word among the modern Mongols is used in the sense of Teacher, and is applied to the oldest and most learned priest of a community, who is the local ecclesiastical chief. Among the Kirghiz Kazaks again, who profess Mahomedanism, the word also survives, but conveys among them just the idea that Polo seems to have associated with it, that of a mere conjuror or “medicine-man”; whilst in Western Turkestan it has come to mean a Bard.

The word Bakhshi has, however, wandered much further from its original meaning. From its association with persons who could read and write, and who therefore occasionally acted as clerks, it came in Persia to mean a clerk or secretary. In the Petrarchian Vocabulary, published by Klaproth, we find scriba rendered in Comanian, i.e. Turkish of the Crimea, by Bacsi. The transfer of meaning is precisely parallel to that in regard to our Clerk. Under the Mahomedan sovereigns of India, Bakhshi was applied to an officer performing something like the duties of a quartermaster-general; and finally, in our Indian army, it has come to mean a paymaster. In the latter sense, I imagine it has got associated in the popular mind with the Persian bakhshídan, to bestow, and bakhshísh. (See a note in Q. R. p. 184 seqq.; Cathay, p. 474; Ayeen Akbery, III. 150; Pallas, Samml. II. 126; Levchine, p. 355; Klap. Mém. III.; Vámbéry, Sketches, p. 81.)

The sketch from the life, on p. 326, of a wandering Tibetan devotee, whom I met once at Hardwár, may give an idea of the sordid Bacsis spoken of by Polo.

NOTE 11.—This feat is related more briefly by Odoric: “And jugglers cause cups of gold full of good wine to fly through the air, and to offer themselves to all who list to drink.” (Cathay, p. 143.) In the note on that passage I have referred to a somewhat similar story in the Life of Apollonius. “Such feats,” says Mr. Jaeschke, “are often mentioned in ancient as well as modern legends of Buddha and other saints; and our Lamas have heard of things very similar performed by conjuring Bonpos.” (See p. 323.) The moving of cups and the like is one of the sorceries ascribed in old legends to Simon Magus: “He made statues to walk; leapt into the fire without being burnt; flew in the air; made bread of stones; changed his shape; assumed two faces at once; converted himself into a pillar; caused closed doors to fly open spontaneously; made the vessels in a house seem to move of themselves,” etc. The Jesuit Delrio laments that credulous princes, otherwise of pious repute, should have allowed diabolic tricks to be played before them, “as, for example, things of iron, and silver goblets, or other heavy articles, to be moved by bounds from one end of a table to the other, without the use of a magnet or of any attachment.” The pious prince appears to have been Charles IX., and the conjuror a certain Cesare Maltesio. Another Jesuit author describes the veritable mango-trick, speaking of persons who “within three hours’ space did cause a genuine shrub of a span in length to grow out of the table, besides other trees that produced both leaves and fruit.”

In a letter dated 1st December, 1875, written by Mr. R. B. Shaw, after his last return from Kashgar and Lahore, this distinguished traveller says: “I have heard stories related regarding a Buddhist high priest whose temple is said to be not far to the east of Lanchau, which reminds me of Marco Polo and Kúblái Khan. This high priest is said to have the magic power of attracting cups and plates to him from a distance, so that things fly through the air into his hands.” (MS. Note.—H. Y.)

The profession and practice of exorcism and magic in general is greatly more prominent in Lamaism or Tibetan Buddhism than in any other known form of that religion. Indeed, the old form of Lamaism as it existed in our traveller’s day, and till the reforms of Tsongkhapa (1357–1419), and as it is still professed by the Red sect in Tibet, seems to be a kind of compromise between Indian Buddhism and the old indigenous Shamanism. Even the reformed doctrine of the Yellow sect recognises an orthodox kind of magic, which is due in great measure to the combination of Sivaism with the Buddhist doctrines, and of which the institutes are contained in the vast collection of the Jud or Tantras, recognised among the holy books. The magic arts of this code open even a short road to the Buddhahood itself. To attain that perfection of power and wisdom, culminating in the cessation of sensible existence, requires, according to the ordinary paths, a period of three asankhyas (or say Uncountable Time × 3), whereas by means of the magic arts of the Tantras it may be reached in the course of three rebirths only, nay, of one! But from the Tantras also can be learned how to acquire miraculous powers for objects entirely selfish and secular, and how to exercise these by means of Dhárani or mystic Indian charms.

Still the orthodox Yellow Lamas professedly repudiate and despise the grosser exhibitions of common magic and charlatanism which the Reds still practise, such as knife-swallowing, blowing fire, cutting off their own heads, etc. But as the vulgar will not dispense with these marvels, every great orthodox monastery in Tibet keeps a conjuror, who is a member of the unreformed, and does not belong to the brotherhood of the convent, but lives in a particular part of it, bearing the name of Choichong, or protector of religion, and is allowed to marry. The magic of these Choichong is in theory and practice different from the orthodox Tantrist magic. The practitioners possess no literature, and hand down their mysteries only by tradition. Their fantastic equipments, their frantic bearing, and their cries and howls, seem to identify them with the grossest Shamanist devil dancers.

Sanang Setzen enumerates a variety of the wonderful acts which could be performed through the Dhárani. Such were, sticking a peg into solid rock; restoring the dead to life; turning a dead body into gold; penetrating everywhere as air does; flying; catching wild beasts with the hand; reading thoughts; making water flow backwards; eating tiles; sitting in the air with the legs doubled under, etc. Some of these are precisely the powers ascribed to Medea, Empedocles, and Simon Magus, in passages already cited. Friar Ricold says on this subject: “There are certain men whom the Tartars honour above all in the world, viz. the Baxitae (i.e. Bakhshis), who are a kind of idol-priests. These are men from India, persons of deep wisdom, well-conducted, and of the gravest morals. They are usually acquainted with magic arts, and depend on the counsel and aid of demons; they exhibit many illusions, and predict some future events. For instance, one of eminence among them was said to fly; the truth, however, was (as it proved), that he did not fly, but did walk close to the surface of the ground without touching it; and would seem to sit down without having any substance to support him.” This last performance was witnessed by Ibn Batuta at Delhi, in the presence of Sultan Mahomed Tughlak; and it was professedly exhibited by a Brahmin at Madras in the present century, a descendant doubtless of those Brahmans whom Apollonius saw walking two cubits from the ground. It is also described by the worthy Francis Valentyn as a performance known and practised in his own day in India. It is related, he says, that “a man will first go and sit on three sticks put together so as to form a tripod; after which, first one stick, then a second, then the third shall be removed from under him, and the man shall not fall but shall still remain sitting in the air! Yet I have spoken with two friends who had seen this at one and the same time; and one of them, I may add, mistrusting his own eyes, had taken the trouble to feel about with a long stick if there were nothing on which the body rested; yet, as the gentleman told me, he could neither feel nor see any such thing. Still, I could only say that I could not believe it, as a thing too manifestly contrary to reason.”

Akin to these performances, though exhibited by professed jugglers without claim to religious character, is a class of feats which might be regarded as simply inventions if told by one author only, but which seem to deserve prominent notice from their being recounted by a series of authors, certainly independent of one another, and writing at long intervals of time and place. Our first witness is Ibn Batuta, and it will be necessary to quote him as well as the others in full, in order to show how closely their evidence tallies. The Arab Traveller was present at a great entertainment at the Court of the Viceroy of Khansa (Kinsay of Polo, or Hang-chau fu): “That same night a juggler, who was one of the Kán’s slaves, made his appearance, and the Amír said to him, ‘Come and show us some of your marvels.’ Upon this he took a wooden ball, with several holes in it, through which long thongs were passed, and, laying hold of one of these, slung it into the air. It went so high that we lost sight of it altogether. (It was the hottest season of the year, and we were outside in the middle of the palace court.) There now remained only a little of the end of a thong in the conjuror’s hand, and he desired one of the boys who assisted him to lay hold of it and mount. He did so, climbing by the thong, and we lost sight of him also! The conjuror then called to him three times, but getting no answer, he snatched up a knife as if in a great rage, laid hold of the thong, and disappeared also! By and bye he threw down one of the boy’s hands, then a foot, then the other hand, and then the other foot, then the trunk, and last of all the head! Then he came down himself, all puffing and panting, and with his clothes all bloody, kissed the ground before the Amír, and said something to him in Chinese. The Amír gave some order in reply, and our friend then took the lad’s limbs, laid them together in their places, and gave a kick, when, presto! there was the boy, who got up and stood before us! All this astonished me beyond measure, and I had an attack of palpitation like that which overcame me once before in the presence of the Sultan of India, when he showed me something of the same kind. They gave me a cordial, however, which cured the attack. The Kazi Afkharuddin was next to me, and quoth he, ‘Wallah! ’tis my opinion there has been neither going up nor coming down, neither marring nor mending; ’tis all hocus pocus!’”

Now let us compare with this, which Ibn Batuta the Moor says he saw in China about the year 1348, the account which is given us by Edward Melton, an Anglo-Dutch traveller, of the performances of a Chinese gang of conjurors, which he witnessed at Batavia about the year 1670 (I have forgotten to note the year). After describing very vividly the basket-murder trick, which is well known in India, and now also in Europe, and some feats of bamboo balancing similar to those which were recently shown by Japanese performers in England, only more wonderful, he proceeds: “But now I am going to relate a thing which surpasses all belief, and which I should scarcely venture to insert here had it not been witnessed by thousands before my own eyes. One of the same gang took a ball of cord, and grasping one end of the cord in his hand slung the other up into the air with such force that its extremity was beyond reach of our sight. He then immediately climbed up the cord with indescribable swiftness, and got so high that we could no longer see him. I stood full of astonishment, not conceiving what was to come of this; when lo! a leg came tumbling down out of the air. One of the conjuring company instantly snatched it up and threw it into the basket whereof I have formerly spoken. A moment later a hand came down, and immediately on that another leg. And in short all the members of the body came thus successively tumbling from the air and were cast together into the basket. The last fragment of all that we saw tumble down was the head, and no sooner had that touched the ground than he who had snatched up all the limbs and put them in the basket turned them all out again topsy-turvy. Then straightway we saw with these eyes all those limbs creep together again, and in short, form a whole man, who at once could stand and go just as before, without showing the least damage! Never in my life was I so astonished as when I beheld this wonderful performance, and I doubted now no longer that these misguided men did it by the help of the Devil. For it seems to me totally impossible that such things should be accomplished by natural means.” The same performance is spoken of by Valentyn, in a passage also containing curious notices of the basket-murder trick, the mango trick, the sitting in the air (quoted above), and others; but he refers to Melton, and I am not sure whether he had any other authority for it. The cut on this page is taken from Melton’s plate.

Again we have in the Memoirs of the Emperor Jahángir a detail of the wonderful performances of seven jugglers from Bengal who exhibited before him. Two of their feats are thus described: “Ninth. They produced a man whom they divided limb from limb, actually severing his head from the body. They scattered these mutilated members along the ground, and in this state they lay for some time. They then extended a sheet or curtain over the spot, and one of the men putting himself under the sheet, in a few minutes came from below, followed by the individual supposed to have been cut into joints, in perfect health and condition, and one might have safely sworn that he had never received wound or injury whatever ... Twenty-third. They produced a chain of 50 cubits in length, and in my presence threw one end of it towards the sky, where it remained as if fastened to something in the air. A dog was then brought forward, and being placed at the lower end of the chain, immediately ran up, and reaching the other end, immediately disappeared in the air. In the same manner a hog, a panther, a lion, and a tiger were successively sent up the chain, and all equally disappeared at the upper end of the chain. At last they took down the chain and put it into a bag, no one ever discovering in what way the different animals were made to vanish into the air in the mysterious manner above described.”

[There would appear (says the Times of India, quoted by the Weekly Dispatch, 15th September, 1889) to be a fine field of unworked romance in the annals of Indian jugglery. One Siddeshur Mitter, writing to the Calcutta paper, gives a thrilling account of a conjurer’s feat which he witnessed recently in one of the villages of the Hooghly district. He saw the whole thing himself, he tells us, so there need be no question about the facts. On the particular afternoon when he visited the village the place was occupied by a company of male and female jugglers, armed with bags and boxes and musical instruments, and all the mysterious paraphernalia of the peripatetic Jadugar. While Siddeshur was looking on, and in the broad, clear light of the afternoon, a man was shut up in a box, which was then carefully nailed up and bound with cords. Weird spells and incantations of the style we are all familiar with were followed by the breaking open of the box, which, “to the unqualified amazement of everybody, was found to be perfectly empty.” All this is much in the usual style; but what followed was so much superior to the ordinary run of modern Indian jugglery that we must give it in the simple Siddeshur’s own words. When every one was satisfied that the man had really disappeared, the principal performer, who did not seem to be at all astonished, told his audience that the vanished man had gone up to the heavens to fight Indra. “In a few moments,” says Siddeshur, “he expressed anxiety at the man’s continued absence in the aerial regions, and said that he would go up to see what was the matter. A boy was called, who held upright a long bamboo, up which the man climbed to the top, whereupon we suddenly lost sight of him, and the boy laid the bamboo on the ground. Then there fell on the ground before us the different members of a human body, all bloody,—first one hand, then another, a foot, and so on, until complete. The boy then elevated the bamboo, and the principal performer, appearing on the top as suddenly as he had disappeared, came down, and seeming quite disconsolate, said that Indra had killed his friend before he could get there to save him. He then placed the mangled remains in the same box, closed it, and tied it as before. Our wonder and astonishment reached their climax when, a few minutes later, on the box being again opened, the man jumped out perfectly hearty and unhurt.” Is not this rather a severe strain on one’s credulity, even for an Indian jugglery story?]

In Philostratus, again, we may learn the antiquity of some juggling tricks that have come up as novelties in our own day. Thus at Taxila a man set his son against a board, and then threw darts tracing the outline of the boy’s figure on the board. This feat was shown in London some fifteen or twenty years ago, and humorously commemorated in Punch by John Leech.

(Philostratus, Fr. Transl. Bk. III. ch. xv. and xxvii.; Mich. Glycas, Ann. II. 156, Paris ed.; Delrio, Disquis. Magic. pp. 34, 100; Koeppen, I. 31, II. 82, 114–115, 260, 262, 280; Vassilyev, 156; Della Penna, 36; S. Setzen, 43, 353; Pereg. Quat. 117; I. B. IV. 39 and 290 seqq.; Asiat. Researches, XVII. 186; Valentyn, V. 52–54; Edward Melton, Engelsch Edelmans, Zeldzaame en Gedenkwaardige Zee en Land Reizen, etc., aangevangen in den Jaare 1660 en geendigd in den Jaare 1677, Amsterdam, 1702, p. 468; Mem. of the Emp. Jahangueir, pp. 99, 102.)

NOTE 12.—[“The maintenance of the Lamas, of their monasteries, the expenses for the sacrifices and for transcription of sacred books, required enormous sums. The Lamas enjoyed a preponderating influence, and stood much higher than the priests of other creeds, living in the palace as if in their own house. The perfumes, which M. Polo mentions, were used by the Lamas for two purposes; they used them for joss-sticks, and for making small turrets, known under the name of ts’a-ts’a; the joss-sticks used to be burned in the same way as they are now; the ts’a-ts’a were inserted in suburgas or buried in the ground. At the time when the suburga was built in the garden of the Peking palace in 1271, there were used, according to the Empress’ wish, 1008 turrets made of the most expensive perfumes, mixed with pounded gold, silver, pearls, and corals, and 130,000 ts’a-ts’a made of ordinary perfumes.” (Palladius, 29.)—H. C.]

NOTE 13.—There is no exaggeration in this number. Turner speaks of 2500 monks in one Tibetan convent. Huc mentions Chorchi, north of the Great Wall, as containing 2000; and Kúnbúm, where he and Gabet spent several months, on the borders of Shensi and Tibet, had nearly 4000. The missionary itinerary from Nepal to L’hasa given by Giorgi, speaks of a group of convents at a place called Brephung, which formerly contained 10,000 inmates, and at the time of the journey (about 1700) still contained 5000, including attendants. Dr. Campbell gives a list of twelve chief convents in L’hasa and its vicinity (not including the Potala or Residence of the Grand Lama), of which one is said to have 7500 members, resident and itinerary. Major Montgomerie’s Pandit gives the same convent 7700 Lamas. In the great monastery at L’hasa called Labrang, they show a copper kettle holding more than 100 buckets, which was used to make tea for the Lamas who performed the daily temple service. The monasteries are usually, as the text says, like small towns, clustered round the great temples. That represented at p. 224 is at Jehol, and is an imitation of the Potala at L’hasa. (Huc’s Tartary, etc., pp. 45, 208, etc.; Alph. Tibetan, 453; J. A. S. B. XXIV. 219; J. R. G. S. XXXVIII. 168; Koeppen, II. 338.) [La Géographie, II. 1901, pp. 242–247, has an article by Mr. J. Deniker, La Première Photographie de Lhassa, with a view of Potala, in 1901, from a photograph by M. O. Norzunov; it is interesting to compare it with the view given by Kircher in 1670.—H. C.]

[“The monasteries with numbers of monks, who, as M. Polo asserts, behaved decently, evidently belonged to Chinese Buddhists, ho-shang; in Kúblái’s time they had two monasteries in Shangtu, in the north-east and north-west parts of the town.” (Palladius, 29.) Rubruck (Rockhill’s ed. p. 145) says: “All the priests (of the idolaters) shave their heads, and are dressed in saffron colour, and they observe chastity from the time they shave their heads, and they live in congregations of one or two hundred.”—H. C.]

NOTE 14.—There were many anomalies in the older Lamaism, and it permitted, at least in some sects of it which still subsist, the marriage of the clergy under certain limitations and conditions. One of Giorgi’s missionaries speaks of a Lama of high hereditary rank as a spiritual prince who marries, but separates from his wife as soon as he has a son, who after certain trials is deemed worthy to be his successor. [“A good number of Lamas were married, as M. Polo correctly remarks; their wives were known amongst the Chinese, under the name of Fan-sao.” (Ch’ue keng lu, quoted by Palladius, 28.)—H. C.] One of the “reforms” of Tsongkhapa was the absolute prohibition of marriage to the clergy, and in this he followed the institutes of the oldest Buddhism. Even the Red Lamas, or unreformed, cannot now marry without a dispensation.

But even the oldest orthodox Buddhism had its Lay brethren and Lay sisters (Upásaka and Upásiká), and these are to be found in Tibet and Mongolia (Voués au blanc, as it were). They are called by the Mongols, by a corruption of the Sanskrit, Ubashi and Ubashanza. Their vows extend to the strict keeping of the five great commandments of the Buddhist Law, and they diligently ply the rosary and the prayer-wheel, but they are not pledged to celibacy, nor do they adopt the tonsure. As a sign of their amphibious position, they commonly wear a red or yellow girdle. These are what some travellers speak of as the lowest order of Lamas, permitted to marry; and Polo may have regarded them in the same light.

(Koeppen, II. 82, 113, 276, 291; Timk. II. 354; Erman, II. 304; Alph. Tibet. 449.)

NOTE 15.—[Mr. Rockhill writes to me that “bran” is certainly Tibetan tsamba (parched barley).—H. C.]

NOTE 16.—Marco’s contempt for Patarins slips out in a later passage (Bk. III. ch. xx.). The name originated in the eleventh century in Lombardy, where it came to be applied to the “heretics,” otherwise called “Cathari.” Muratori has much on the origin of the name Patarini, and mentions a monument, which still exists, in the Piazza de’ Mercanti at Milan, in honour of Oldrado Podestà of that city in 1233, and which thus, with more pith than grammar, celebrates his meritorious acts:—

“Qui solium struxit Catharos ut debuit UXIT.”

Other cities were as piously Catholic. A Mantuan chronicler records under 1276: “Captum fuit Sermionum seu redditum fuit Ecclesiæ, et capti fuerunt cercha CL Patarini contra fidem, inter masculos et feminas; qui omnes ducti fuerunt Veronam, et ibi incarcerati, et pro magna parte COMBUSTI.” (Murat. Dissert. III. 238; Archiv. Stor. Ital. N.S. I. 49.)

NOTE 17.—Marsden, followed by Pauthier, supposes these unorthodox ascetics to be Hindu Sanyasis, and the latter editor supposes even the name Sensi or Sensin to represent that denomination. Such wanderers do occasionally find their way to Tartary; Gerbillon mentions having encountered five of them at Kuku Khotan (supra, p. 286), and I think John Bell speaks of meeting one still further north. But what is said of the great and numerous idols of the Sensin is inconsistent with such a notion, as is indeed, it seems to me, the whole scope of the passage. Evidently no occasional vagabonds from a far country, but some indigenous sectaries, are in question. Nor would bran and hot water be a Hindu regimen. The staple diet of the Tibetans is Chamba, the meal of toasted barley, mixed sometimes with warm water, but more frequently with hot tea, and I think it is probable that these were the elements of the ascetic diet rather than the mere bran which Polo speaks of. Semedo indeed says that some of the Buddhist devotees professed never to take any food but tea; knowing people said they mixed with it pellets of sun-dried beef. The determination of the sect intended in the text is, I conceive, to be sought in the history of Chinese or Tibetan Buddhism and their rivals.

Both Baldelli and Neumann have indicated a general opinion that the Taossé or some branch of that sect is meant, but they have entered into no particulars except in a reference by the former to Shien-sien, a title of perfection affected by that sect, as the origin of Polo’s term Sensin. In the substance of this I think they are right. But I believe that in the text this Chinese sect are, rightly or wrongly, identified with the ancient Tibetan sect of Bon-po, and that part of the characters assigned belong to each.

First with regard to the Taossé. These were evidently the Patarini of the Buddhists in China at this time, and Polo was probably aware of the persecution which the latter had stirred up Kúblái to direct against them in 1281—persecution at least it is called, though it was but a mild proceeding in comparison with the thing contemporaneously practised in Christian Lombardy, for in heathen Cathay, books, and not human creatures, were the subjects doomed to burn, and even that doom was not carried out.

[“The Tao-sze,” says M. Polo, “were looked upon as heretics by the other sects; that is, of course, by the Lamas and Ho-shangs; in fact in his time a passionate struggle was going on between Buddhists and Tao-sze, or rather a persecution of the latter by the former; the Buddhists attributed to the doctrine of the Tao-sze a pernicious tendency, and accused them of deceit; and in support of these assertions they pointed to some of their sacred books. Taking advantage of their influence at Court, they persuaded Kúblái to decree the burning of these books, and it was carried out in Peking.” (Palladius, 30.)—H. C.]

The term which Polo writes as Sensin appears to have been that popularly applied to the Taossé sect at the Mongol Court. Thus we are told by Rashíduddín in his History of Cathay: “In the reign of Din-Wang, the 20th king of this (the 11th) Dynasty, TAI SHANG LÁI KÚN, was born. This person is stated to have been accounted a prophet by the people of Khitá; his father’s name was Hán; like Shák-múni he is said to have been conceived by light, and it is related that his mother bore him in her womb no less a period than 80 years. The people who embraced his doctrine were called شن شن (Shăn-shăn or Shinshin).” This is a correct epitome of the Chinese story of Laokiun or Lao-tsé, born in the reign of Ting Wang of the Cheu Dynasty. The whole title used by Rashíduddín, Tai Shang Lao Kiun, “The Great Supreme Venerable Ruler,” is that formerly applied by the Chinese to this philosopher.

Further, in a Mongol [and Chinese] inscription of the year 1314 from the department of Si-ngan fu, which has been interpreted and published by Mr. Wylie, the Taossé priests are termed Senshing. [See Devéria, Notes d’Épigraphie, pp. 39–43, and Prince R. Bonaparte’s Recueil, Pl. xii. No. 3.—H. C.]

Seeing then that the very term used by Polo is that applied by both Mongol and Persian authorities of the period to the Taossé, we can have no doubt that the latter are indicated, whether the facts stated about them be correct or not.

The word Senshing-ud (the Mongol plural) is represented in the Chinese version of Mr. Wylie’s inscription by Sín-săng, a conventional title applied to literary men, and this perhaps is sufficient to determine the Chinese word which Sensin represents. I should otherwise have supposed it to be the Shin-sian alluded to by Baldelli, and mentioned in the quotations which follow; and indeed it seems highly probable that two terms so much alike should have been confounded by foreigners. Semedo says of the Taossé: “They pretend that by means of certain exercises and meditations one shall regain his youth, and others shall attain to be Shien-sien, i.e. ‘Terrestrial Beati,’ in whose state every desire is gratified, whilst they have the power to transport themselves from one place to another, however distant, with speed and facility.” Schott, on the same subject, says: “By Sian or Shin-sian are understood in the old Chinese conception, and particularly in that of the Tao-Kiao [or Taossé] sect, persons who withdraw to the hills to lead the life of anchorites, and who have attained, either through their ascetic observances or by the power of charms and elixirs, to the possession of miraculous gifts and of terrestrial immortality.” And M. Pauthier himself, in his translation of the Journey of Khieu, an eminent doctor of this sect, to the camp of the Great Chinghiz in Turkestan, has related how Chinghiz bestowed upon this personage “a seal with a tiger’s head and a diploma” (surely a lion’s head, P’aizah and Yarligh; see infra, Bk. II. ch. vii. note 2), “wherein he was styled Shin Sien or Divine Anchorite.” Sian-jin again is the word used by Hiuen Tsang as the equivalent to the name of the Indian Rishis, who attain to supernatural powers.

[“Sensin is a sufficiently faithful transcription of Sien-seng (Sien-shing in Pekingese); the name given by the Mongols in conversation as well as in official documents, to the Tao-sze, in the sense of preceptors, just as Lamas were called by them Bacshi, which corresponds to the Chinese Sien-seng. M. Polo calls them fasters and ascetics. It was one of the sects of Taouism. There was another one which practised cabalistic and other mysteries. The Tao-sze had two monasteries in Shangtu, one in the eastern, the other in the western part of the town.” (Palladius, 30.) —H. C.]

One class of the Tao priests or devotees does marry, but another class never does. Many of them lead a wandering life, and derive a precarious subsistence from the sale of charms and medical nostrums. They shave the sides of the head, and coil the remaining hair in a tuft on the crown, in the ancient Chinese manner; moreover, says Williams, they “are recognised by their slate-coloured robes.” On the feast of one of their divinities whose title Williams translates as “High Emperor of the Sombre Heavens,” they assemble before his temple, “and having made a great fire, about 15 or 20 feet in diameter, go over it barefoot, preceded by the priests and bearing the gods in their arms. They firmly assert that if they possess a sincere mind they will not be injured by the fire; but both priests and people get miserably burnt on these occasions.” Escayrac de Lauture says that on those days they leap, dance, and whirl round the fire, striking at the devils with a straight Roman-like sword, and sometimes wounding themselves as the priests of Baal and Moloch used to do.

(Astley, IV. 671; Morley in J. R. A. S. VI. 24; Semedo, 111, 114; De Mailla, IX. 410; J. As. sér. V. tom. viii. 138; Schott über den Buddhismus etc. 71; Voyage de Khieou in _J. As._ sér. VI. tom. ix. 41; Middle Kingdom, II. 247; Doolittle, 192; Esc. de Lauture, Mém. sur la Chine, Religion, 87, 102; Pèler. Boudd. II. 370, and III. 468.)

Let us now turn to the Bon-po. Of this form of religion and its sectaries not much is known, for it is now confined to the eastern and least known part of Tibet. It is, however, believed to be a remnant of the old pre-Buddhistic worship of the powers of nature, though much modified by the Buddhistic worship with which it has so long been in contact. Mr. Hodgson also pronounces a collection of drawings of Bonpo divinities, which were made for him by a mendicant friar of the sect from the neighbourhood of Tachindu, or Ta-t’sien-lu, to be saturated with Sakta attributes, i.e. with the spirit of the Tantrika worship, a worship which he tersely defines as “a mixture of lust, ferocity, and mummery,” and which he believes to have originated in an incorporation with the Indian religions of the rude superstitions of the primitive Turanians. Mr. Hodgson was told that the Bonpo sect still possessed numerous and wealthy Vihars (or abbeys) in Tibet. But from the information of the Catholic missionaries in Eastern Tibet, who have come into closest contact with the sect, it appears to be now in a state of great decadence, “oppressed by the Lamas of other sects, the Peunbo (Bonpo) think only of shaking off the yoke, and getting deliverance from the vexations which the smallness of their number forces them to endure.” In June, 1863, apparently from such despairing motives, the Lamas of Tsodam, a Bonpo convent in the vicinity of the mission settlement of Bonga in E. Tibet, invited the Rev. Gabriel Durand to come and instruct them. “In this temple,” he writes, “are the monstrous idols of the sect of Peunbo; horrid figures, whose features only Satan could have inspired. They are disposed about the enclosure according to their power and their seniority. Above the pagoda is a loft, the nooks of which are crammed with all kinds of diabolical trumpery; little idols of wood or copper, hideous masques of men and animals, superstitious Lama vestments, drums, trumpets of human bones, sacrificial vessels, in short, all the utensils with which the devil’s servants in Tibet honour their master. And what will become of it all? The Great River, whose waves roll to Martaban (the Lu-kiang or Salwen), is not more than 200 or 300 paces distant.... Besides the infernal paintings on the walls, eight or nine monstrous idols, seated at the inner end of the pagoda, were calculated by their size and aspect to inspire awe. In the middle was Tamba-Shi-Rob, the great doctor of the sect of the Peunbo, squatted with his right arm outside his red scarf, and holding in his left the vase of knowledge.... On his right hand sat Keumta-Zon-bo, ‘the All-Good,’ ... with ten hands and three heads, one over the other.... At his right is Dreuma, the most celebrated goddess of the sect. On the left of Tamba-Shi-Rob was another goddess, whose name they never could tell me. On the left again of this anonymous goddess appeared Tam-pla-mi-ber, ... a monstrous dwarf environed by flames and his head garnished with a diadem of skulls. He trod with one foot on the head of Shakia-tupa [Shakya Thubba, i.e. ‘the Mighty Shakya,’ the usual Tibetan appellation of Sakya Buddha himself].... The idols are made of a coarse composition of mud and stalks kneaded together, on which they put first a coat of plaster and then various colours, or even silver or gold.... Four oxen would scarcely have been able to draw one of the idols.” Mr. Emilius Schlagintweit, in a paper on the subject of this sect, has explained some of the names used by the missionary. Tamba-Shi-Rob is “_bs_tanpa _g_Shen-rabs,” i.e. the doctrine of Shen-rabs, who is regarded as the founder of the Bon religion. [Cf. Grenard, II. 407.—H. C.] Keun-tu-zon-bo is “Kun-tu-_b_zang-po,” “the All Best.”

[Bon-po seems to be (according to Grenard, II. 410) a “coarse naturism combined with ancestral worship” resembling Taoism. It has, however, borrowed a good deal from Buddhism. “I noticed,” says Mr. Rockhill (Journey, 86), “a couple of grimy volumes of Bönbo sacred literature. One of them I examined; it was a funeral service, and was in the usual Bönbo jargon, three-fourths Buddhistic in its nomenclature.” The Bon-po Lamas are above all sorcerers and necromancers, and are very similar to the kam of the Northern Turks, the bô of the Mongols, and lastly to the Shamans. During their operations, they wear a tall pointed black hat, surmounted by the feather of a peacock, or of a cock, and a human skull. Their principal divinities are the White God of Heaven, the Black Goddess of Earth, the Red Tiger and the Dragon; they worship an idol called Kye’-p’ang formed of a mere block of wood covered with garments. Their sacred symbol is the svastika turned from right to left 卍. The most important of their monasteries is Zo-chen gum-pa, in the north-east of Tibet, where they print most of their books. The Bonpos Lamas “are very popular with the agricultural Tibetans, but not so much so with the pastoral tribes, who nearly all belong to the Gélupa sect of the orthodox Buddhist Church.” A. K. says, “Buddhism is the religion of the country; there are two sects, one named Mangba and the other Chiba or Baimbu.” Explorations made by A—— K——, 34. Mangba means “Esoteric,” Chiba (p’yi-ba), “Exoteric,” and Baimbu is Bönbo. Rockhill, Journey, 289, et passim.; Land of the Lamas, 217–218; Grenard, Mission Scientifique, II. 407 seqq.—H. C.]

There is an indication in Koeppen’s references that the followers of the Bon doctrine are sometimes called in Tibet Nag-choi, or “Black Sect,” as the old and the reformed Lamas are called respectively the “Red” and the “Yellow.” If so, it is reasonable to conclude that the first appellation, like the two last, has a reference to the colour of clothing affected by the priesthood.

The Rev. Mr. Jaeschke writes from Lahaul: “There are no Bonpos in our part of the country, and as far as we know there cannot be many of them in the whole of Western Tibet, i.e. in Ladak, Spiti, and all the non-Chinese provinces together; we know, therefore, not much more of them than has been made known to the European public by different writers on Buddhism in Tibet, and lately collected by Emil de Schlagintweit.... Whether they can be with certainty identified with the Chinese Taossé I cannot decide, as I don’t know if anything like historical evidence about their Chinese origin has been detected anywhere, or if it is merely a conclusion from the similarity of their doctrines and practices.... But the Chinese author of the Wei-tsang-tu-Shi, translated by Klaproth, under the title of Description du Tubet (Paris, 1831), renders Bonpo by Taossé. So much seems to be certain that it was the ancient religion of Tibet, before Buddhism penetrated into the country, and that even at later periods it several times gained the ascendancy when the secular power was of a disposition averse to the Lamaitic hierarchy. Another opinion is that the Bon religion was originally a mere fetishism, and related to or identical with Shamanism; this appears to me very probable and easy to reconcile with the former supposition, for it may afterwards, on becoming acquainted with the Chinese doctrine of the ‘Taossé,’ have adorned itself with many of its tenets.... With regard to the following particulars, I have got most of my information from our Lama, a native of the neighbourhood of Tashi Lhunpo, whom we consulted about all your questions. The extraordinary asceticism which struck Marco Polo so much is of course not to be understood as being practised by all members of the sect, but exclusively, or more especially, by the priests. That these never marry, and are consequently more strictly celibatary than many sects of the Lamaitic priesthood, was confirmed by our Lama.” (Mr. Jaeschke then remarks upon the bran to much the same effect as I have done above.) “The Bonpos are by all Buddhists regarded as heretics. Though they worship idols partly the same, at least in name, with those of the Buddhists, ... their rites seem to be very different. The most conspicuous and most generally known of their customs, futile in itself, but in the eyes of the common people the greatest sign of their sinful heresy, is that they perform the religious ceremony of making a turn round a sacred object in the opposite direction to that prescribed by Buddhism. As to their dress, our Lama said that they had no particular colour of garments, but their priests frequently wore red clothes, as some sects of the Buddhist priesthood do. Mr. Heyde, however, once on a journey in our neighbouring county of Langskar, saw a man clothed in black with blue borders, who the people said was a Bonpo.”

[Mr. Rockhill (_Journey _, 63) saw at Kao miao-tzŭ “a red-gowned, long-haired Bönbo Lama,” and at Kumbum (p. 68), “was surprised to see quite a large number of Bönbo Lamas, recognisable by their huge mops of hair and their red gowns, and also from their being dirtier than the ordinary run of people.”—H. C.]

The identity of the Bonpo and Taossé seems to have been accepted by Csoma de Körös, who identifies the Chinese founder of the latter, Lao-tseu, with the Shen-rabs of the Tibetan Bonpos. Klaproth also says, “Bhonbp’o, Bhanpo, and Shen, are the names by which are commonly designated (in Tibetan) the Taoszu, or followers of the Chinese philosopher Laotseu.”[11] Schlagintweit refers to Schmidt’s Tibetan Grammar (p. 209) and to the Calcutta edition of the Fo-kouè-ki (p. 218) for the like identification, but I do not know how far any two of these are independent testimonies. General Cunningham, however, fully accepts the identity, and writes to me: “Fahian (ch. xxiii.) calls the heretics who assembled at Râmagrâma Taossé,[12] thus identifying them with the Chinese Finitimists. The Taossé are, therefore, the same as the Swâstikas, or worshippers of the mystic cross Swasti, who are also Tirthakaras, or ‘Pure-doers.’ The synonymous word Punya is probably the origin of Pon or Bon, the Tibetan Finitimists. From the same word comes the Burmese P’ungyi or Pungi.” I may add that the Chinese envoy to Cambodia in 1296, whose narrative Rémusat has translated, describes a sect which he encountered there, apparently Brahminical, as Taossé. And even if the Bonpo and the Taossé were not fundamentally identical, it is extremely probable that the Tibetan and Mongol Buddhists should have applied to them one name and character. Each played towards them the same part in Tibet and in China respectively; both were heretic sects and hated rivals; both made high pretensions to asceticism and supernatural powers; both, I think we see reason to believe, affected the dark clothing which Polo assigns to the Sensin; both, we may add, had “great idols and plenty of them.” We have seen in the account of the Taossé the ground that certain of their ceremonies afford for the allegation that they “sometimes also worship fire,” whilst the whole account of that rite and of others mentioned by Duhalde,[13] shows what a powerful element of the old devil-dancing Shamanism there is in their practice. The French Jesuit, on the other hand, shows us what a prominent place female divinities occupied in the Bon-po Pantheon,[14] though we cannot say of either sect that “their idols are all feminine.” A strong symptom of relation between the two religions, by the way, occurs in M. Durand’s account of the Bon Temple. We see there that Shen-rabs, the great doctor of the sect, occupies a chief and central place among the idols. Now in the Chinese temples of the Taossé the figure of their Doctor Lao-tseu is one member of the triad called the “Three Pure Ones,” which constitute the chief objects of worship. This very title recalls General Cunningham’s etymology of Bonpo.

[At the quarterly fair (yueh kai) of Ta-li (Yun-Nan), Mr. E. C. Baber (Travels, 158–159) says: “A Fakir with a praying machine, which he twirled for the salvation of the pious at the price of a few cash, was at once recognised by us; he was our old acquaintance, the Bakhsi, whose portrait is given in Colonel Yule’s Marco Polo.”—H. C.]

(Hodgson, in J. R. A. S. XVIII. 396 seqq.; Ann. de la Prop. de la Foi, XXXVI. 301–302, 424–427; E. Schlagintweit, Ueber die Bon-pa Sekte in Tibet, in the Sitzensberichte of the Munich Acad. for 1866, Heft I. pp. 1–12; Koeppen, II. 260; Ladak, p. 358; J. As. sér. II. tom. i. 411–412; Rémusat. Nouv. Mél. Asiat. I. 112; Astley, IV. 205; Doolittle, 191.)

NOTE 18.—Pauthier’s text has blons, no doubt an error for blous. In the G. Text it is bloies. Pauthier interprets the latter term as “blond ardent,” whilst the glossary to the G. Text explains it as both blue and white. Raynouard’s Romance Dict. explains Bloi as “Blond.” Ramusio has biave, and I have no doubt that blue is the meaning. The same word (bloie) is used in the G. Text, where Polo speaks of the bright colours of the Palace tiles at Cambaluc, and where Pauthier’s text has “vermeil et jaune et vert et blou,” and again (infra, Bk. II. ch. xix.), where the two corps of huntsmen are said to be clad respectively in vermeil and in bloie. Here, again, Pauthier’s text has bleu. The Crusca in the description of the Sensin omits the colours altogether; in the two other passages referred to it has bioda, biodo.

[“The Tao-sze, says Marco Polo, wear dresses of black and blue linen; i.e. they wear dresses made of tatters of black and blue linen, as can be seen also at the present day.” (Palladius, 30.)—H. C.]

NOTE 19.—[“The idols of the Tao-sze, according to Marco Polo’s statement, have female names; in fact, there are in the pantheon of Taoism a great many female divinities, still enjoying popular veneration in China; such are Tow Mu (the ‘Ursa major,’ constellation), Pi-hia-yuen Kiun (the celestial queen), female divinities for lying-in women, for children, for diseases of the eyes; and others, which are to be seen everywhere. The Tao-sze have, besides these, a good number of male divinities, bearing the title of Kiun in common with female divinities; both these circumstances might have led Marco Polo to make the above statement.” (Palladius, p. 30.)—H. C.]

---------------------------------------------------------------------- [1] This distance is taken from a tracing of the map prepared for Dr. Bushell’s paper quoted below. But there is a serious discrepancy between this tracing and the observed position of Dolon-nor, which determines that of Shang-tu, as stated to me in a letter from Dr. Bushell. [See Note 1.]

[2] These particulars were obtained by Dr. Bushell through the Archimandrite Palladius, from the MS. account of a Chinese traveller who visited Shangtu about two hundred years ago, when probably the whole inscription was above ground. The inscription is also mentioned in the Imp. Geography of the present Dynasty, quoted by Klaproth. This work gives the interior wall 5 li to the side, instead of 2 li, and the outer wall 10 li, instead of 4 li. By Dr. Bushell’s kindness, I give a reduction of his sketch plan (see Itinerary Map, No. IV. at end of this volume), and also a plate of the heading of the inscription. The translation of this is: “Monument conferred by the Emperor of the August Yuen (Dynasty) in memory of His High Eminence Yun Hien (styled) Chang-Lao (canonised as) Shou-Kung (Prince of Longevity).” [See Missions de Chine et du Congo, No. 28, Mars, 1891, Bruxelles.]

[3] Ramusio’s version runs thus: “The palace presents one side to the centre of the city and the other to the city wall. And from either extremity of the palace where it touches the city wall, there runs another wall, which fetches a compass and encloses a good 16 miles of plain, and so that no one can enter this enclosure except by passing through the palace.”

[4] This narrative, translated from Chinese into Russian by Father Palladius, and from the Russian into English by Mr. Eugene Schuyler, Secretary of the U.S. Legation at St. Petersburg, was obligingly sent to me by the latter gentleman, and appeared in the Geographical Magazine for January, 1875, p. 7.

[5] See Bk. II. chap. xiv. note 3.

[6] In the first edition I had supposed a derivation of the Persian words Jádú and Jádúgari, used commonly in India for conjuring, from the Tartar use of Yadah. And Pallas says the Kirghiz call their witches Jádugar. (Voy. II. 298.) But I am assured by Sir H. Rawlinson that this etymology is more than doubtful, and that at any rate the Persian (Jádú) is probably older than the Turkish term. I see that M. Pavet de Courteille derives Yadah from a Mongol word signifying “change of weather,” etc.

[7] [See W. Foerster’s ed., Halle, 1887, p. 15, 386.—H. C.]

[8] A young Afghan related in the presence of Arthur Conolly at Herat that on a certain occasion when provisions ran short the Russian General gave orders that 50,000 men should be killed and served out as rations! (I. 346.)

[9] Ar. Táfir, a sordid, squalid fellow.

[10] [Cf. Paulin Paris’s ed., 1848, II. p. 5.—H. C.]

[11] Shen, or coupled with jin “people,” Shenjin, in this sense affords another possible origin of the word Sensin; but it may in fact be at bottom, as regards the first syllable, the same with the etymology we have preferred.

[12] I do not find this allusion in Mr. Beal’s new version of Fahian. [See Rémusat’s éd. p. 227; Klaproth says (Ibid. p. 230) that the Tao-szu are called in Tibetan Bonbò and Youngdhroungpa.—H. C.]

[13] Apparently they had at their command the whole encyclopædia of modern “Spiritualists.” Duhalde mentions among their sorceries the art of producing by their invocations the figures of Lao-tseu and their divinities in the air, and of making a pencil to write answers to questions without anybody touching it.

[14] It is possible that this may point to some report of the mystic impurities of the Tantrists. The Saktián, or Tantrists, according to the Dabistan, hold that the worship of a female divinity affords a greater recompense. (II. 155.)

BOOK SECOND.

(1.) ACCOUNT OF THE GREAT KAAN CUBLAY; OF HIS PALACES AND CAPITAL; HIS COURT, GOVERNMENT, AND SPORTS.

(2.) CITIES AND PROVINCES VISITED BY THE TRAVELLER ON ONE JOURNEY WESTWARD FROM THE CAPITAL TO THE FRONTIERS OF MIEN IN THE DIRECTION OF INDIA.

(3.) AND ON ANOTHER SOUTHWARD FROM THE CAPITAL TO FUCHU AND ZAYTON.

Chapter I

OF CUBLAY KAAN, THE GREAT KAAN NOW REIGNING, AND OF HIS GREAT PUISSANCE.

Now am I come to that part of our Book in which I shall tell you of the great and wonderful magnificence of the Great Kaan now reigning, by name CUBLAY KAAN; Kaan being a title which signifyeth “The Great Lord of Lords,” or Emperor. And of a surety he hath good right to such a title, for all men know for a certain truth that he is the most potent man, as regards forces and lands and treasure, that existeth in the world, or ever hath existed from the time of our First Father Adam until this day. All this I will make clear to you for truth, in this book of ours, so that every one shall be fain to acknowledge that he is the greatest Lord that is now in the world, or ever hath been. And now ye shall hear how and wherefore.{1}

NOTE 1.—According to Sanang Setzen, Chinghiz himself discerned young Kúblái’s superiority. On his deathbed he said: “The words of the lad Kúblái are well worth attention; see, all of you, that ye heed what he says! One day he will sit in my seat and bring you good fortune such as you have had in my day!” (p. 105).

The Persian history of Wassáf thus exalts Kúblái: “Although from the frontiers of this country (’Irák) to the Centre of Empire, the Focus of the Universe, the genial abode of the ever-Fortunate Emperor and Just Kaan, is a whole year’s journey, yet the stories that have been spread abroad, even in these parts, of his glorious deeds, his institutes, his decisions, his justice, the largeness and acuteness of his intellect, his correctness of judgment, his great powers of administration, from the mouths of credible witnesses, of well-known merchants and eminent travellers, are so surpassing, that one beam of his glories, one fraction of his great qualities, suffices to eclipse all that history tells of the Cæsars of Rome, of the Chosroes of Persia, of the Khagans of China, of the (Himyarite) Kails of Arabia, of the Tobbas of Yemen, and the Rajas of India, of the monarchs of the houses of Sassan and Búya, and of the Seljukian Sultans.” (Hammer’s Wassaf, orig. p. 37.)

Some remarks on Kúblái and his government by a Chinese author, in a more rational and discriminative tone, will be found below under ch. xxiii., note 2.

A curious Low-German MS. at Cologne, giving an account of the East, says of the “Keyser von Kathagien—syn recht Name is der groisse Hunt!” (Magnus Canis, the Big Bow-wow as it were. See Orient und Occident, vol. i. p. 640.)

Chapter II

CONCERNING THE REVOLT OF NAYAN, WHO WAS UNCLE TO THE GREAT KAAN CUBLAY.

Now this Cublay Kaan is of the right Imperial lineage, being descended from Chinghis Kaan, the first sovereign of all the Tartars. And he is the sixth Lord in that succession, as I have already told you in this book. He came to the throne in the year of Christ, 1256, and the Empire fell to him because of his ability and valour and great worth, as was right and reason.{1} His brothers, indeed, and other kinsmen disputed his claim, but his it remained, both because maintained by his great valour, and because it was in law and right his, as being directly sprung of the imperial line.

Up to the year of Christ now running, to wit 1298, he hath reigned two-and-forty years, and his age is about eighty-five, so that he must have been about forty-three years of age when he first came to the throne.{2} Before that time he had often been to the wars, and had shown himself a gallant soldier and an excellent captain. But after coming to the throne he never went to the wars in person save once.{3} This befel in the year of Christ, 1286, and I will tell you why he went.

There was a great Tartar Chief, whose name was NAYAN,{4} a young man [of thirty], Lord over many lands and many provinces; and he was Uncle to the Emperor Cublay Kaan of whom we are speaking. And when he found himself in authority this Nayan waxed proud in the insolence of his youth and his great power; for indeed he could bring into the field 300,000 horsemen, though all the time he was liegeman to his nephew, the Great Kaan Cublay, as was right and reason. Seeing then what great power he had, he took it into his head that he would be the Great Kaan’s vassal no longer; nay more, he would fain wrest his empire from him if he could. So this Nayan sent envoys to another Tartar Prince called CAIDU, also a great and potent Lord, who was a kinsman of his, and who was a nephew of the Great Kaan and his lawful liegeman also, though he was in rebellion and at bitter enmity with his sovereign Lord and Uncle. Now the message that Nayan sent was this: That he himself was making ready to march against the Great Kaan with all his forces (which were great), and he begged Caidu to do likewise from his side, so that by attacking Cublay on two sides at once with such great forces they would be able to wrest his dominion from him.

And when Caidu heard the message of Nayan, he was right glad thereat, and thought the time was come at last to gain his object. So he sent back answer that he would do as requested; and got ready his host, which mustered a good hundred thousand horsemen.

Now let us go back to the Great Kaan, who had news of all this plot.

NOTE 1.—There is no doubt that Kúblái was proclaimed Kaan in 1260 (4th month), his brother Mangku Kaan having perished during the seige of Hochau in Szechwan in August of the preceding year. But Kúblái had come into Cathay some years before as his brother’s Lieutenant.

He was the fifth, not sixth, Supreme Kaan, as we have already noticed. (Bk. I. ch. li. note 2.)

NOTE 2.—Kúblái was born in the eighth month of the year corresponding to 1216, and had he lived to 1298 would have been eighty-two years old. [According to Dr. E. Bretschneider (Peking, 30), quoting the Yuen-Shi, Kúblái died at Khanbaligh, in the Tze-t’an tien in February, 1294.—H. C.] But by Mahomedan reckoning he would have been close upon eighty-five. He was the fourth son of Tuli, who was the youngest of Chinghiz’s four sons by his favourite wife Burté Fujin. (See De Mailla, IX. 255, etc.)

NOTE 3.—This is not literally true; for soon after his accession (in 1261) Kúblái led an army against his brother and rival Arikbuga, and defeated him. And again in his old age, if we credit the Chinese annalist, in 1289, when his grandson Kanmala (or Kambala) was beaten on the northern frontier by Kaidu, Kúblái took the field himself, though on his approach the rebels disappeared.

Kúblái and his brother Hulaku, young as they were, commenced their military career on Chinghiz’s last expedition (1226–1227). His most notable campaign was the conquest of Yunnan in 1253–1254. (De Mailla, IX. 298, 441.)

NOTE 4.—NAYAN was no “uncle” of Kúblái’s, but a cousin in a junior generation. For Kúblái was the grandson of Chinghiz, and Nayan was the great-great-grandson of Chinghiz’s brother Uchegin, called in the Chinese annals Pilgutai. [Belgutai was Chinghiz’s step-brother. (Palladius.)—H. C.] On this brother, the great-uncle of Kúblái, and the commander of the latter’s forces against Arikbuga in the beginning of the reign, both Chinghiz and Kúblái had bestowed large territories in Eastern Tartary towards the frontier of Corea, and north of Liaotong towards the Manchu country. [“The situation and limits of his appanage are not clearly defined in history. According to Belgutai’s biography, it was between the Onon and Kerulen (Yuen shi), and according to Shin Yao’s researches (Lo fung low wen kao), at the confluence of the Argun and Shilka. Finally, according to Harabadur’s biography, it was situated in Abalahu, which geographically and etymologically corresponds to modern Butkha (Yuen shi); Abalahu, as Kúblái himself said, was rich in fish; indeed, after the suppression of Nayan’s rebellion, the governor of that country used to send to the Peking Court fishes weighing up to a thousand Chinese pounds (kin.). It was evidently a country near the Amur River.” (Palladius, l.c. 31.)—H. C.] Nayan had added to his inherited territory, and become very powerful. [“History has apparently connected Nayan’s appanage with that of Hatan (a grandson of Hachiun, brother of Chinghiz Khan), whose ordo was contiguous to Nayan’s, on the left bank of the Amur, hypothetically east of Blagovietschensk, on the spot, where still the traces of an ancient city can be seen. Nayan’s possessions stretched south to Kwang-ning, which belonged to his appanage, and it was from this town that he had the title of prince of Kwang-ning (Yuen shi).” (Palladius, l.c. 31.)—H. C.] Kaidu had gained influence over Nayan, and persuaded him to rise against Kúblái. A number of the other Mongol princes took part with him. Kúblái was much disquieted at the rumours, and sent his great lieutenant BAYAN to reconnoitre. Bayan was nearly captured, but escaped to court and reported to his master the great armament that Nayan was preparing. Kúblái succeeded by diplomacy in detaching some of the princes from the enterprise, and resolved to march in person to the scene of action, whilst despatching Bayan to the Karakorum frontier to intercept Kaidu. This was in the summer of 1287. What followed will be found in a subsequent note (ch. iv. note 6). (For Nayan’s descent, see the Genealogical Table in the Appendix (A).)

III. HOW THE GREAT KAAN MARCHED AGAINST NAYAN

When the Great Kaan heard what was afoot, he made his preparations in right good heart, like one who feared not the issue of an attempt so contrary to justice. Confident in his own conduct and prowess, he was in no degree disturbed, but vowed that he would never wear crown again if he brought not those two traitorous and disloyal Tartar chiefs to an ill end. So swiftly and secretly were his preparations made, that no one knew of them but his Privy Council, and all were completed within ten or twelve days. In that time he had assembled good 360,000 horsemen, and 100,000 footmen,—but a small force indeed for him, and consisting only of those that were in the vicinity. For the rest of his vast and innumerable forces were too far off to answer so hasty a summons, being engaged under orders from him on distant expeditions to conquer divers countries and provinces. If he had waited to summon all his troops, the multitude assembled would have been beyond all belief, a multitude such as never was heard of or told of, past all counting. In fact, those 360,000 horsemen that he got together consisted merely of the falconers and whippers-in that were about the court!{1}

And when he had got ready this handful (as it were) of his troops, he ordered his astrologers to declare whether he should gain the battle and get the better of his enemies. After they had made their observations, they told him to go on boldly, for he would conquer and gain a glorious victory: whereat he greatly rejoiced.

So he marched with his army, and after advancing for 20 days they arrived at a great plain where Nayan lay with all his host, amounting to some 400,000 horse. Now the Great Kaan’s forces arrived so fast and so suddenly that the others knew nothing of the matter. For the Kaan had caused such strict watch to be made in every direction for scouts that every one that appeared was instantly captured. Thus Nayan had no warning of his coming and was completely taken by surprise; insomuch that when the Great Kaan’s army came up, he was asleep in the arms of a wife of his of whom he was extravagantly fond. So thus you see why it was that the Emperor equipped his force with such speed and secrecy.

NOTE 1.—I am afraid Marco, in his desire to impress on his readers the great power of the Kaan, is here giving the reins to exaggeration on a great scale.

Ramusio has here the following explanatory addition:—“You must know that in all the Provinces of Cathay and Mangi, and throughout the Great Kaan’s dominions, there are too many disloyal folk ready to break into rebellion against their Lord, and hence it is needful in every province containing large cities and much population, to maintain garrisons. These are stationed four or five miles from the cities, and the latter are not allowed to have walls or gates by which they might obstruct the entrance of the troops at their pleasure. These garrisons as well as their commanders the Great Kaan causes to be relieved every two years; and bridled in this way the people are kept quiet, and can make no disturbance. The troops are maintained not only by the pay which the Kaan regularly assigns from the revenues of each province, but also by the vast quantities of cattle which they keep, and by the sale of milk in the cities, which furnishes the means of buying what they require. They are scattered among their different stations, at distances of 30, 40, or 60 days (from the capital); and had Cublay decided to summon but the half of them, the number would have been incredible,” etc.

[Palladius says (p. 37) that in the Mongol-Chinese documents, the Mongol garrisons cantoned near the Chinese towns are mentioned under the name of Aolu, but no explanation of the term is given.—H. C.]

The system of controlling garrisons, quartered at a few miles from the great cities, is that which the Chinese followed at Kashgar, Yarkand, etc. It is, in fact, our own system in India, as at Barrackpúr, Dinapúr, Sikandarábád, Mián Mír.

IV. OF THE BATTLE THAT THE GREAT KAAN FOUGHT WITH NAYAN

What shall I say about it? When day had well broken, there was the Kaan with all his host upon a hill overlooking the plain where Nayan lay in his tent, in all security, without the slightest thought of any one coming thither to do him hurt. In fact, this confidence of his was such that he kept no vedettes whether in front or in rear; for he knew nothing of the coming of the Great Kaan, owing to all the approaches having been completely occupied as I told you. Moreover, the place was in a remote wilderness, more than thirty marches from the Court, though the Kaan had made the distance in twenty, so eager was he to come to battle with Nayan.

And what shall I tell you next? The Kaan was there on the hill, mounted on a great wooden bartizan,{1} which was borne by four well-trained elephants, and over him was hoisted his standard, so high aloft that it could be seen from all sides. His troops were ordered in battles of 30,000 men apiece; and a great part of the horsemen had each a foot-soldier armed with a lance set on the crupper behind him (for it was thus that the footmen were disposed of);{2} and the whole plain seemed to be covered with his forces. So it was thus that the Great Kaan’s army was arrayed for battle.

When Nayan and his people saw what had happened, they were sorely confounded, and rushed in haste to arms. Nevertheless they made them ready in good style and formed their troops in an orderly manner. And when all were in battle array on both sides as I have told you, and nothing remained but to fall to blows, then might you have heard a sound arise of many instruments of various music, and of the voices of the whole of the two hosts loudly singing. For this is a custom of the Tartars, that before they join battle they all unite in singing and playing on a certain two-stringed instrument of theirs, a thing right pleasant to hear. And so they continue in their array of battle, singing and playing in this pleasing manner, until the great Naccara of the Prince is heard to sound. As soon as that begins to sound the fight also begins on both sides; and in no case before the Prince’s Naccara sounds dare any commence fighting.{3}

So then, as they were thus singing and playing, though ordered and ready for battle, the great Naccara of the Great Khan began to sound. And that of Nayan also began to sound. And thenceforward the din of battle began to be heard loudly from this side and from that. And they rushed to work so doughtily with their bows and their maces, with their lances and swords, and with the arblasts of the footmen, that it was a wondrous sight to see. Now might you behold such flights of arrows from this side and from that, that the whole heaven was canopied with them and they fell like rain. Now might you see on this side and on that full many a cavalier and man-at-arms fall slain, insomuch that the whole field seemed covered with them. From this side and from that such cries arose from the crowds of the wounded and dying that had God thundered, you would not have heard Him! For fierce and furious was the battle, and quarter there was none given.{4}

But why should I make a long story of it? You must know that it was the most parlous and fierce and fearful battle that ever has been fought in our day. Nor have there ever been such forces in the field in actual fight, especially of horsemen, as were then engaged—for, taking both sides, there were not fewer than 760,000 horsemen, a mighty force! and that without reckoning the footmen, who were also very numerous. The battle endured with various fortune on this side and on that from morning till noon. But at the last, by God’s pleasure and the right that was on his side, the Great Khan had the victory, and Nayan lost the battle and was utterly routed. For the army of the Great Kaan performed such feats of arms that Nayan and his host could stand against them no longer, so they turned and fled. But this availed nothing for Nayan; for he and all the barons with him were taken prisoners, and had to surrender to the Kaan with all their arms.

Now you must know that Nayan was a baptized Christian, and bore the cross on his banner; but this nought availed him, seeing how grievously he had done amiss in rebelling against his Lord. For he was the Great Kaan’s liegeman,{5} and was bound to hold his lands of him like all his ancestors before him.{6}

NOTE 1.—“Une grande bretesche.” Bretesche, Bertisca (whence old English Brattice, and Bartizan), was a term applied to any boarded structure of defence or attack, but especially to the timber parapets and roofs often placed on the top of the flanking-towers in mediæval fortifications; and this use quite explains the sort of structure here intended. The term and its derivative Bartizan came later to be applied to projecting guérites or watch-towers of masonry. Brattice in English is now applied to a fence round a pit or dangerous machinery. (See Muratori, Dissert. I. 334; Wedgwood’s Dict. of Etym. sub. v. Brattice; Viollet le Duc, by Macdermott, p. 40; La Curne de Sainte-Palaye, Dict.; F. Godefroy, Dict.)

[John Ranking (Hist. Res. on the Wars and Sports of the Mongols and Romans) in a note regarding this battle writes (p. 60): “It appears that it is an old custom in Persia, to use four elephants a-breast.” The Senate decreed Gordian III. to represent him triumphing after the Persian mode, with chariots drawn with four elephants. Augustan Hist. vol. ii. p. 65. See plate, p. 52.—H. C.]

NOTE 2.—This circumstance is mentioned in the extract below from Gaubil. He may have taken it from Polo, as it is not in Pauthier’s Chinese extracts; but Gaubil has other facts not noticed in these.

[Elephants came from the Indo-Chinese Kingdoms, Burma, Siam, Champa. —H. C.]

NOTE 3.—The specification of the Tartar instrument of two strings is peculiar to Pauthier’s texts. It was no doubt what Dr. Clarke calls “the balalaika or two-stringed lyre,” the most common instrument among the Kalmaks.

The sounding of the Nakkára as the signal of action is an old Pan-Asiatic custom, but I cannot find that this very striking circumstance of the whole host of Tartars playing and singing in chorus, when ordered for battle and waiting the signal from the boom of the Big Drum, is mentioned by any other author.

The Naḳḳárah or Nagárah was a great kettledrum, formed like a brazen caldron, tapering to the bottom and covered with buffalo-hide—at least 3½ or 4 feet in diameter. Bernier, indeed, tells of Naḳḳáras in use at the Court of Delhi that were not less than a fathom across; and Tod speaks of them in Rájpútána as “about 8 or 10 feet in diameter.” The Tartar Naḳḳárahs were usually, I presume, carried on a camel; but as Kúblái had begun to use elephants, his may have been carried on an elephant, as is sometimes the case in India. Thus, too, P. della Valle describes those of an Indian Embassy at Ispahan: “The Indian Ambassador was also accompanied by a variety of warlike instruments of music of strange kinds, and particularly by certain Naccheras of such immense size that each pair had an elephant to carry them, whilst an Indian astride upon the elephant between the two Naccheras played upon them with both hands, dealing strong blows on this one and on that; what a din was made by these vast drums, and what a spectacle it was, I leave you to imagine.”

Joinville also speaks of the Nakkara as the signal for action: “So he was setting his host in array till noon, and then he made those drums of theirs to sound that they call Nacaires, and then they set upon us horse and foot.” The Great Nakkara of the Tartars appears from several Oriental histories to have been called Ḳúrḳah. I cannot find this word in any dictionary accessible to me, but it is in the Ain Akbari (Kawargah) as distinct from the Naḳḳárah. Abulfazl tells us that Akbar not only had a rare knowledge of the science of music, but was likewise an excellent performer—especially on the Naḳḳárah!

The privilege of employing the Nakkara in personal state was one granted by the sovereign as a high honour and reward.

The crusades naturalised the word in some form or other in most European languages, but in our own apparently with a transfer of meaning. For Wright defines Naker as “a cornet or horn of brass.” And Chaucer’s use seems to countenance this:—

“Pipes, Trompes, Nakeres, and Clariounes, That in the Bataille blowen blody sounes.” —The Knight’s Tale.

On the other hand, Nacchera, in Italian, seems always to have retained the meaning of kettle-drum, with the slight exception of a local application at Siena to a metal circle or triangle struck with a rod. The fact seems to be that there is a double origin, for the Arabic dictionaries not only have Naḳḳárah, but Naḳír and Náḳúr, “cornu, tuba.” The orchestra of Bibars Bunduḳdári, we are told, consisted of 40 pairs of kettle-drums, 4 drums, 4 hautbois, and 20 trumpets (Naḳír). (Sir B. Frere; Della Valle, II. 21; Tod’s Rájasthán, I. 328; Joinville, p. 83; N. et E. XIV. 129, and following note; Blochmann’s Ain-i-Akbari, pp. 50–51; Ducange, by Haenschel, s.v.; Makrizi, I. 173.)

[Dozy (Supp. aux Dict. Arabes) has نقّارة [naqqārè] “petit tambour ou timbale, bassin de cuivre ou de terre recouvert d’une peau tendue,” and “grosses timbales en cuivre portées sur un chameau ou un mulet.”—Devic (Dict. Étym.) writes: “Bas Latin, nacara; bas grec, ἀνάχαρα. Ce n’est point comme on l’a dit, l’Arabe نقير naqïr ou ناقور náqör, qui signifient trompette, clairon, mais le persan نقاره, en arabe, نقارة naqāra, timbale.” It is to be found also in Abyssinia and south of Gondokoro; it is mentioned in the Sedjarat Malayu.

In French, it gives nacaire and gnacare from the Italian gnacare. “Quatre jouent de la guitare, quatre des castagnettes, quatre des gnacares.” (MOLIÈRE, Pastorale Comique.)—H. C.]

NOTE 4.—This description of a fight will recur again and again till we are very tired of it. It is difficult to say whether the style is borrowed from the historians of the East or the romancers of the West. Compare the two following parallels. First from an Oriental history:—

“The Ear of Heaven was deafened with the din of the great Kurkahs and Drums, and the Earth shook at the clangour of the Trumpets and Clarions. The shafts began to fall like the rain-drops of spring, and blood flowed till the field looked like the Oxus.” (J. A. S. sér. IV. tom. xix. 256.)

Next from an Occidental Romance:—

“Now rist grete tabour betyng, Blaweyng of pypes, and ek trumpyng, Stedes lepyng, and ek arnyng, Of sharp speres, and avalyng Of stronge knighttes, and wyghth meetyng; Launces breche and increpyng; Knighttes fallyng, stedes lesyng; Herte and hevedes thorough kervyng; Swerdes draweyng, lymes lesyng Hard assaylyng, strong defendyng, Stiff withstondyng and wighth fleigheyng. Sharp of takyng armes spoylyng; So gret bray, so gret crieyng, Ifor the folk there was dyeyng; _So muche dent, noise of sweord, The thondur blast no myghte beo hirde_, No the sunne hadde beo seye, For the dust of the poudré! _No the weolkyn seon be myght, So was arewes and quarels flyght_.” —King Alisaunder, in Weber, I. 93–94.

And again:—

“The eorthe quaked heom undur, No scholde mon have herd the thondur.” —Ibid. 142.

Also in a contemporary account of the fall of Acre (1291): “Renovatur ergo bellum terribile inter alterutros ... clamoribus interjectis hinc et inde ad terrorem; ita ut nec Deus tonans in sublime coaudiri potuisset.” (De Excidio Acconis, in Martene et Durand, V. 780.)

NOTE 5.—“Car il estoit homme au Grant Kaan.” (See note 2, ch. xiv., in Prologue.)

NOTE 6.—In continuation of note 4, chap. ii., we give Gaubil’s conclusion of the story of Nayan: “The Emperor had gone ahead with a small force, when Nayan’s General came forward with 100,000 men to make a reconnaissance. The Sovereign, however, put on a bold front, and though in great danger of being carried off, showed no trepidation. It was night, and an urgent summons went to call troops to the Emperor’s aid. They marched at once, the horsemen taking the foot soldiers on the crupper behind them. Nayan all this while was taking it quietly in his camp, and his generals did not venture to attack the Emperor, suspecting an ambuscade. Liting then took ten resolute men, and on approaching the General’s camp, caused a Fire-Pao to be discharged; the report caused a great panic among Nayan’s troops, who were very ill disciplined at the best. Meanwhile the Chinese and Tartar troops had all come up, and Nayan was attacked on all sides: by Liting at the head of the Chinese, by Yusitemur at the head of the Mongols, by Tutuha and the Emperor in person at the head of his guards and the troops of Kincha (Kipchak). The presence of the Emperor rendered the army invincible, and Nayan’s forces were completely defeated. That prince himself was taken, and afterwards put to death. The battle took place in the vicinity of the river Liao, and the Emperor returned in triumph to Shangtu” (207). The Chinese record given in detail by Pauthier is to the like effect, except as to the Kaan’s narrow escape, of which it says nothing.

As regards the Fire-Pao (the latter word seems to have been applied to military machines formerly, and now to artillery), I must refer to Favé and Reinaud’s very curious and interesting treatise on the Greek fire (du Feu Grégeois). They do not seem to assent to the view that the arms of this description which are mentioned in the Mongol wars were cannon, but rather of the nature of rockets.

[Dr. G. Schlegel (T’oung Pao, No. 1, 1902), in a paper entitled, On the Invention and Use of Fire-Arms and Gunpowder in China, prior to the Arrival of Europeans, says that “now, notwithstanding all what has been alleged by different European authors against the use of gunpowder and fire-arms in China, I maintain that not only the Mongols in 1293 had cannon, but that they were already acquainted with them in 1232.” Among his many examples, we quote the following from the Books of the Ming Dynasty: “What were anciently called P’ao were all machines for hurling stones. In the beginning of the Mongol Dynasty (A.D. 1260), p’ao (catapults) of the Western regions were procured. In the siege [in 1233] of the city of Ts’ai chow of the Kin (Tatars), fire was for the first time employed (in these p’ao), but the art of making them was not handed down, and they were afterwards seldom used.”—H. C.]

Chapter V

HOW THE GREAT KAAN CAUSED NAYAN TO BE PUT TO DEATH.

And when the Great Kaan learned that Nayan was taken right glad was he, and commanded that he should be put to death straightway and in secret, lest endeavours should be made to obtain pity and pardon for him, because he was of the Kaan’s own flesh and blood. And this was the way in which he was put to death: he was wrapt in a carpet, and tossed to and fro so mercilessly that he died. And the Kaan caused him to be put to death in this way because he would not have the blood of his Line Imperial spilt upon the ground or exposed in the eye of Heaven and before the Sun.{1}

And when the Great Kaan had gained this battle, as you have heard, all the Barons and people of Nayan’s provinces renewed their fealty to the Kaan. Now these provinces that had been under the Lordship of Nayan were four in number; to wit, the first called CHORCHA; the second CAULY; the third BARSCOL; the fourth SIKINTINJU. Of all these four great provinces had Nayan been Lord; it was a very great dominion.{2}

And after the Great Kaan had conquered Nayan, as you have heard, it came to pass that the different kinds of people who were present, Saracens and Idolaters and Jews,{3} and many others that believed not in God, did gibe those that were Christians because of the cross that Nayan had borne on his standard, and that so grievously that there was no bearing it. Thus they would say to the Christians: “See now what precious help this God’s Cross of yours hath rendered Nayan, who was a Christian and a worshipper thereof.” And such a din arose about the matter that it reached the Great Kaan’s own ears. When it did so, he sharply rebuked those who cast these gibes at the Christians; and he also bade the Christians be of good heart, “for if the Cross had rendered no help to Nayan, in that It had done right well; nor could that which was good, as It was, have done otherwise; for Nayan was a disloyal and traitorous Rebel against his Lord, and well deserved that which had befallen him. Wherefore the Cross of your God did well in that It gave him no help against the right.” And this he said so loud that everybody heard him. The Christians then replied to the Great Kaan: “Great King, you say the truth indeed, for our Cross can render no one help in wrong-doing; and therefore it was that It aided not Nayan, who was guilty of crime and disloyalty, for It would take no part in his evil deeds.”

And so thenceforward no more was heard of the floutings of the unbelievers against the Christians; for they heard very well what the Sovereign said to the latter about the Cross on Nayan’s banner, and its giving him no help.

NOTE 1.—Friar Ricold mentions this Tartar maxim: “One Khan will put another to death, to get possession of the throne, but he takes great care that the blood be not spilt. For they say that it is highly improper that the blood of the Great Khan should be spilt upon the ground; so they cause the victim to be smothered somehow or other.” The like feeling prevails at the Court of Burma, where a peculiar mode of execution without bloodshed is reserved for Princes of the Blood. And Kaempfer, relating the conspiracy of Faulcon at the Court of Siam, says that two of the king’s brothers, accused of participation, were beaten to death with clubs of sandal-wood, “for the respect entertained for the blood-royal forbids its being shed.” See also note 6, ch. vi. Bk. I., on the death of the Khalif Mosta’sim Billah. (Pereg. Quat. p. 115; Mission to Ava, p. 229; Kaempfer, I. 19.)

NOTE 2.—CHORCHA is the Manchu country, Niuché of the Chinese. (Supra, note 2, ch. xlvi. Bk. I.) [“Chorcha is Churchin.—Nayan, as vassal of the Mongol khans, had the commission to keep in obedience the people of Manchuria (subdued in 1233), and to care for the security of the country (Yuen shi); there is no doubt that he shared these obligations with his relative Hatan, who stood nearer to the native tribes of Manchuria.” (Palladius, 32.)—H. C.]

KAULI is properly Corea, probably here a district on the frontier thereof, as it is improbable that Nayan had any rule over Corea. [“The Corean kingdom proper could not be a part of the prince’s appanage. Marco Polo might mean the northern part of Corea, which submitted to the Mongols in A.D. 1269, with sixty towns, and which was subordinated entirely to the central administration in Liao-yang. As to the southern part of Corea, it was left to the king of Corea, who, however, was a vassal of the Mongols.” (Palladius, 32.) The king of Corea (Ko rye, Kao-li) was in 1288 Chyoung ryel wang (1274–1298); the capital was Syong-to, now Kăi syeng (K’ai-ch’eng).—H. C.]

BARSKUL, “Leopard-Lake,” is named in Sanang Setsen (p. 217), but seems there to indicate some place in the west of Mongolia, perhaps the Barkul of our maps. This Barskul must have been on the Manchu frontier. [There are in the Yuen-shi the names of the department of P’u-yü-lu, and of the place Pu-lo-ho, which, according to the system of Chinese transcription, approach to Barscol; but it is difficult to prove this identification, since our knowledge of these places is very scanty; it only remains to identify Barscol with Abalahu, which is already known; a conjecture all the more probable as the two names of P’u-yü-lu and Pu-lo-ho have also some resemblance to Abalahu. (Palladius, 32.) Mr. E. H. Parker says (China Review, xviii. p. 261) that Barscol may be Pa-la ssŭ or Bars Koto [in Tsetsen]. “This seems the more probable in that Cauly and Chorcha are clearly proved to be Corea and Niuché or Manchuria, so that Bars Koto would naturally fall within Nayan’s appanage.” —H. C.]

The reading of the fourth name is doubtful, Sichuigiu, Sichingiu (G. T.), Sichin-tingiu, etc. The Chinese name of Mukden is Shing-king, but I know not if it be so old as our author’s time. I think it very possible that the real reading is Sinchin-tingin, and that it represents SHANGKING-TUNGKING, expressing the two capitals of the Khitan Dynasty in this region, the position of which will be found indicated in No. IV. map of Polo’s itineraries. (See Schott, Aelteste Nachrichten von Mongolen und Tartaren, Berlin Acad. 1845, pp. 11–12.)

[Sikintinju is Kien chau “belonging to a town which was in Nayan’s appanage, and is mentioned in the history of his rebellion. There were two Kien-chow, one in the time of the Kin in the modern aimak of Khorchin; the other during the Mongol Dynasty, on the upper part of the river Ta-ling ho, in the limits of the modern aimak of Kharachin (Man chow yuen lew k’ao); the latter depended on Kuang-ning (Yuen-shi). Mention is made of Kien-chow, in connection with the following circumstance. When Nayan’s rebellion broke out, the Court of Peking sent orders to the King of Corea, requiring from him auxiliary troops; this circumstance is mentioned in the Corean Annals, under the year 1288 (Kao li shi, ch. xxx. f. 11) in the following words:—‘In the present year, in the fourth month, orders were received from Peking to send five thousand men with provisions to Kien-chow, which is 3000 li distant from the King’s residence.’ This number of li cannot of course be taken literally; judging by the distances estimated at the present day, it was about 2000 li from the Corean K’ai-ch’eng fu (then the Corean capital) to the Mongol Kien-chow; and as much to the Kien-chow of the Kin (through Mukden and the pass of Fa-k’u mun in the willow palisade). It is difficult to decide to which of these two cities of the same name the troops were ordered to go, but at any rate, there are sufficient reasons to identify Sikintinju of Marco Polo with Kien-chow.” (Palladius, 33.)—H. C.]

We learn from Gaubil that the rebellion did not end with the capture of Nayan. In the summer of 1288 several of the princes of Nayan’s league, under Hatan (apparently the Abkan of Erdmann’s genealogies), the grandson of Chinghiz’s brother Kajyun [Hachiun], threatened the provinces north-east of the wall. Kúblái sent his grandson and designated heir, Teimur, against them, accompanied by some of his best generals. After a two days’ fight on the banks of the River Kweilei, the rebels were completely beaten. The territories on the said River Kweilei, the Tiro, or Torro, and the Liao, are mentioned both by Gaubil and De Mailla as among those which had belonged to Nayan. As the Kweilei and Toro appear on our maps and also the better-known Liao, we are thus enabled to determine with tolerable precision Nayan’s country. (See Gaubil, p. 209, and De Mailla, 431 seqq.)

[“The rebellion of Nayan and Hatan is incompletely and contradictorily related in Chinese history. The suppression of both these rebellions lasted four years. In 1287 Nayan marched from his ordo with sixty thousand men through Eastern Mongolia. In the 5th moon (var. 6th) of the same year Khubilai marched against him from Shangtu. The battle was fought in South-Eastern Mongolia, and gained by Khubilai, who returned to Shangtu in the 8th month. Nayan fled to the south-east, across the mountain range, along which a willow palisade now stands; but forces had been sent beforehand from Shin-chow (modern Mukden) and Kuang-ning (probably to watch the pass), and Nayan was made prisoner.

“Two months had not passed, when Hatan’s rebellion broke out (so that it took place in the same year 1287). It is mentioned under the year 1288, that Hatan was beaten, and that the whole of Manchuria was pacified; but in 1290, it is again recorded that Hatan disturbed Southern Manchuria, and that he was again defeated. It is to this time that the narratives in the biographies of Liting, Yuesi Femur, and Mangwu ought to be referred. According to the first of these biographies, Hatan, after his defeat by Liting on the river Kui lui (Kuilar?), fled, and perished. According to the second biography, Hatan’s dwelling (on the Amur River) was destroyed, and he disappeared. According to the third, Mangwu and Naimatai pursued Hatan to the extreme north, up to the eastern sea-coast (the mouth of the Amur). Hatan fled, but two of his wives and his son Lao-ti were taken; the latter was executed, and this was the concluding act of the suppression of the rebellion in Manchuria. We find, however, an important variante in the history of Corea; it is stated there that in 1290, Hatan and his son Lao-ti were carrying fire and slaughter to Corea, and devastated that country; they slew the inhabitants and fed on human flesh. The King of Corea fled to the Kiang-hwa island. The Coreans were not able to withstand the invasion. The Mongols sent to their aid in 1291, troops under the command of two generals, Seshekan (who was at that time governor of Liao-tung) and Namantai (evidently the above-mentioned Naimatai). The Mongols conjointly with the Coreans defeated the insurgents, who had penetrated into the very heart of the country; their corpses covered a space 30 li in extent; Hatan and his son made their way through the victorious army and fled, finding a refuge in the Niuchi (Djurdji) country, from which Laotai made a later incursion into Corea. Such is the discrepancy between historians in relating the same fact. The statement found in the Corean history seems to me more reliable than the facts given by Chinese history.” (Palladius, 35–37.)—H. C.]

NOTE 3.—This passage, and the extract from Ramusio’s version attached to the following chapter, contain the only allusions by Marco to Jews in China. John of Monte Corvino alludes to them, and so does Marignolli, who speaks of having held disputations with them at Cambaluc; Ibn Batuta also speaks of them at Khansa or Hangchau. Much has been written about the ancient settlement of Jews at Kaifungfu, in Honan. One of the most interesting papers on the subject is in the Chinese Repository, vol. xx. It gives the translation of a Chinese-Jewish Inscription, which in some respects forms a singular parallel to the celebrated Christian Inscription of Si-ngan fu, though it is of far more modern date (1511). It exhibits, as that inscription does, the effect of Chinese temperament or language, in modifying or diluting doctrinal statements. Here is a passage: “With respect to the Israelitish religion, we find on inquiry that its first ancestor, Adam, came originally from India, and that during the (period of the) Chau State the Sacred Writings were already in existence. The Sacred Writings, embodying Eternal Reason, consist of 53 sections. The principles therein contained are very abstruse, and the Eternal Reason therein revealed is very mysterious, being treated with the same veneration as Heaven. The founder of the religion is Abraham, who is considered the first teacher of it. Then came Moses, who established the Law, and handed down the Sacred Writings. After his time, during the Han Dynasty (B.C. 206 to A.D. 221), this religion entered China. In (A.D.) 1164, a synagogue was built at P’ien. In (A.D.) 1296, the old Temple was rebuilt, as a place in which the Sacred Writings might be deposited with veneration.”

[According to their oral tradition, the Jews came to China from Si Yĭh (Western Regions), probably Persia, by Khorasan and Samarkand, during the first century of our era, in the reign of the Emperor Ming-ti (A.D. 58–75) of the Han Dynasty. They were at times confounded with the followers of religions of India, T’ien Chu kiao, and very often with the Mohammedans Hwui-Hwui or Hwui-tzŭ; the common name of their religion was Tiao kin kiao, “Extract Sinew Religion.” However, three lapidary inscriptions, kept at Kaï-fung, give different dates for the arrival of the Jews in China: one dated 1489 (2nd year Hung Che, Ming Dynasty) says that seventy Jewish families arrived at P’ien liang (Kaï-fung) at the time of the Sung (A.D. 960–1278); one dated 1512 (7th year Chêng Têh) says that the Jewish religion was introduced into China under the Han Dynasty (B.C. 206–A.D. 221), and the last one dated 1663 (2nd year K’ang-hi) says that this religion was first preached in China under the Chau Dynasty (B.C. 1122–255); this will not bear discussion.

The synagogue, according to these inscriptions, was built in 1163, under the Sung Emperor Hiao; under the Yuen, in 1279, the rabbi rebuilt the ancient temple known as Ts’ing Chen sse, probably on the site of a ruined mosque; the synagogue was rebuilt in 1421 during the reign of Yung-lo; it was destroyed by an inundation of the Hwang-ho in 1642, and the Jews began to rebuild it once more in 1653.

The first knowledge Europeans had of a colony of Jews at K’aï-fung fu, in the Ho-nan province, was obtained through the Jesuit missionaries at Peking, at the beginning of the 17th century; the celebrated Matteo Ricci having received the visit of a young Jew, the Jesuits Aleni (1613), Gozani (1704), Gaubil and Domenge who made in 1721 two plans of the synagogue, visited Kaï-fung and brought back some documents. In 1850, a mission of enquiry was sent to that place by the London Society for promoting Christianity among the Jews; the results of this mission were published at Shang-haï, in 1851, by Bishop G. Smith of Hongkong; fac-similes of the Hebrew manuscripts obtained at the synagogue of Kaï-fung were also printed at Shang-haï at the London Missionary Society’s Press, in the same year. The Jewish merchants of London sent in 1760 to their brethren of Kaï-fung a letter written in Hebrew; a Jewish merchant of Vienna, J. L. Liebermann, visited the Kaï-fung colony in 1867. At the time of the T’aï-P’ing rising, the rebels marched against Kaï-fung in 1857, and with the rest of the population, the Jews were dispersed. (J. Tobar, Insc. juives de Kaï-fong-fou, 1900; Henri Cordier, Les Juifs en Chine, and Fung and Wagnall’s Jewish Encyclopedia.) Palladius writes (p. 38), “The Jews are mentioned for the first time in the Yuen shi (ch. xxxiii. p. 7), under the year 1329, on the occasion of the re-establishment of the law for the collection of taxes from dissidents. Mention of them is made again under the year 1354, ch. xliii. fol. 10, when on account of several insurrections in China, rich Mahommetans and Jews were invited to the capital in order to join the army. In both cases they are named Chu hu (Djuhud).” —H. C.]

The synagogue at Kaifungfu has recently been demolished for the sake of its materials, by the survivors of the Jewish community themselves, who were too poor to repair it. The tablet that once adorned its entrance, bearing in gilt characters the name ESZLOYIH (Israel), has been appropriated by a mosque. The 300 or 400 survivors seem in danger of absorption into the Mahomedan or heathen population. The last Rabbi and possessor of the sacred tongue died some thirty or forty years ago, the worship has ceased, and their traditions have almost died away.

(Cathay, 225, 341, 497; Ch. Rep. XX. 436; Dr. Martin, in _J. N. China Br. R. A. S._ 1866, pp. 32–33.)

Chapter VI

HOW THE GREAT KAAN WENT BACK TO THE CITY OF CAMBALUC.

And after the Great Kaan had defeated Nayan in the way you have heard, he went back to his capital city of Cambaluc and abode there, taking his ease and making festivity. And the other Tartar Lord called Caydu was greatly troubled when he heard of the defeat and death of Nayan, and held himself in readiness for war; but he stood greatly in fear of being handled as Nayan had been.{1}

I told you that the Great Kaan never went on a campaign but once, and it was on this occasion; in all other cases of need he sent his sons or his barons into the field. But this time he would have none go in command but himself, for he regarded the presumptuous rebellion of Nayan as far too serious and perilous an affair to be otherwise dealt with.

NOTE 1.—Here Ramusio has a long and curious addition. Kúblái, it says, remained at Cambaluc till March, “in which our Easter occurs; and learning that this was one of our chief festivals, he summoned all the Christians, and bade them bring with them the Book of the Four Gospels. This he caused to be incensed many times with great ceremony, kissing it himself most devoutly, and desiring all the barons and lords who were present to do the same. And he always acts in this fashion at the chief Christian festivals, such as Easter and Christmas. And he does the like at the chief feasts of the Saracens, Jews, and Idolaters. On being asked why, he said: ‘There are Four Prophets worshipped and revered by all the world. The Christians say their God is Jesus Christ; the Saracens, Mahommet; the Jews, Moses; the Idolaters, Sogomon Borcan [Sakya-Muni Burkhan or Buddha], who was the first god among the idols; and I worship and pay respect to all four, and pray that he among them who is greatest in heaven in very truth may aid me.’ But the Great Khan let it be seen well enough that he held the Christian Faith to be the truest and best—for, as he says, it commands nothing that is not perfectly good and holy. But he will not allow the Christians to carry the Cross before them, because on it was scourged and put to death a person so great and exalted as Christ.

“Some one may say: ‘Since he holds the Christian faith to be best, why does he not attach himself to it, and become a Christian?’ Well, this is the reason that he gave to Messer Nicolo and Messer Maffeo, when he sent them as his envoys to the Pope, and when they sometimes took occasion to speak to him about the faith of Christ. He said: ‘How would you have me to become a Christian? You see that the Christians of these parts are so ignorant that they achieve nothing and can achieve nothing, whilst you see the Idolaters can do anything they please, insomuch that when I sit at table the cups from the middle of the hall come to me full of wine or other liquor without being touched by anybody, and I drink from them. They control storms, causing them to pass in whatever direction they please, and do many other marvels; whilst, as you know, their idols speak, and give them predictions on whatever subjects they choose. But if I were to turn to the faith of Christ and become a Christian, then my barons and others who are not converted would say: “What has moved you to be baptised and to take up the faith of Christ? What powers or miracles have you witnessed on His part?” (You know the Idolaters here say that their wonders are performed by the sanctity and power of their idols.) Well, I should not know what answer to make; so they would only be confirmed in their errors, and the Idolaters, who are adepts in such surprising arts, would easily compass my death. But now you shall go to your Pope, and pray him on my part to send hither an hundred men skilled in your law, who shall be capable of rebuking the practices of the Idolaters to their faces, and of telling them that they too know how to do such things but will not, because they are done by the help of the devil and other evil spirits, and shall so control the Idolaters that these shall have no power to perform such things in their presence. When we shall witness this we will denounce the Idolaters and their religion, and then I will receive baptism; and when I shall have been baptised, then all my barons and chiefs shall be baptised also, and their followers shall do the like, and thus in the end there will be more Christians here than exist in your part of the world!’

“And if the Pope, as was said in the beginning of this book, had sent men fit to preach our religion, the Grand Kaan would have turned Christian; for it is an undoubted fact that he greatly desired to do so.”

In the simultaneous patronage of different religions, Kúblái followed the practice of his house. Thus Rubruquis writes of his predecessor Mangku Kaan: “It is his custom, on such days as his diviners tell him to be festivals, or any of the Nestorian priests declare to be holydays, to hold a court. On these occasions the Christian priests enter first with their paraphernalia, and pray for him, and bless his cup. They retire, and then come the Saracen priests and do likewise; the priests of the Idolaters follow. He all the while believes in none of them, though they all follow his court as flies follow honey. He bestows his gifts on all of them, each party believes itself to be his favourite, and all prophesy smooth things to him.” Abulfaragius calls Kúblái “a just prince and a wise, who loved Christians and honoured physicians of learning, whatsoever their nation.”

There is a good deal in Kúblái that reminds us of the greatest prince of that other great Mongol house, Akbar. And if we trusted the first impression of the passage just quoted from Ramusio, we might suppose that the grandson of Chinghiz too had some of that real wistful regard towards the Lord Jesus Christ, of which we seem to see traces in the grandson of Baber. But with Kúblái, as with his predecessors, religion seems to have been only a political matter; and this aspect of the thing will easily be recognised in a re-perusal of his conversation with Messer Nicolas and Messer Maffeo. The Kaan must be obeyed; how man shall worship God is indifferent; this was the constant policy of his house in the days of its greatness. Kúblái, as Koeppen observes, the first of his line to raise himself above the natural and systematic barbarism of the Mongols, probably saw in the promotion of Tibetan Buddhism, already spread to some extent among them, the readiest means of civilising his countrymen. But he may have been quite sincere in saying what is here ascribed to him in this sense, viz.: that if the Latin Church, with its superiority of character and acquirement, had come to his aid as he had once requested, he would gladly have used its missionaries as his civilising instruments instead of the Lamas and their trumpery. (Rubr. 313; Assemani, III. pt. ii. 107; Koeppen, II. 89, 96.)

VII. HOW THE KAAN REWARDED THE VALOUR OF HIS CAPTAINS

So we will have done with this matter of Nayan, and go on with our account of the great state of the Great Kaan.

We have already told you of his lineage and of his age; but now I must tell you what he did after his return, in regard to those barons who had behaved well in the battle. Him who was before captain of 100 he made captain of 1000; and him who was captain of 1000 men he made to be captain of 10,000, advancing every man according to his deserts and to his previous rank. Besides that, he also made them presents of fine silver plate and other rich appointments; gave them Tablets of Authority of a higher degree than they held before; and bestowed upon them fine jewels of gold and silver, and pearls and precious stones; insomuch that the amount that fell to each of them was something astonishing. And yet ’twas not so much as they had deserved; for never were men seen who did such feats of arms for the love and honour of their Lord, as these had done on that day of the battle.{1}

Now those Tablets of Authority, of which I have spoken, are ordered in this way. The officer who is a captain of 100 hath a tablet of silver; the captain of 1000 hath a tablet of gold or silver-gilt; the commander of 10,000 hath a tablet of gold, with a lion’s head on it. And I will tell you the weight of the different tablets, and what they denote. The tablets of the captains of 100 and 1000 weigh each of them 120 saggi; and the tablet with the lion’s head engraven on it, which is that of the commander of 10,000, weighs 220 saggi. And on each of the tablets is inscribed a device, which runs: “By the strength of the great God, and of the great grace which He hath accorded to our Emperor, may the name of the Kaan be blessed; and let all such as will not obey him be slain and be destroyed.” And I will tell you besides that all who hold these tablets likewise receive warrants in writing, declaring all their powers and privileges.

I should mention too that an officer who holds the chief command of 100,000 men, or who is general-in-chief of a great host, is entitled to a tablet that weighs 300 saggi. It has an inscription thereon to the same purport that I have told you already, and below the inscription there is the figure of a lion, and below the lion the sun and moon. They have warrants also of their high rank, command, and power.{2} Every one, moreover, who holds a tablet of this exalted degree is entitled, whenever he goes abroad, to have a little golden canopy, such as is called an umbrella, carried on a spear over his head in token of his high command. And whenever he sits, he sits in a silver chair.{3}

To certain very great lords also there is given a tablet with gerfalcons on it; this is only to the very greatest of the Kaan’s barons, and it confers on them his own full power and authority; so that if one of those chiefs wishes to send a messenger any whither, he can seize the horses of any man, be he even a king, and any other chattels at his pleasure.{4}

NOTE 1.—So Sanang Setzen relates that Chinghiz, on returning from one of his great campaigns, busied himself in reorganising his forces and bestowing rank and title, according to the deserts of each, on his nine Orlok, or marshals, and all who had done good service. “He named commandants over hundreds, over thousands, over ten thousands, over hundred thousands, and opened his treasury to the multitude of the people” (p. 91).

NOTE 2.—We have several times already had mention of these tablets. (See Prologue, ch. viii. and xviii.) The earliest European allusion to them is in Rubruquis: “And Mangu gave to the Moghul (whom he was going to send to the King of France) a bull of his, that is to say, a golden plate of a palm in breadth and half a cubit in length, on which his orders were inscribed. Whosoever is the bearer of that may order what he pleases, and his order shall be executed straightway.”

These golden bulls of the Mongol Kaans appear to have been originally tokens of high favour and honour, though afterwards they became more frequent and conventional. They are often spoken of by the Persian historians of the Mongols under the name of Páïzah, and sometimes Páïzah Sir-i-Sher, or “Lion’s Head Paizah.” Thus, in a firmán of Ghazan Khan, naming a viceroy to his conquests in Syria, the Khan confers on the latter “the sword, the august standard, the drum, and the Lion’s Head Paizah.” Most frequently the grant of this honour is coupled with Yarlígh; “to such an one were granted Yarlígh and Páïzah,” the former word (which is still applied in Turkey to the Sultan’s rescripts) denoting the written patent which accompanies the grant of the tablet, just as the sovereign’s warrant accompanies the badge of a modern Order. Of such written patents also Marco speaks in this passage, and as he uttered it, no doubt the familiar words Yarlígh u Páïzah were in his mind. The Armenian history of the Orpelians, relating the visit of Prince Sempad, brother of King Hayton, to the court of Mangku Kaan, says: “They gave him also a P’haiza of gold, i.e. a tablet whereon the name of God is written by the Great Kaan himself; and this constitutes the greatest honour known among the Mongols. Farther, they drew up for him a sort of patent, which the Mongols call Iarlekh,” etc. The Latin version of a grant by Uzbek Khan of Kipchak to the Venetian Andrea Zeno, in 1333,[1] ends with the words: “Dedimus baisa et privilegium cum bullis rubeis,” where the latter words no doubt represent the Yarlígh al-tamghá, the warrant with the red seal or stamp,[2] as it may be seen upon the letter of Arghun Khan. (See plate at ch. xvii. of Bk. IV.) So also Janibek, the son of Uzbek, in 1344, confers privileges on the Venetians, “eisdem dando baissinum de auro”; and again Bardibeg, son, murderer, and successor of Janibeg, in 1358, writes: “Avemo dado comandamento [i.e. Yarlíg] cum le bolle rosse, et lo paysam.”

Under the Persian branch, at least, of the house the degree of honour was indicated by the number of lions’ heads upon the plate, which varied from 1 to 5. The Lion and Sun, a symbol which survives, or has been revived, in the modern Persian decoration so called, formed the emblem of the Sun in Leo, i.e. in highest power. It had already been used on the coins of the Seljukian sovereigns of Persia and Iconium; it appears on coins of the Mongol Ilkhans Ghazan, Oljaïtu, and Abusaid, and it is also found on some of those of Mahomed Uzbek Khan of Kipchak.

Hammer gives regulations of Ghazan Khan’s on the subject of the Paizah, from which it is seen that the latter were of different kinds as well as degrees. Some were held by great governors and officers of state, and these were cautioned against letting the Paizah out of their own keeping; others were for officers of inferior order; and, again, “for persons travelling on state commissions with post-horses, particular paizah (which Hammer says were of brass) are appointed, on which their names are inscribed.” These last would seem therefore to be merely such permissions to travel by the Government post-horses as are still required in Russia, perhaps in lineal derivation from Mongol practice. The terms of Ghazan’s decree and other contemporary notices show that great abuses were practised with the Paizah, as an authority for living at free quarters and making other arbitrary exactions.

The word Paizah is said to be Chinese, Pai-tseu, “a tablet.” A trace of the name and the thing still survives in Mongolia. The horse-Bai is the name applied to a certain ornament on the horse caparison, which gives the rider a title to be furnished with horses and provisions on a journey.

Where I have used the Venetian term saggio, the French texts have here and elsewhere saics and saies, and sometimes pois. Saic points to saiga, which, according to Dupré de St. Maur, is in the Salic laws the equivalent of a denier or the twelfth part of a sol. Saggio is possibly the same word, or rather may have been confounded with it, but the saggio was a recognised Venetian weight equal to ⅙ of an ounce. We shall see hereafter that Polo appears to use it to indicate the misḳál, a weight which may be taken at 74 grains Troy. On that supposition the smallest tablet specified in the text would weigh 18½ ozs. Troy.

I do not know if any gold Paizah has been discovered, but several of silver have been found in the Russian dominions; one near the Dnieper, and two in Eastern Siberia. The first of our plates represents one of these, which was found in the Minusinsk circle of the Government of Yenisei in 1846, and is now in the Asiatic Museum of the Academy of St. Petersburg. For the sake of better illustration of our text, I have taken the liberty to represent the tablet as of gold, instead of silver with only the inscription gilt. The moulded ring inserted in the orifice, to suspend the plate by, is of iron. On the reverse side the ring bears some Chinese characters engraved, which are interpreted as meaning “Publication No. 42.” The inscription on the plate itself is in the Mongol language and Baspa character (supra, Prologue, note 1, ch. xv.), and its purport is a remarkable testimony to the exactness of Marco’s account, and almost a proof of his knowledge of the language and character in which the inscriptions were engraved. It runs, according to Schmidt’s version: “By the strength of the eternal heaven! May the name of the Khagan be holy! Who pays him not reverence is to be slain, and must die!” The inscriptions on the other plates discovered were essentially similar in meaning. Our second plate shows one of them with the inscription in the Uighúr character.

The superficial dimensions of the Yenisei tablet, as taken from Schmidt’s full-size drawing, are 12·2 in. by 3·65 in. The weight is not given.

In the French texts nothing is said of the size of the tablets. But Ramusio’s copy in the Prologue, where the tables given by Kiacatu are mentioned (supra, p. 35), says that they were a cubit in length and 5 fingers in breadth, and weighed 3 to 4 marks each, i.e. 24 to 32 ounces.

(Dupré de St. Maur, Essai sur les Monnoies, etc., 1746, p. viii.; also (on saiga) see Pertz, Script. XVII. 357; Rubruq. 312; Golden Horde, 219–220, 521; Ilch. II. 166 seqq., 355–356; D’Ohsson, III. 412–413; Q. R. 177–180; Ham. Wassáf, 154, 176; Makrizi, IV. 158; St. Martin, Mém. sur l’Arménie, II. 137, 169; M. Mas Latrie in Bibl. de l’Éc. des Chartes, IV. 585 seqq.; J. As. sér. V. tom. xvii. 536 seqq.; Schmidt, über eine Mongol. Quadratinschrift, etc., Acad. St. P., 1847; Russian paper by Grigorieff on same subject, 1846.)

[“The History tells us (Liao Shih, Bk. LVII. f. 2) that the official silver tablets p’ai tzŭ of the period were 600 in number, about a foot in length, and that they were engraved with an inscription like the above [‘Our imperial order for post horses. Urgent.’] in national characters (kuo tzŭ), and that when there was important state business the Emperor personally handed the tablet to the envoy, which entitled him to demand horses at the post stations, and to be treated as if he were the Emperor himself travelling. When the tablet was marked ‘Urgent,’ he had the right to take private horses, and was required to ride, night and day, 700 li in twenty-four hours. On his return he had to give back the tablet to the Emperor, who handed it to the prince who had the custody of the state tablets and seals.” (Dr. S. W. Bushell, Actes XI. Cong. Int. Orient., Paris, p. 17.)

“The Kin, in the thirteenth century, used badges of office made of silver. They were rectangular, bore the imperial seal, and an inscription indicative of the duty of the bearer. (Chavannes, Voyageurs chez les Khitans, 102.) The Nü-chên at an earlier date used wooden pai-tzŭ tied to each horseman and horse, to distinguish them by. (Ma Tuan-lin, Bk. 327, 11.)” (Rockhill, Rubruck, p. 181, note.)

“Tiger’s tablets—Sinice Hu fu, and p’ai tsze in the common language. The Mongols had them of several kinds, which differed by the metal, of which they were made, as well as by the number of pearls (one, two, or three in number), which were incrusted in the upper part of the tablet. Falcon’s tablets with the figure of a falcon were round, and used to be given only to special couriers and envoys of the Khan. [Yuen shi lui pien and Yuen ch’ao tien chang.] The use of the Hu-fu was adopted by the Mongols probably from the Kin.” (Palladius, l.c. p. 39.)

Rubruquis (Rockhill’s ed. pp. 153–154) says:—“And whenever the principal envoy [of Longa] came to court he carried a highly-polished tablet of ivory about a cubit long and half a palm wide. Every time he spoke to the chan or some great personage, he always looked at that tablet as if he found there what he had to say, nor did he look to the right or the left, nor in the face of him with whom he was talking. Likewise, when coming into the presence of the Lord, and when leaving it, he never looked at anything but his tablet.” Mr. Rockhill observes: “These tablets are called hu in Chinese, and were used in China and Korea; in the latter country down to quite recent times. They were made of jade, ivory, bamboo, etc., according to the rank of the owner, and were about three feet long. The hu was originally used to make memoranda on of the business to be submitted by the bearer to the Emperor or to write the answers to questions he had had submitted to them. Odoric also refers to ‘the tablets of white ivory which the Emperor’s barons held in their hands as they stood silent before him.’”

(Cf. the golden tablets which were of various classes with a tiger for image and pearls for ornaments, Devéria, Epigraphie, p. 15 et seq.) —H. C.]

NOTE 3.—Umbrella. The phrase in Pauthier’s text is “Palieque que on dit ombrel.” The Latin text of the Soc. de Géographie has “unum pallium de auro,” which I have adopted as probably correct, looking to Burma, where the old etiquettes as to umbrellas are in full force. These etiquettes were probably in both countries of old Hindu origin. Pallium, according to Muratori, was applied in the Middle Ages to a kind of square umbrella, by which is probably meant rather a canopy on four staves, which was sometimes assigned by authority as an honourable privilege.

But the genuine umbrella would seem to have been used also, for Polo’s contemporary, Martino da Canale, says that, when the Doge goes forth of his palace, “si vait apres lui un damoiseau qui porte une umbrele de dras à or sur son chief,” which umbrella had been given by “Monseigneur l’Apostoille.” There is a picture by Girolamo Gambarota, in the Sala del Gran Consiglio, at Venice, which represents the investiture of the Doge with the umbrella by Pope Alexander III., and Frederick Barbarossa (concerning which see Sanuto Junior, in Muratori, XXII. 512).

The word Parasol also occurs in the Petrarchian vocabulary, (14th century) as the equivalent of saioual (Pers. sáyában or sáiwán, an umbrella). Carpini notices that umbrellas (solinum vel tentoriolum in hastâ) were carried over the Tartar nobles and their wives, even on horseback; and a splendid one, covered with jewels, was one of the presents made to Kuyuk Kaan on his enthronement.

With respect to the honorary character attaching to umbrellas in China, I may notice that recently an English resident of Ningpo, on his departure for Europe, was presented by the Chinese citizens, as a token of honour, with a pair of Wan min sàn, umbrellas of enormous size.

The umbrella must have gone through some curious vicissitudes; for at one time we find it familiar, at a later date apparently unknown, and then reintroduced as some strange novelty. Arrian speaks of the σκιάδια, or umbrellas, as used by all Indians of any consideration; but the thing of which he spoke was familiar to the use of Greek and Roman ladies, and many examples of it, borne by slaves behind their mistresses, are found on ancient vase-paintings. Athenaeus quotes from Anacreon the description of a “beggar on horseback” who

“like a woman bears An ivory parasol over his delicate head.”

An Indian prince, in a Sanskrit inscription of the 9th century, boasts of having wrested from the King of Márwár the two umbrellas pleasing to Parvati, and white as the summer moonbeams. Prithi Ráj, the last Hindu king of Delhi, is depicted by the poet Chand as shaded by a white umbrella on a golden staff. An unmistakable umbrella, copied from a Saxon MS. in the Harleian collection, is engraved in Wright’s History of Domestic Manners, p. 75. The fact that the gold umbrella is one of the paraphernalia of high church dignitaries in Italy seems to presume acquaintance with the thing from a remote period. A decorated umbrella also accompanies the host when sent out to the sick, at least where I write, in Palermo. Ibn Batuta says that in his time all the people of Constantinople, civil and military, great and small, carried great umbrellas over their heads, summer and winter. Ducange quotes, from a MS. of the Paris Library, the Byzantine court regulations about umbrellas, which are of the genuine Pan-Asiatic spirit;—σκιάδια χρυσοκóκκινα extend from the Hypersebastus to the grand Stratopedarchus, and so on; exactly as used to be the case, with different titles, in Java. And yet it is curious that John Marignolli, Ibn Batuta’s contemporary in the middle of the 14th century, and Barbosa in the 16th century, are alike at pains to describe the umbrella as some strange object. And in our own country it is commonly stated that the umbrella was first used in the last century, and that Jonas Hanway (died 1786) was one of the first persons who made a practice of carrying one. The word umbrello is, however, in Minsheu’s dictionary. [See Hobson-Jobson, s.v. Umbrella.—H. C.]

(Murat. Dissert. II. 229; Archiv. Storic. Ital. VIII. 274, 560; Klapr. Mém. III.; Carp. 759; N. and Q., C. and J. II. 180; Arrian, Indica, XVI.; Smith’s Dict., G. and R. Ant., s.v. umbraculum; J. R. A. S. v. 351; Rás Mála, I. 221; I. B. II. 440; Cathay, 381; Ramus. I. f. 301.)

Alexander, according to Athenaeus, feasted his captains to the number of 6000, and made them all sit upon silver chairs. The same author relates that the King of Persia, among other rich presents, bestowed upon Entimus the Gortynian, who went up to the king in imitation of Themistocles, a silver chair and a gilt umbrella. (Bk. I. Epit. ch. 31, and II. 31.)

The silver chair has come down to our own day in India, and is much affected by native princes.

NOTE 4.—I have not been able to find any allusion, except in our author, to tablets, with gerfalcons (shonḳár). The shonḳár appears, however, according to Erdmann, on certain coins of the Golden Horde, struck at Sarai.

There is a passage from Wassáf used by Hammer, in whose words it runs that the Sayad Imámuddín, appointed (A.D. 683) governor of Shiraz by Arghun Khan, “was invested with both the Mongol symbols of delegated sovereignty, the Golden Lion’s Head, and the golden Cat’s Head.” It would certainly have been more satisfactory to find “Gerfalcon’s Head” in lieu of the latter; but it is probable that the same object is meant. The cut below exhibits the conventional effigy of a gerfalcon as sculptured over one of the gates of Iconium, Polo’s Conia. The head might easily pass for a conventional representation of a cat’s head, and is indeed strikingly like the grotesque representation that bears that name in mediæval architecture. (Erdmann, Numi Asiatici, I. 339; Ilch. I. 370.)

---------------------------------------------------------------------- [1] “In anno Simiae, octavâ lunâ, die quarto exeunte, juxta fluvium Cobam (the Ḳuban), apud Ripam Rubeam existentes scripsimus.” The original was in linguâ Persaycâ.

[2] See Golden Horde, p. 218.Return to passage

VIII. CONCERNING THE PERSON OF THE GREAT KAAN

The personal appearance of the Great Kaan, Lord of Lords, whose name is Cublay, is such as I shall now tell you. He is of a good stature, neither tall nor short, but of a middle height. He has a becoming amount of flesh, and is very shapely in all his limbs. His complexion is white and red, the eyes black and fine,{1} the nose well formed and well set on. He has four wives, whom he retains permanently as his legitimate consorts; and the eldest of his sons by those four wives ought by rights to be emperor;—I mean when his father dies. Those four ladies are called empresses, but each is distinguished also by her proper name. And each of them has a special court of her own, very grand and ample; no one of them having fewer than 300 fair and charming damsels. They have also many pages and eunuchs, and a number of other attendants of both sexes; so that each of these ladies has not less than 10,000 persons attached to her court.{2}

When the Emperor desires the society of one of these four consorts, he will sometimes send for the lady to his apartment and sometimes visit her at her own. He has also a great number of concubines, and I will tell you how he obtains them.

You must know that there is a tribe of Tartars called UNGRAT, who are noted for their beauty. Now every year an hundred of the most beautiful maidens of this tribe are sent to the Great Kaan, who commits them to the charge of certain elderly ladies dwelling in his palace. And these old ladies make the girls sleep with them, in order to ascertain if they have sweet breath [and do not snore], and are sound in all their limbs. Then such of them as are of approved beauty, and are good and sound in all respects, are appointed to attend on the Emperor by turns. Thus six of these damsels take their turn for three days and nights, and wait on him when he is in his chamber and when he is in his bed, to serve him in any way, and to be entirely at his orders. At the end of the three days and nights they are relieved by other six. And so throughout the year, there are reliefs of maidens by six and six, changing every three days and nights.{3}

NOTE 1.—We are left in some doubt as to the colour of Kúblái’s eyes, for some of the MSS. read vairs and voirs, and others noirs. The former is a very common epithet for eyes in the mediæval romances. And in the ballad on the death of St. Lewis, we are told of his son Tristram:—

“Droiz fu comme un rosel, iex vairs comme faucon, Dès le tens Moysel ne nasqui sa façon.”

The word has generally been interpreted bluish-grey, but in the passage just quoted, Fr.-Michel explains it by brillans. However, the evidence for noirs here seems strongest. Rashiduddin says that when Kúblái was born Chinghiz expressed surprise at the child’s being so brown, as its father and all his other sons were fair. Indeed, we are told that the descendants of Yesugai (the father of Chinghiz) were in general distinguished by blue eyes and reddish hair. (Michel’s Joinville, p. 324; D’Ohsson, II. 475; Erdmann, 252.)

NOTE 2.—According to Hammer’s authority (Rashid?) Kúblái had seven wives; Gaubil’s Chinese sources assign him five, with the title of empress (Hwang-heu). Of these the best beloved was the beautiful Jamúi Khátún (Lady or Empress Jamúi, illustrating what the text says of the manner of styling these ladies), who bore him four sons and five daughters. Rashiduddin adds that she was called Ḳún Ḳú, or the great consort, evidently the term Hwang-heu. (Gen. Tables in Hammer’s Ilkhans; Gaubil, 223; Erdmann, 200.)

[“Kúblái’s four wives, i.e. the empresses of the first, second, third, and fourth ordos. Ordo is, properly speaking, a separate palace of the Khan, under the management of one of his wives. Chinese authors translate therefore the word ordo by ‘harem.’ The four Ordo established by Chingis Khan were destined for the empresses, who were chosen out of four different nomad tribes. During the reign of the first four Khans, who lived in Mongolia, the four ordo were considerably distant one from another, and the Khans visited them in different seasons of the year; they existed nominally as long as China remained under Mongol domination. The custom of choosing the empress out of certain tribes, was in the course of time set aside by the Khans. The empress, wife of the last Mongol Khan in China, was a Corean princess by birth; and she contributed in a great measure to the downfall of the Mongol Dynasty.” (Palladius, 40.)

I do not believe that Rashiduddin’s Kún Kú is the term Hwang-keu; it is the term Kiūn Chu, King or Queen, a sovereign.—H. C.]

NOTE 3.—Ungrat, the reading of the Crusca, seems to be that to which the others point, and I doubt not that it represents the great Mongol tribe of ḲUNGURAT, which gave more wives than any other to the princes of the house of Chinghiz; a conclusion in which I find I have been anticipated by De Mailla or his editor (IX. 426). To this tribe (which, according to Vámbéry, took its name from (Turki) Kongur-At, “Chestnut Horse”) belonged Burteh Fujin, the favourite wife of Chinghiz himself, and mother of his four heirs; to the same tribe belonged the two wives of Chagatai, two of Hulaku’s seven wives, one of Mangku Kaan’s, two at least of Kúblái’s including the beloved Jamúi Khátún, one at least of Abaka’s, two of Ahmed Tigudar’s, two of Arghun’s, and two of Ghazan’s.

The seat of the Ḳungurats was near the Great Wall. Their name is still applied to one of the tribes of the Uzbeks of Western Turkestan, whose body appears to have been made up of fractions of many of the Turk and Mongol tribes. Kungurat is also the name of a town of Khiva, near the Sea of Aral, perhaps borrowed from the Uzbek clan.

The conversion of Ḳungurat into Ungrat is due, I suppose, to that Mongol tendency to soften gutturals which has been before noticed. (Erdm. 199–200; Hammer, passim; Burnes, III. 143, 225.)

The Ramusian version adds here these curious and apparently genuine particulars:—

“The Great Kaan sends his commissioners to the Province to select four or five hundred, or whatever number may be ordered, of the most beautiful young women, according to the scale of beauty enjoined upon them. And they set a value upon the comparative beauty of the damsels in this way. The commissioners on arriving assemble all the girls of the province, in presence of appraisers appointed for the purpose. These carefully survey the points of each girl in succession, as (for example) her hair, her complexion, eyebrows, mouth, lips, and the proportion of all her limbs. They will then set down some as estimated at 16 carats, some at 17, 18, 20, or more or less, according to the sum of the beauties or defects of each. And whatever standard the Great Kaan may have fixed for those that are to be brought to him, whether it be 20 carats or 21, the commissioners select the required number from those who have attained that standard, and bring them to him. And when they reach his presence he has them appraised anew by other parties, and has a selection made of 30 or 40 of those, who then get the highest valuation.”

Marsden and Murray miss the meaning of this curious statement in a surprising manner, supposing the carat to represent some absolute value, 4 grains of gold according to the former, whence the damsel of 20 carats was estimated at 13_s._ 4_d._! This is sad nonsense; but Marsden would not have made the mistake had he not been fortunate enough to live before the introduction of Competitive Examinations. This Kungurat business was in fact a competitive examination in beauty; total marks attainable 24; no candidate to pass who did not get 20 or 21. Carat expresses n ÷ 24, not any absolute value.

Apart from the mode of valuation, it appears that a like system of selection was continued by the Ming, and that some such selection from the daughters of the Manchu nobles has been maintained till recent times. Herodotus tells that the like custom prevailed among the Adyrmachidae, the Libyan tribe next Egypt. Old Eden too relates it of the “Princes of Moscovia.” (Middle Km. I. 318; Herod. IV. 168, Rawl.; Notes on Russia, Hak. Soc. II. 253.)

IX. CONCERNING THE GREAT KAAN’S SONS

The Emperor hath, by those four wives of his, twenty-two male children; the eldest of whom was called CHINKIN for the love of the good Chinghis Kaan, the first Lord of the Tartars. And this Chinkin, as the Eldest Son of the Kaan, was to have reigned after his father’s death; but, as it came to pass, he died. He left a son behind him, however, whose name is TEMUR, and he is to be the Great Kaan and Emperor after the death of his Grandfather, as is but right; he being the child of the Great Kaan’s eldest son. And this Temur is an able and brave man, as he hath already proven on many occasions.{1}

The Great Kaan hath also twenty-five other sons by his concubines; and these are good and valiant soldiers, and each of them is a great chief. I tell you moreover that of his children by his four lawful wives there are seven who are kings of vast realms or provinces, and govern them well; being all able and gallant men, as might be expected. For the Great Kaan their sire is, I tell you, the wisest and most accomplished man, the greatest Captain, the best to govern men and rule an Empire, as well as the most valiant, that ever has existed among all the Tribes of Tartars.{2}

NOTE 1.—Kúblái had a son older than CHIMKIN or CHINGKIM, to whom Hammer’s Genealogical Table gives the name of Jurji, and attributes a son called Ananda. The Chinese authorities of Gaubil and Pauthier call him Turchi or Torchi, i.e. Dorjé, “Noble Stone,” the Tibetan name of a sacred Buddhist emblem in the form of a dumb-bell, representing the Vajra or Thunderbolt. Probably Dorjé died early, as in the passage we shall quote from Wassáf also Chingkim is styled the Eldest Son: Marco is probably wrong in connecting the name of the latter with that of Chinghiz. Schmidt says that he does not know what Chingkim means.

[Mr. Parker says that Chen kim was the third son of Kúblái (China Review, xxiv. p. 94). Teimur, son of Chen kim, wore the temple name (miao-hao) of Ch’êng Tsung and the title of reign (nien-hao) of Yuen Chêng and Ta Téh.—H. C.]

Chingkim died in the 12th moon of 1284–1285, aged 43. He had received a Chinese education, and the Chinese Annals ascribe to him all the virtues which so often pertain in history to heirs apparent who have not reigned.

“When Kúblái approached his 70th year,” says Wassáf, “he desired to raise his eldest son Chimkin to the position of his representative and declared successor, during his own lifetime; so he took counsel with the chiefs, in view to giving the Prince a share of his authority and a place on the Imperial Throne. The chiefs, who are the Pillars of Majesty and Props of the Empire, represented that His Majesty’s proposal to invest his Son, during his own lifetime, with Imperial authority, was not in accordance with the precedents and Institutes (Yasa) of the World-conquering Padshah Chinghiz Khan; but still they would consent to execute a solemn document, securing the Kaanship to Chimkin, and pledging themselves to lifelong obedience and allegiance to him. It was, however, the Divine Fiat that the intended successor should predecease him who bestowed the nomination.... The dignitaries of the Empire then united their voices in favour of TEIMUR, the son of Chimkin.”

Teimur, according to the same authority, was the third son of Chimkin; but the eldest, Kambala, squinted; the second, Tarmah (properly Tarmabala for Dharmaphala, a Buddhist Sanskrit name) was rickety in constitution; and on the death of the old Kaan (1294) Teimur was unanimously named to the Throne, after some opposition from Kambala, which was put down by the decided bearing of the great soldier Bayan. (Schmidt, p. 399; De Mailla, IX. 424; Gaubil, 203; Wassáf, 46.)

[The Rev. W. S. Ament (Marco Polo in Cambaluc, p. 106), makes the following remarks regarding this young prince (Chimkin): “The historians give good reasons for their regard for Chen Chin. He had from early years exhibited great promise and had shown great proficiency in the military art, in government, history, mathematics, and the Chinese classics. He was well acquainted with the condition and numbers of the inhabitants of Mongolia and China, and with the topography and commerce of the Empire (Howorth). He was much beloved by all, except by some of his father’s own ministers, whose lives were anything but exemplary. That Kúblái had full confidence in his son is shown by the fact that he put the collecting of taxes in his hands. The native historians represent him as economical in the use of money and wise in the choice of companions. He carefully watched the officers in his charge, and would tolerate no extortion of the people. After droughts, famines or floods, he would enquire into the condition of the people and liberally supply their needs, thus starting them in life again. Polo ascribes all these virtues to the Khan himself. Doubtless he possessed them in greater or less degree, but father and son were one in all these benevolent enterprises.”—H. C.]

NOTE 2.—The Chinese Annals, according to Pauthier and Gaubil, give only ten sons to Kúblái, at least by his legitimate wives; Hammer’s Table gives twelve. It is very probable that xxii. was an early clerical error in the texts of Polo for xii. Dodeci indeed occurs in one MS. (No. 37 of our Appendix F), though not one of much weight.

Of these legitimate sons Polo mentions, in different parts of his work, five by name. The following is the list from Hammer and D’Ohsson, with the Chinese forms from Pauthier in parentheses. The seven whose names are in capitals had the title of Wang or “King” of particular territories, as M. Pauthier has shown from the Chinese Annals, thus confirming Marco’s accuracy on that point.

I. Jurji or Dorjé (Torchi). II. CHIMKIN or CHINGKIM (Yu Tsung, King of Yen, i.e. Old Peking). III. MANGALAI (Mankola, “King of the Pacified West”), mentioned by Polo (infra, ch. xli.) as King of Kenjanfu or Shensi. IV. NUMUGAN (Numukan, “Pacifying King of the North”), mentioned by Polo (Bk. IV. ch. ii.) as with King George joint leader of the Kaan’s army against Kaidu. V. Kuridai (not in Chinese List). VI. HUKAJI (Hukochi, “King of Yunnan”), mentioned by Polo (infra, ch. xlix.) as King of Carajan. VII. AGHRUKJI or UKURUJI (Gaoluchi, “King of Siping” or Tibet). VIII. Abaji (Gaiyachi?). IX. KUKJU or GEUKJU (Khokhochu, “King of Ning” or Tangut). X. Kutuktemur (Hutulu Temurh). XI. TUKAN (Thohoan, “King of Chinnan”). His command lay on the Tungking frontier, where he came to great grief in 1288, in consequence of which he was disgraced. (See Cathay, p. 272.) XII. Temkan (not in Chinese List). Gaubil’s Chinese List omits Hutulu Temurh, and introduces a prince called Gantanpouhoa as 4th son.

M. Pauthier lays great stress on Polo’s intimate knowledge of the Imperial affairs (p. 263) because he knew the name of the Hereditary Prince to be Teimur; this being, he says, the private name which could not be known until after the owner’s death, except by those in the most confidential intimacy. The public only then discovered that, like the Irishman’s dog, his real name was Turk, though he had always been called Toby! But M. Pauthier’s learning has misled him. At least the secret must have been very badly kept, for it was known in Teimur’s lifetime not only to Marco, but to Rashiduddin in Persia, and to Hayton in Armenia; to say nothing of the circumstance that the name Temur Khaghan is also used during that Emperor’s life by Oljaitu Khan of Persia in writing to the King of France a letter which M. Pauthier himself republished and commented upon. (See his book, p. 780.)

X. CONCERNING THE PALACE OF THE GREAT KAAN

You must know that for three months of the year, to wit December, January, and February, the Great Kaan resides in the capital city of Cathay, which is called CAMBALUC, [and which is at the north-eastern extremity of the country]. In that city stands his great Palace, and now I will tell you what it is like.

It is enclosed all round by a great wall forming a square, each side of which is a mile in length; that is to say, the whole compass thereof is four miles. This you may depend on; it is also very thick, and a good ten paces in height, whitewashed and loop-holed all round.{1} At each angle of the wall there is a very fine and rich palace in which the war-harness of the Emperor is kept, such as bows and quivers,{2} saddles and bridles, and bowstrings, and everything needful for an army. Also midway between every two of these Corner Palaces there is another of the like; so that taking the whole compass of the enclosure you find eight vast Palaces stored with the Great Lord’s harness of war.{3} And you must understand that each Palace is assigned to only one kind of article; thus one is stored with bows, a second with saddles, a third with bridles, and so on in succession right round.{4}

The great wall has five gates on its southern face, the middle one being the great gate which is never opened on any occasion except when the Great Kaan himself goes forth or enters. Close on either side of this great gate is a smaller one by which all other people pass; and then towards each angle is another great gate, also open to people in general; so that on that side there are five gates in all.{5}

Inside of this wall there is a second, enclosing a space that is somewhat greater in length than in breadth. This enclosure also has eight palaces corresponding to those of the outer wall, and stored like them with the Lord’s harness of war. This wall also hath five gates on the southern face, corresponding to those in the outer wall, and hath one gate on each of the other faces, as the outer wall hath also. In the middle of the second enclosure is the Lord’s Great Palace, and I will tell you what it is like.{6}

You must know that it is the greatest Palace that ever was. [Towards the north it is in contact with the outer wall, whilst towards the south there is a vacant space which the Barons and the soldiers are constantly traversing.{7} The Palace itself] hath no upper story, but is all on the ground floor, only the basement is raised some ten palms above the surrounding soil [and this elevation is retained by a wall of marble raised to the level of the pavement, two paces in width and projecting beyond the base of the Palace so as to form a kind of terrace-walk, by which people can pass round the building, and which is exposed to view, whilst on the outer edge of the wall there is a very fine pillared balustrade; and up to this the people are allowed to come]. The roof is very lofty, and the walls of the Palace are all covered with gold and silver. They are also adorned with representations of dragons [sculptured and gilt], beasts and birds, knights and idols, and sundry other subjects. And on the ceiling too you see nothing but gold and silver and painting. [On each of the four sides there is a great marble staircase leading to the top of the marble wall, and forming the approach to the Palace.]{8}

The Hall of the Palace is so large that it could easily dine 6000 people; and it is quite a marvel to see how many rooms there are besides. The building is altogether so vast, so rich, and so beautiful, that no man on earth could design anything superior to it. The outside of the roof also is all coloured with vermilion and yellow and green and blue and other hues, which are fixed with a varnish so fine and exquisite that they shine like crystal, and lend a resplendent lustre to the Palace as seen for a great way round.{9} This roof is made too with such strength and solidity that it is fit to last for ever.

[On the interior side of the Palace are large buildings with halls and chambers, where the Emperor’s private property is placed, such as his treasures of gold, silver, gems, pearls, and gold plate, and in which reside the ladies and concubines. There he occupies himself at his own convenience, and no one else has access.]

Between the two walls of the enclosure which I have described, there are fine parks and beautiful trees bearing a variety of fruits. There are beasts also of sundry kinds, such as white stags and fallow deer, gazelles and roebucks, and fine squirrels of various sorts, with numbers also of the animal that gives the musk, and all manner of other beautiful creatures,{10} insomuch that the whole place is full of them, and no spot remains void except where there is traffic of people going and coming. [The parks are covered with abundant grass; and the roads through them being all paved and raised two cubits above the surface, they never become muddy, nor does the rain lodge on them, but flows off into the meadows, quickening the soil and producing that abundance of herbage.]

From that corner of the enclosure which is towards the north-west there extends a fine Lake, containing foison of fish of different kinds which the Emperor hath caused to be put in there, so that whenever he desires any he can have them at his pleasure. A river enters this lake and issues from it, but there is a grating of iron or brass put up so that the fish cannot escape in that way.{11}

Moreover on the north side of the Palace, about a bow-shot off, there is a hill which has been made by art [from the earth dug out of the lake]; it is a good hundred paces in height and a mile in compass. This hill is entirely covered with trees that never lose their leaves, but remain ever green. And I assure you that wherever a beautiful tree may exist, and the Emperor gets news of it, he sends for it and has it transported bodily with all its roots and the earth attached to them, and planted on that hill of his. No matter how big the tree may be, he gets it carried by his elephants; and in this way he has got together the most beautiful collection of trees in all the world. And he has also caused the whole hill to be covered with the ore of azure,{12} which is very green. And thus not only are the trees all green, but the hill itself is all green likewise; and there is nothing to be seen on it that is not green; and hence it is called the GREEN MOUNT; and in good sooth ’tis named well.{13}

On the top of the hill again there is a fine big palace which is all green inside and out; and thus the hill, and the trees, and the palace form together a charming spectacle; and it is marvellous to see their uniformity of colour! Everybody who sees them is delighted. And the Great Kaan had caused this beautiful prospect to be formed for the comfort and solace and delectation of his heart.

You must know that beside the Palace (that we have been describing), i.e. the Great Palace, the Emperor has caused another to be built just like his own in every respect, and this he hath done for his son when he shall reign and be Emperor after him.{14} Hence it is made just in the same fashion and of the same size, so that everything can be carried on in the same manner after his own death. [It stands on the other side of the lake from the Great Kaan’s Palace, and there is a bridge crossing the water from one to the other.]{15} The Prince in question holds now a Seal of Empire, but not with such complete authority as the Great Kaan, who remains supreme as long as he lives.

Now I am going to tell you of the chief city of Cathay, in which these Palaces stand; and why it was built, and how.

NOTE 1.—[According to the Ch’ue keng lu, translated by Bretschneider, 25, “the wall surrounding the palace ... is constructed of bricks, and is 35 ch’i in height. The construction was begun in A.D. 1271, on the 17th of the 8th month, between three and five o’clock in the afternoon, and finished next year on the 15th of the 3rd month.”—H. C.]

NOTE 2.—Tarcasci (G. T.). This word is worthy of note as the proper form of what has become in modern French carquois. The former is a transcript of the Persian Tărkăsh; the latter appears to be merely a corruption of it, arising perhaps clerically from the constant confusion of c and t in MSS. (See Defrémery, quoted by Pauthier, in loco.) [Old French tarquais (13th century), Hatzfeldt and Darmesteter’s Dict. gives; “Coivres orent ceinz et tarchais.” (WACE, Rou, III., 7698; 12th century).]

NOTE 3.—[“It seems to me [Dr. Bretschneider] that Polo took the towers, mentioned by the Chinese author, in the angles of the galleries and of the Kung-ch’eng for palaces; for further on he states, that ‘over each gate [of Cambaluc] there is a great and handsome palace.’ I have little doubt that over the gates of Cambaluc, stood lofty buildings similar to those over the gates of modern Peking. These tower-like buildings are called lou by the Chinese. It may be very likely, that at the time of Marco Polo, the war harness of the Khan was stored in these towers of the palace wall. The author of the Ch’ue keng lu, who wrote more than fifty years later, assigns to it another place.” (Bretschneider, Peking, 32.) —H. C.]

NOTE 4.—The stores are now outside the walls of the “Prohibited City,” corresponding to Polo’s Palace-Wall, but within the walls of the “Imperial City.” (Middle Kingdom, I. 61.) See the cut at p. 376.

NOTE 5.—The two gates near the corners apparently do not exist in the Palace now. “On the south side there are three gates to the Palace, both in the inner and the outer walls. The middle one is absolutely reserved for the entrance or exit of the Emperor; all other people pass in and out by the gate to the right or left of it.” (Trigautius, Bk. I. ch. vii.) This custom is not in China peculiar to Royalty. In private houses it is usual to have three doors leading from the court to the guest-rooms, and there is a great exercise of politeness in reference to these; the guest after much pressing is prevailed on to enter the middle door, whilst the host enters by the side. (See Deguignes, Voyages, I. 262.) [See also H. Cordier’s Hist. des Relat. de la Chine, III. ch. x. Audience Impériale.]

[“It seems Polo took the three gateways in the middle gate (Ta-ming men) for three gates, and thus speaks of five gates instead of three in the southern wall.” (Bretschneider, Peking, 27, note.)—H. C.]

NOTE 6.—Ramusio’s version here diverges from the old MSS. It makes the inner enclosure a mile square; and the second (the city of Taidu) six miles square, as here, but adds, at a mile interval, a third of eight miles square. Now it is remarkable that Mr. A. Wylie, in a letter dated 4th December 1873, speaking of a recent visit to Peking, says: “I found from various inquiries that there are several remains of a very much larger city wall, inclosing the present city; but time would not allow me to follow up the traces.”

Pauthier’s text (which I have corrected by the G. T.), after describing the outer inclosure to be a mile every way, says that the inner inclosure lay at an interval of a mile within it!

[Dr. Bretschneider observes “that in the ancient Chinese works, three concentric inclosures are mentioned in connection with the palace. The innermost inclosed the Ta-nei, the middle inclosure, called Kung-ch’eng or Huang-ch’eng, answering to the wall surrounding the present prohibited city, and was about 6 li in circuit. Besides this there was an outer wall (a rampart apparently) 20 li in circuit, answering to the wall of the present imperial city (which now has 18 li in circuit).” The Huang-ch’eng of the Yuen was measured by imperial order, and found to be 7 li in circuit; the wall of the Mongol palace was 6 li in circuit, according to the Ch’ue keng lu. (Bretschneider, Peking, 24.)—Marco Polo’s mile could be approximately estimated = 2·77 Chinese li. (Ibid. 24, note.) The common Chinese li = 360 pu, or 180 chang, or 1800 ch’i (feet); 1 li = 1894 English feet or 575 mètres; at least according to the old Venice measures quoted in Yule’s Marco Polo, II., one pace = 5 feet. Besides the common li, the Chinese have another li, used for measuring fields, which has only 240 pu or 1200 ch’i. This is the li spoken of in the Ch’ue keng lu. (Ibid. 13, note.)—H. C.]

NOTE 7.—[“Near the southern face of the wall are barracks for the Life Guards.” (Ch’ue keng lu, translated by Bretschneider, 25.)—H. C.]

NOTE 8.—This description of palace (see opposite cut), an elevated basement of masonry with a superstructure of timber (in general carved and gilded), is still found in Burma, Siam, and Java, as well as in China. If we had any trace of the palaces of the ancient Asokas and Vikramadityas of India, we should probably find that they were of the same character. It seems to be one of those things that belonged to some ancient Panasiatic fashion, as the palaces of Nineveh were of a somewhat similar construction. In the Audience Halls of the Moguls at Delhi and Agra we can trace the ancient form, though the superstructure has there become an arcade of marble instead of a pavilion on timber columns.

[“The Ta-ming tien (Hall of great brightness) is without doubt what Marco Polo calls ‘the Lord’s Great Palace.’... He states, that it ‘hath no upper story’; and indeed, the palace buildings which the Chinese call tien are always of one story. Polo speaks also of a ‘very fine pillared balustrade’ (the chu lang, pillared verandah, of the Chinese author). Marco Polo states that the basement of the great palace ‘is raised some ten palms above the surrounding soil.’ We find in the Ku kung i lu: ‘The basement of the Ta-ming tien is raised about 10 ch’i above the soil.’ There can also be no doubt that the Ta-ming tien stood at about the same place where now the T’ai-ho tien, the principal hall of the palace, is situated.” (Bretschneider, Peking, 28, note.)

The Ch’ue keng lu, translated by Bretschneider, 25, contains long articles devoted to the description of the palace of the Mongols and the adjacent palace grounds. They are too long to be reproduced here.—H. C.]

NOTE 9.—“As all that one sees of these palaces is varnished in those colours, when you catch a distant view of them at sunrise, as I have done many a time, you would think them all made of, or at least covered with, pure gold enamelled in azure and green, so that the spectacle is at once majestic and charming.” (Magaillans, p. 353.)

NOTE 10.—[This is the Ling yu or “Divine Park,” to the east of the Wan-sui shan, “in which rare birds and beasts are kept. Before the Emperor goes to Shangtu, the officers are accustomed to be entertained at this place.” (Ch’ue keng lu, quoted by Bretschneider, 36.)—H. C.]

NOTE 11.—“On the west side, where the space is amplest, there is a lake very full of fish. It is in the form of a fiddle, and is an Italian mile and a quarter in length. It is crossed at the narrowest part, which corresponds to gates in the walls, by a handsome bridge, the extremities of which are adorned by two triumphal arches of three openings each.... The lake is surrounded by palaces and pleasure houses, built partly in the water and partly on shore, and charming boats are provided on it for the use of the Emperor when he chooses to go a-fishing or to take an airing.” (Ibid. 282–283.) The marble bridge, as it now exists, consists of nine arches, and is 600 feet long. (Rennie’s Peking, II. 57.)

Ramusio specifies another lake in the city, fed by the same stream before it enters the palace, and used by the public for watering cattle.

[“The lake which Marco Polo saw is the same as the T’ai-yi ch’i of our days. It has, however, changed a little in its form. This lake and also its name T’ai-yi ch’i date from the twelfth century, at which time an Emperor of the Kin first gave orders to collect together the water of some springs in the hills, where now the summer palaces stand, and to conduct it to a place north of his capital, where pleasure gardens were laid out. The river which enters the lake and issues from it exists still, under its ancient name Kin-shui.” (Bretschneider, Peking, 34.)—H. C.]

NOTE 12.—The expression here is in the Geog. Text, “Roze de l’açur,” and in Pauthier’s “de rose et de l’asur.” Rose Minerale, in the terminology of the alchemists, was a red powder produced in the sublimation of gold and mercury, but I can find no elucidation of the term Rose of Azure. The Crusca Italian has in the same place Terra dello Azzurro. Having ventured to refer the question to the high authority of Mr. C. W. King, he expresses the opinion that Roze here stands for Roche, and that probably the term Roche de l’azur may have been used loosely for blue-stone, i.e. carbonate of copper, which would assume a green colour through moisture. He adds: “Nero, according to Pliny, actually used chrysocolla, the siliceous carbonate of copper, in powder, for strewing the circus, to give the course the colour of his favourite faction, the prasine (or green). There may be some analogy between this device and that of Kúblái Khan.” This parallel is a very happy one.

NOTE 13.—Friar Odoric gives a description, short, but closely agreeing in substance with that in the Text, of the Palace, the Park, the Lake, and the Green Mount.

A green mount, answering to the description, and about 160 feet in height, stands immediately in rear of the palace buildings. It is called by the Chinese King-Shan, “Court Mountain,” Wan-su-Shan, “Ten Thousand Year Mount,” and Mei-Shan, “Coal Mount,” the last from the material of which it is traditionally said to be composed (as a provision of fuel in case of siege).[1] Whether this is Kúblái’s Green Mount does not seem to be quite certain. Dr. Lockhart tells me that, according to the information he collected when living at Peking, it is not so, but was formed by the Ming Emperors from the excavation of the existing lake on the site which the Mongol Palace had occupied. There is another mount, he adds, adjoining the east shore of the lake, which must be of older date even than Kúblái, for a Dagoba standing on it is ascribed to the Kin.

[The “Green Mount” was an island called K’iung-hua at the time of the Kin; in 1271 it received the name of Wan-sui shan; it is about 100 feet in height, and is the only hill mentioned by Chinese writers of the Mongol time who refer to the palace grounds. It is not the present King-shan, north of the palace, called also Wan-sui-shan under the Ming, and now the Mei-shan, of more recent formation. “I have no doubt,” says Bretschneider (Peking, l.c. 35), “that Marco Polo’s handsome palace on the top of the Green Mount is the same as the Kuang-han tien” of the Ch’ue keng lu. It was a hall in which there was a jar of black jade, big enough to hold more than 30 piculs of wine; this jade had white veins, and in accordance with these veins, fish and animals have been carved on the jar. (Ibid. 35.) “The Ku kung i lu, in describing the Wan-sui-shan, praises the beautiful shady green of the vegetation there.” (Ibid. 37.) —H. C.]

[“Near the eastern end of the bridge (Kin-ao yü-tung which crosses the lake) the visitor sees a circular wall, which is called yüan ch’eng (round wall). It is about 350 paces in circuit. Within it is an imperial building Ch’eng-kuang tien, dating from the Mongol time. From this circular enclosure, another long and beautifully executed marble bridge leads northwards, to a charming hill, covered with shady trees, and capped by a magnificent white suburga.” (Bretschneider, p. 22.)—H. C.]

In a plate attached to next chapter, I have drawn, on a small scale, the existing cities of Peking, as compared with the Mongol and Chinese cities in the time of Kúblái. The plan of the latter has been constructed (1) from existing traces, as exhibited in the Russian Survey republished by our War Office; (2) from information kindly afforded by Dr. Lockhart; and (3) from Polo’s description and a few slight notices by Gaubil and others. It will be seen, even on the small scale of these plans, that the general arrangement of the palace, the park, the lakes (including that in the city, which appears in Ramusio’s version), the bridge, the mount, etc., in the existing Peking, very closely correspond with Polo’s indications; and I think the strong probability is that the Ming really built on the old traces, and that the lake, mount, etc., as they now stand, are substantially those of the Great Mongol, though Chinese policy or patriotism may have spread the belief that the foreign traces were obliterated. Indeed, if that belief were true, the Mongol Palace must have been very much out of the axis of the City of Kúblái, which is in the highest degree improbable. The Bulletin de la Soc. de Géographie for September 1873, contains a paper on Peking by the physician to the French Embassy there. Whatever may be the worth of the meteorological and hygienic details in that paper, I am bound to say that the historical and topographical part is so inaccurate as to be of no value.

NOTE 14.—For son, read grandson. But the G. T. actually names the Emperor’s son Chingkim, whose death our traveller has himself already mentioned.

NOTE 15.—[“Marco Polo’s bridge, crossing the lake from one side to the other, must be identified with the wooden bridge mentioned in the Ch’ue keng lu. The present marble bridge spanning the lake was only built in 1392.” “A marble bridge connects this island (an islet with the hall I-t’ien tien) with the Wan-sui shan. Another bridge, made of wood, 120 ch’i long and 22 broad, leads eastward to the wall of the Imperial Palace. A third bridge, a wooden draw-bridge 470 ch’i long, stretches to the west over the lake to its western border, where the palace Hing-sheng kung [built in 1308] stands.” (Bretschneider, Peking, 36.)—H. C.]

---------------------------------------------------------------------- [1] Some years ago, in Calcutta, I learned that a large store of charcoal existed under the soil of Fort William, deposited there, I believe, in the early days of that fortress.

[“The Jihia says that the name of Mei shan (Coal hill) was given to it from the stock of coal buried at its foot, as a provision in case of siege.” (Bretschneider, Peking, 38.)—H. C.]

XI. CONCERNING THE CITY OF CAMBALUC

Now there was on that spot in old times a great and noble city called CAMBALUC, which is as much as to say in our tongue “The city of the Emperor.”{1} But the Great Kaan was informed by his Astrologers that this city would prove rebellious, and raise great disorders against his imperial authority. So he caused the present city to be built close beside the old one, with only a river between them.{2} And he caused the people of the old city to be removed to the new town that he had founded; and this is called TAIDU. [However, he allowed a portion of the people which he did not suspect to remain in the old city, because the new one could not hold the whole of them, big as it is.]

As regards the size of this (new) city you must know that it has a compass of 24 miles, for each side of it hath a length of 6 miles, and it is four-square. And it is all walled round with walls of earth which have a thickness of full ten paces at bottom, and a height of more than 10 paces;{3} but they are not so thick at top, for they diminish in thickness as they rise, so that at top they are only about 3 paces thick. And they are provided throughout with loop-holed battlements, which are all whitewashed.

There are 12 gates, and over each gate there is a great and handsome palace, so that there are on each side of the square three gates and five palaces; for (I ought to mention) there is at each angle also a great and handsome palace. In those palaces are vast halls in which are kept the arms of the city garrison.{4}

The streets are so straight and wide that you can see right along them from end to end and from one gate to the other. And up and down the city there are beautiful palaces, and many great and fine hostelries, and fine houses in great numbers. [All the plots of ground on which the houses of the city are built are four-square, and laid out with straight lines; all the plots being occupied by great and spacious palaces, with courts and gardens of proportionate size. All these plots were assigned to different heads of families. Each square plot is encompassed by handsome streets for traffic; and thus the whole city is arranged in squares just like a chess-board, and disposed in a manner so perfect and masterly that it is impossible to give a description that should do it justice.]{5}

Moreover, in the middle of the city there is a great clock—that is to say, a bell—which is struck at night. And after it has struck three times no one must go out in the city, unless it be for the needs of a woman in labour, or of the sick.{6} And those who go about on such errands are bound to carry lanterns with them. Moreover, the established guard at each gate of the city is 1000 armed men; not that you are to imagine this guard is kept up for fear of any attack, but only as a guard of honour for the Sovereign, who resides there, and to prevent thieves from doing mischief in the town.{7}

NOTE 1.—✛ The history of the city on the site of Peking goes back to very old times, for it had been [under the name of Ki] the capital of the kingdom of Yen, previous to B.C. 222, when it was captured by the Prince of the T’sin Dynasty. [Under the T’ang dynasty (618–907) it was known under the name of Yu-chau.] It became one of the capitals of the Khitans in A.D. 936, and of the Kin sovereigns, who took it in 1125, in 1151 under the name of Chung-tu. Under the name of Yenking, [given to this city in 1013] it has a conspicuous place in the wars of Chinghiz against the latter dynasty. He captured it in 1215. In 1264, Kúblái adopted it as his chief residence, and founded in 1267, the new city of TATU (“Great Court”), called by the Mongols TAIDU or DAITU since 1271 (see Bk. I. ch. lxi. note 1), at a little distance—Odoric says half a mile—to the north-east of the old Yenking. Tatu was completed in the summer of 1267.

Old Yenking had, when occupied by the Kin, a circuit of 27 li (commonly estimated at 9 miles, but in early works the li is not more than ⅕ of a mile), afterwards increased to 30 li. But there was some kind of outer wall about the city and its suburbs, the circuit of which is called 75 li. [“At the time of the Yuen the walls still existed, and the ancient city of the Kin was commonly called Nan-ch’eng (Southern city), whilst the Mongol capital was termed the northern city.” Bretschneider, Peking, 10.—H. C.] (Lockhart; and see Amyot, II. 553, and note 6 to last chapter.)

Polo correctly explains the name Cambaluc, i.e. Kaan-baligh, “The City of the Kaan.”

NOTE 2.—The river that ran between the old and new city must have been the little river Yu, which still runs through the modern Tartar city, and fills the city ditches.

[Dr. Bretschneider (Peking, 49) thinks that there is a strong probability that Polo speaks of the Wen-ming ho, a river which, according to the ancient descriptions, ran near the southern wall of the Mongol capital.—H. C.]

NOTE 3.—This height is from Pauthier’s Text; the G. Text has, “twenty paces,” i.e. 100 feet. A recent French paper states the dimensions of the existing walls as 14 mètres (45½ feet) high, and 14·50 (47¼ feet) thick, “the top forming a paved promenade, unique of its kind, and recalling the legendary walls of Thebes and Babylon.” (Ann. d’Hygiène Publique, 2nd s. tom. xxxii. for 1869, p. 21.)

[According to the French astronomers (Fleuriais and Lapied) sent to Peking for the Transit of Venus in December, 1875, the present Tartar city is 23 kil. 55 in circuit, viz. if 1 li = 575 m., 41 li; from the north to the south 5400 mètres; from east to west 6700 mètres; the wall is 13 mètres in height and 12 mètres in width.—H. C.]

NOTE 4.—Our attempted plan of Cambaluc, as in 1290, differs somewhat from this description, but there is no getting over certain existing facts.

The existing Tartar city of Peking (technically Neï-ch’ing, “The Interior City,” or King-ch’ing, “City of the Court”) stands on the site of Taidu, and represents it. After the expulsion of the Mongols (1368) the new native Dynasty of Ming established their capital at Nanking. But this was found so inconvenient that the third sovereign of the Dynasty re-occupied Taidu or Cambaluc, the repairs of which began in 1409. He reduced it in size by cutting off nearly a third part of the city at the north end. The remains of this abandoned portion of wall are, however, still in existence, approaching 30 feet in height all round. This old wall is called by the Chinese The Wall of the Yuen (i.e. the Mongol Dynasty), and it is laid down in the Russian Survey. [The capital of the Ming was 40 li in circuit, according to the Ch’ang an k’o hua.] The existing walls were built, or restored rather (the north wall being in any case, of course, entirely new), in 1437. There seems to be no doubt that the present south front of the Tartar city was the south front of Taidu. The whole outline of Taidu is therefore still extant, and easily measurable. If the scale on the War Office edition of the Russian Survey be correct, the long sides measure close upon 5 miles and 500 yards; the short sides, 3 miles and 1200 yards. Hence the whole perimeter was just about 18 English miles, or less than 16 Italian miles. If, however, a pair of compasses be run round Taidu and Yenking (as we have laid the latter down from such data as could be had) together, the circuit will be something like 24 Italian miles, and this may have to do with Polo’s error.

[“The Yuen shi states that Ta-tu was 60 li in circumference. The Ch’ue keng lu, a work published at the close of the Yuen Dynasty, gives the same number of li for the circuit of the capital, but explains that li of 240 pu each are meant. If this statement be correct, it would give only 40 common or geographical li for the circuit of the Mongol town.” (Bretschneider, Peking, 13.) Dr. Bretschneider writes (p. 20): “The outlines of Khanbaligh, partly in contradiction with the ancient Chinese records, if my view be correct, would have measured about 50 common li in circuit (13 li and more from north to south, 11·64 from east to west.”)—H. C.]

Polo [and Odoric] again says that there were 12 gates—3 to every side. Both Gaubil and Martini also say that there were 12 gates. But I believe that both are trusting to Marco. There are 9 gates in the present Tartar city—viz. 3 on the south side and 2 on each of the other sides. The old Chinese accounts say there were 11 gates in Taidu. (See Amyot, Mém. II. 553.) I have in my plan, therefore, assumed that one gate on the east and one on the west were obliterated in the reduction of the enceinte by the Ming. But I must observe that Mr. Lockhart tells me he did not find the traces of gates in those positions, whilst the 2 gates on the north side of the old Mongol rampart are quite distinct, with the barbicans in front, and the old Mongol bridge over the ditch still serving for the public thoroughfare.[1]

[“The Yuen shi as well as the Ch’ue keng lu, and other works of the Yuen, agree in stating that the capital had eleven gates. They are enumerated in the following order: Southern wall—(1) The gate direct south (mid.) was called Li-cheng men; (2) the gate to the left (east), Wen-ming men; (3) the gate to the right (west), Shun-ch’eng men. Eastern wall—(4) The gate direct east (mid.), Ch’ung-jen men; (5) the gate to the south-east, Ts’i-hua men; (6) the gate to the north-east, Kuang-hi men. Western wall—(7) The gate direct west (mid.), Ho-i men; (8) the gate to the south-west, P’ing-tse men; (9) the gate to the north-west, Su-ts’ing men. Northern Wall—(10) The gate to the north-west, K’ien-te men; (11) the gate to the north-east, An-chen men.” (Bretschneider, Peking, 13–14.)—H. C.]

When the Ming established themselves on the old Mongol site, population seems to have gathered close about the southern wall, probably using material from the remains of Yenking. This excrescence was inclosed by a new wall in 1554, and was called the “Outer Town.” It is what is called by Europeans the Chinese City. Its western wall exhibits in the base sculptured stones, which seem to have belonged to the old palace of Yenking. Some traces of Yenking still existed in Gaubil’s time; the only relic of it now pointed out is a pagoda outside of the Kwang-An-Măn, or western gate of the Outer City, marked in the War Office edition of the Russian Map as “Tower.” (Information from Dr. Lockhart.)

The “Great Palaces” over the gates and at the corner bastions are no doubt well illustrated by the buildings which still occupy those positions. There are two such lofty buildings at each of the gates of the modern city, the outer one (shown on p. 376) forming an elevated redoubt.

NOTE 5.—The French writer cited under note 3 says of the city as it stands: “La ville est de la sorte coupée en échiquier à peu près régulier dont les quadres circonscrits par des larges avenues sont percés eux-mêmes d’une multitude de rues et ruelles ... qui toutes à peu près sont orientées N. et S., E. et O. Une seule volonté a évidemment présidé à ce plan, et jamais édilité n’a eu à exécuter d’un seul coup aussi vaste entreprise.”

NOTE 6.—Martini speaks of the public clock-towers in the Chinese cities, which in his time were furnished with water-clocks. A watchman struck the hour on a great gong, at the same time exhibiting the hour in large characters. The same person watched for fires, and summoned the public with his gong to aid in extinguishing them.

[The Rev. G. B. Farthing mentions (North-China Herald, 7th September, 1884) at T’ai-yuen fu the remains of an object in the bell-tower, which was, and is still known, as one of the eight wonders of this city; it is a vessel of brass, a part of a water-clock from which water formerly used to flow down upon a drum beneath and mark off time into equal divisions.—H. C.]

The tower indicated by Marco appears still to exist. It occupies the place which I have marked as Alarm Tower in the plan of Taidu. It was erected in 1272, but probably rebuilt on the Ming occupation of the city. [“The Yuen yi t’ung chi, or ‘Geography of the Mongol Empire’ records: ‘In the year 1272, the bell-tower and the drum-tower were built in the middle of the capital.’ A bell-tower (chung-lou) and a drum-tower (ku-lou) exist still in Peking, in the northern part of the Tartar City. The ku-lou is the same as that built in the thirteenth century, but the bell-tower dates only from the last century. The bell-tower of the Yuen was a little to the east of the drum-tower, where now the temple Wan-ning sse stands. This temple is nearly in the middle of the position I (Bretschneider) assign to Khanbaligh.” (Bretschneider, Peking, 20.)—H. C.] In the Court of the Old Observatory at Peking there is preserved, with a few other ancient instruments, which date from the Mongol era, a very elaborate water-clock, provided with four copper basins embedded in brickwork, and rising in steps one above the other. A cut of this courtyard, with its instruments and aged trees, also ascribed to the Mongol time, will be found in ch. xxxiii. (Atlas Sinensis, p. 10; Magaillans, 149–151; Chine Moderne, p. 26; Tour du Monde for 1864, vol. ii. p. 34.)

NOTE 7.—“Nevertheless,” adds the Ramusian, “there does exist I know not what uneasiness about the people of Cathay.”

---------------------------------------------------------------------- [1] Mr. Wylie confirms my assumption: “Whilst in Peking I traced the old mud wall, ... and found it quite in accordance with the outline in your map. Mr. Gilmour (a missionary to the Mongols) and I rode round it, he taking the outside and I the inside.... Neither of us observed the arch that Dr. Lockhart speaks of.... There are gate-openings about the middle of the east and west sides, but no barbicans.” (4th December 1873.)