The Travels of Marco Polo Volume I Part 87

NOTE 2.--Such a compact is related to have existed reciprocally between the family of Chinghiz and that of the chief of the Kungurats; but I have not found it alleged of the Kerait family except by Friar Odoric. We find, however, many _princesses_ of this family married into that of Chinghiz.

Thus three nieces of Aung Khan became wives respectively of Chinghiz himself and of his sons Juji and Tului; she who was the wife of the latter, Serkukteni Bigi, being the mother of Mangu, Hulaku, and Kublai.

Dukuz Khatun, the Christian wife of Hulaku, was a grand-daughter of Aung Khan.

The name _George_, of Prester John's representative, may have been actually Jirjis, Yurji, or some such Oriental form of Georgius. But it is possible that the t.i.tle was really _Gurgan_, "Son-in-Law," a t.i.tle of honour conferred on those who married into the imperial blood, and that this t.i.tle may have led to the statements of Marco and Odoric about the nuptial privileges of the family. Gurgan in this sense was one of the t.i.tles borne by Timur.[1]

[The following note by the Archimandrite Palladius (_Eluc._ 21-23) throws a great light on the relations between the families of Chinghiz Khan and of Prester John.

"T'ien-te Kiun was bounded on the north by the _Yn-shan_ Mountains, in and beyond which was settled the Sha-t'o Tu-K'iu tribe, i.e. Tu-K'iu of the sandy desert. The K'itans, when they conquered the northern borders of China, brought also under their rule the dispersed family of these Tu- K'iu. With the accession of the Kin, a w.a.n.g Ku [Ongot] family made its appearance as the ruling family of those tribes; it issued from those Sha- t'o Tu-K'iu, who once reigned in the north of China as the How T'ang Dynasty (923-936 A.D.). It split into two branches, the w.a.n.g-Ku of the Yn- shan, and the w.a.n.g-Ku of the Lin-t'ao (west of Kan-su). The Kin removed the latter branch to Liao-tung (in Manchuria). The Yn-shan w.a.n.g-Ku guarded the northern borders of China belonging to the Kin, and watched their herds. When the Kin, as a protection against the inroads of the tribes of the desert, erected a rampart, or new wall, from the boundary of the Tangut Kingdom down to Manchuria, they intrusted the defence of the princ.i.p.al places of the Yn-shan portion of the wall to the w.a.n.g-Ku, and transferred there also the Liao-tung w.a.n.g-Ku. At the time Chingiz Khan became powerful, the chief of the w.a.n.g-Ku of the Yn-shan was Alahush; and at the head of the Liao-tung w.a.n.g-Ku stood _Pa-sao-ma-ie-li_. Alahush proved a traitor to the Kin, and pa.s.sed over to Chinghiz Khan; for this he was murdered by the malcontents of his family, perhaps by Pa-sao-ma-ie-li, who remained true to the Kin. Later on, Chingiz Khan married one of his daughters to the son of Alahush, by name Po-yao-ho, who, however, had no children by her. He had three sons by a concubine, the eldest of whom, Kiun-pu-hwa, was married to Kuyuk Khan's daughter. Kiun-pu-hwa's son, Ko- li-ki-sze, had two wives, both of imperial blood. During a campaign against Haidu, he was made prisoner in 1298, and murdered. His t.i.tle and dignities pa.s.sed over in A.D. 1310 to his son _Chuan_. Nothing is known of Alahush's later descendants; they probably became entirely Chinese, like their relatives of the Liao-tung branch.

"The w.a.n.g-Ku princes were thus _de jure_ the sons-in-law of the Mongol Khans, and they had, moreover, the hereditary t.i.tle of Kao-t'ang princes (Kao-t'ang w.a.n.g); it is very possible that they had their residence in ancient T'ien-te Kiun (although no mention is made of it in history), just as at present the Tumot princes reside in Kuku-hoton.

"The consonance of the names of w.a.n.g-Khan and w.a.n.g-Ku (Ung-Khan and Ongu) led to the confusion regarding the tribes and persons, which at Marco Polo's time seems to have been general among the Europeans in China; Marco Polo and Johannes de Monte Corvino transfer the t.i.tle of Prester John from w.a.n.g-Khan, already perished at that time, to the distinguished family of w.a.n.g-Ku. Their Georgius is undoubtedly Ko-li-ki-sze, Alahush's great-grandson. That his name is a Christian one is confirmed by other testimonies; thus in the Asu (Azes) regiment of the Khan's guards was Ko-li-ki-sze, _alias_ Kow-r-ki (d. 1311), and his son Ti-mi-ti-r. There is no doubt that one of them was Georgius, and the other Demetrius. Further, in the description of _Chin-Kiang_ in the time of the Yuen, mention is made of Ko-li-ki-sze Ye-li-ko-wen, i.e. Ko-li-ki-sze, the Christian, and of his son Lu-ho (Luke).

"Ko-li-ki-sze of w.a.n.g-ku is much praised in history for his valour and his love for Confucian doctrine; he had in consequence of a special favour of the Khan two Mongol princesses for wives at the same time (which is rather difficult to conciliate with his being a Christian). The time of his death is correctly indicated in a letter of Joannes de M. Corvino of the year 1305: _ante s.e.x annos migravit ad Dominum_. He left a young son _Chu-an_, who probably is the Joannes of the letter of Ioannes (Giovani) de M.

Corvino, so called _propter nomen meum_, says the missionary. In another w.a.n.g-ku branch, Si-li-ki-sze reminds one also of the Christian name _Sergius_."--H. C.]

NOTE 3.--"The _Lapis Armenus_, or Azure,... is produced in the district of Tayton-fu (i.e. _Tathung_), belonging to Shansi." (_Du Halde_ in _Astley_, IV. 309; see also _Martini_, p. 36.)

NOTE 4.--This is a highly interesting pa.s.sage, but difficult, from being corrupt in the G. Text, and over-curt in Pauthier's MSS. In the former it runs as follows: "_Hil hi a une jenerasion de jens que sunt appelles_ Argon, _qe vaut a dire en francois_ Guasmul, _ce est a dire qu'il sunt ne del deus generasions de la lengnee des celz_ Argon Tenduc et des celz reduc et des celz que aorent Maomet. _Il sunt biaus homes plus que le autre dou pas et plus sajes et plus mercaant_." Pauthier's text runs thus: "_Il ont une generation de gens, ces Crestiens qui ont la Seigneurie, qui s'appellent_ Argon, _qui vaut a dire_ Gasmul; _et sont plus beaux hommes que les autres mescreans et plus sages. Et pour ce ont il la seigneurie et sont bons marchans._" And Ramusio: "_Vi e anche una sorte di gente che si chiamano_ Argon, _per che sono nati di due generazioni_, cioe da quella di Tenduc che adorano gl' idoli, e da quella che osservano la legge di Macometto. _E questi sono i piu belli uomini che si trovino in quel paese e piu savi, e piu accorti nella mercanzia._"

In the first quotation the definition of the _Argon_ as sprung _de la lengnee_, etc., is not intelligible as it stands, but seems to be a corruption of the same definition that has been rendered by Ramusio, viz.

that the Argon were half-castes between the race of the Tenduc Buddhists and that of the Mahomedan settlers. These two texts do not a.s.sert that the Argon were Christians. Pauthier's text at first sight seems to a.s.sert this, and to identify them with the Christian rulers of the province. But I doubt if it means more than that the Christian _rulers have under them_ a people called Argon, etc. The pa.s.sage has been read with a bias, owing to an erroneous interpretation of the word _Argon_ in the teeth of Polo's explanation of it.

Klaproth, I believe, first suggested that _Argon_ represents the term _Arkhaiun_, which is found repeatedly applied to Oriental Christians, or their clergy, in the histories of the Mongol era.[2] No quite satisfactory explanation has been given of the origin of that term. It is barely possible that it may be connected with that which Polo uses here; but he tells us as plainly as possible that he means by the term, not a Christian, but a _half-breed_.

And in this sense the word is still extant in Tibet, probably also in Eastern Turkestan, precisely in Marco's form, ARGON. It is applied in Ladak, as General Cunningham tells us, specifically to the mixt race produced by the marriages of Kashmirian immigrants with Bot (Tibetan) women. And it was apparently to an a.n.a.logous cross between Caucasians and Turanians that the term was applied in Tenduc. Moorcroft also speaks of this cla.s.s in Ladak, calling them _Argands_. Mr. Shaw styles them "a set of ruffians called _Argoons_, half-bred between Toorkistan fathers and Ladak mothers.... They possess all the evil qualities of both races, without any of their virtues." And the author of the Dabistan, speaking of the Tibetan Lamas, says: "Their king, if his mother be not of royal blood, is by them called _Arghun_, and not considered their true king." [See p.

291, my reference to _Wellby's Tibet_.--H. C.] Cunningham says the word is probably Turki, [Arabic], _Arghun_, "Fair," "not _white_," as he writes to me, "but _ruddy_ or _pink_, and therefore 'fair.' _Arghun_ is both Turki and Mogholi, and is applied to all fair children, both male and female, as _Arghun Beg, Arghuna Khatun_," etc.[3] We find an _Arghun_ tribe named in Timur's Inst.i.tutes, which probably derived its descent from such half-breeds. And though the Arghun Dynasty of Kandahar and Sind claimed their descent and name from Arghun Khan of Persia, this may have had no other foundation.

There are some curious a.n.a.logies between these Argons of whom Marco speaks and those Mahomedans of Northern China and Chinese Turkestan lately revolted against Chinese authority, who are called _Tungani_, or as the Russians write it _Dungen_, a word signifying, according to Professor Vambery, in Turki, "a convert."[4] These Tungani are said by one account to trace their origin to a large body of Uighurs, who were transferred _to the vicinity of the Great Wall_ during the rule of the Thang Dynasty (7th to 10th century). Another tradition derives their origin from Samarkand.

And it is remarkable that Ras.h.i.+duddin speaks of a town to the west or north-west of Peking, "most of the inhabitants of which are natives of Samarkand, and have planted a number of gardens in the Samarkand style."[5] The former tradition goes on to say that marriages were encouraged between the Western settlers and the Chinese women. In after days these people followed the example of their kindred in becoming Mahomedans, but they still retained the practice of marrying Chinese wives, though bringing up their children in Islam. The Tungani are stated to be known in Central Asia for their commercial integrity; and they were generally selected by the Chinese for police functionaries. They are pa.s.sionate and ready to use the knife; but are distinguished from both Manchus and Chinese by their strength of body and intelligent countenances. Their special feature is their predilection for mercantile speculations.

Looking to the many common features of the two accounts--the origin as a half-breed between Mahomedans of Western extraction and Northern Chinese, the position in the vicinity of the Great Wall, the superior physique, intelligence, and special capacity for trade, it seems highly probable that the Tungani of our day are the descendants of Marco's Argons.

Otherwise we may at least point to these a.n.a.logies as a notable instance of like results produced by like circ.u.mstances on the same scene; in fact, of history repeating itself. (See _The Dungens_, by _Mr. H. K. Heins_, in the _Russian Military Journal_ for August, 1866, and _Western China_, in the _Ed. Review_ for April, 1868;[6] Cathay, p. 261.)

[Palladius (pp. 23-24) says that "it is impossible to admit that Polo had meant to designate by this name the Christians, who were called by the Mongols _Erkeun_ [_Ye li ke un_]. He was well acquainted with the Christians in China, and of course could not ignore the name under which they were generally known to such a degree as to see in it a designation of a cross-race of Mahommetans and heathens." From the _Yuen ch'ao pi s.h.i.+_ and the _Yuen s.h.i.+_, Palladius gives some examples which refer to Mahommedans.

Professor Deveria (_Notes d'epig._ 49) says that the word [Greek: archon]

was used by the Mongol Government as a designation for the members of the Christian clergy at large; the word is used between 1252 and 1315 to speak of _Christian_ priests by the historians of the Yuen Dynasty; it is not used before nor is it to be found in the Si-ngan-fu inscription (l.c. 82).

Mr. E. H. Parker (_China Review_, xxiv. p. 157) supplies a few omissions in Deveria's paper; we note among others: "Ninth moon of 1329. Buddhist services ordered to be held by the Uighur priests, and by the Christians [_Ye li ke un_]."

Captain Wellby writes (_Unknown Tibet_, p. 32): "We impressed into our service six other muleteers, four of them being Argoons, who are really half-castes, arising from the merchants of Turkestan making short marriages with the Ladakhi women."--H. C.]

Our author gives the odd word _Guasmul_ as the French equivalent of Argon.

M. Pauthier has first, of Polo's editors, given the true explanation from Ducange. The word appears to have been in use in the Levant among the Franks as a name for the half-breeds sprung from their own unions with Greek women. It occurs three times in the history of George Pachymeres.

Thus he says (_Mich. Pal._ III. 9), that the Emperor Michael "depended upon the _Gasmuls_, or mixt breeds ([Greek: symmiktoi]), which is the sense of this word of the Italian tongue, for these were born of Greeks and Italians, and sent them to man his s.h.i.+ps; for the race in question inherited at once the military wariness and quick wit of the Greeks, and the dash and pertinacity of the Latins." Again (IV. 26) he speaks of these "Gasmuls, whom a Greek would call [Greek: digeneis], men sprung from Greek mothers and Italian fathers." Nicephorus Gregoras also relates how Michael Palaeologus, to oppose the projects of Baldwin for the recovery of his fortunes, manned 60 galleys, chiefly with the tribe of Gasmuls ([Greek: genos tou Gasmoulikou]), to whom he a.s.signs the same characteristics as Pachymeres. (IV. v. 5, also VI. iii. 3, and XIV. x. 2.) One MS. of Nicetas Choniates also, in his annals of Manuel Comnenus (see Paris ed. p. 425), speaks of "the light troops whom we call _Basmuls_." Thus it would seem that, as in the a.n.a.logous case of the _Turcopuli_, sprung from Turk fathers and Greek mothers, their name had come to be applied technically to a cla.s.s of troops. According to Buchon, the laws of the Venetians in Candia mention, as different races in that island, the _Vasmulo_, Latino, Blaco, and Griego.

Ducange, in one of his notes on Joinville, says: "During the time that the French possessed Constantinople, they gave the name of _Gas-moules_ to those who were born of French fathers and Greek mothers; or more probably _Gaste-moules_, by way of derision, as if such children by those irregular marriages ... had in some sort debased the wombs of their mothers!" I have little doubt (_pace tanti viri_) that the word is in a Gallicized form the same with the surviving Italian _Guazzabuglio_, a hotch-potch, or mish-mash. In Davanzati's _Tacitus_, the words "Colluviem _illam nationum_"

(_Annal._ II. 55) are rendered "_quello_ guazzabuglio _di n.a.z.ioni_," in which case we come very close to the meaning a.s.signed to _Guasmul_. The Italians are somewhat behind in matters of etymology, and I can get no light from them on the history of this word. (See _Buchon_, _Chroniques Etrangeres_, p. xv.; _Ducange_, _Gloss. Graecitatis_, and his note on _Joinville_, in _Bohn's Chron. of the Crusades_, 466.)

NOTE 5.--It has often been cast in Marco's teeth that he makes no mention of the Great Wall of China, and that is true; whilst the apologies made for the omission have always seemed to me unsatisfactory. [I find in Sir G. Staunton's account of Macartney's Emba.s.sy (II. p. 185) this most amusing explanation of the reason why Marco Polo did not mention the wall: "A copy of Marco Polo's route to China, taken from the Doge's Library at Venice, is sufficient to decide this question. By this route it appears that, in fact, that traveller did not pa.s.s through Tartary to Pekin, but that after having followed the usual track of the caravans, as far to the eastward from Europe as Samarcand and Cashgar, he bent his course to the south-east across the River Ganges to Bengal (!), and, keeping to the southward of the Thibet mountains, reached the Chinese province of Shensee, and through the adjoining province of Shansee to the capital, without interfering with the line of the Great Wall."--H. C.] We shall see presently that the Great Wall is spoken of by Marco's contemporaries Ras.h.i.+duddin and Abulfeda. Yet I think, if we read "between the lines," we shall see reason to believe that the Wall _was_ in Polo's mind at this point of the dictation, whatever may have been his motive for withholding distincter notice of it.[7] I cannot conceive why he should say: "Here is what we call the country of Gog and Magog," except as intimating "Here we are _beside the_ GREAT WALL known as the Rampart of Gog and Magog," and being there he tries to find a reason why those names should have been applied to it. Why they were really applied to it we have already seen.

(Supra, ch. iv. note 3.) Abulfeda says: "The Ocean turns northward along the east of China, and then expands in the same direction till it pa.s.ses China, and comes opposite to the Rampart of Yajuj and Majuj;" whilst the same geographer's definition of the boundaries of China exhibits that country as bounded on the west by the Indo-Chinese wildernesses; on the south, by the seas; on the east, by the Eastern Ocean; on the north, by the _land of Yajuj and Majuj_, and other countries unknown. Ibn Batuta, with less accurate geography in his head than Abulfeda, maugre his travels, asks about the Rampart of Gog and Magog (_Sadd Yajuj wa Majuj_) when he is at Sin Kalan, i.e. Canton, and, as might be expected, gets little satisfaction.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Rampart of Gog and Magog]

Apart from this interesting point Marsden seems to be right in the general bearing of his explanation of the pa.s.sage, and I conceive that the two cla.s.ses of people whom Marco tries to identify with Gog and Magog do substantially represent the two genera or species, TURKS and MONGOLS, or, according to another nomenclature used by Ras.h.i.+duddin, the _White_ and _Black_ Tartars. To the latter cla.s.s belonged Chinghiz and his MONGOLS proper, with a number of other tribes detailed by Ras.h.i.+duddin, and these I take to be in a general way the MUNGUL of our text. The _Ung_ on the other hand, are the UNG-_kut_, the latter form being presumably only the Mongol plural of UNG. The Ung-kut were a Turk tribe who were va.s.sals of the Kin Emperors of Cathay, and were intrusted with the defence of the Wall of China, or an important portion of it, which was called by the Mongols _Ungu_, a name which some connect with that of the tribe. [See note pp.

288-9.] Erdmann indeed a.s.serts that the wall by which the Ung-kut dwelt was not the Great Wall, but some other. There are traces of other great ramparts in the steppes north of the present wall. But Erdmann's arguments seem to me weak in the extreme.

[Mr. Rockhill (_Rubruck_, p. 112) writes: "The earliest mention I have found of the name _Mongol_ in Oriental works occurs in the Chinese annals of the After T'ang period (A.D. 923-934), where it occurs in the form _Meng-ku_. In the annals of the Liao Dynasty (A.D. 916-1125) it is found under the form _Meng-ku-li_. The first occurrence of the name in the _Tung chien kang mu_ is, however, in the 6th year Shao-hsing of Kao-tsung of the Sung (A.D. 1136). It is just possible that we may trace the word back a little earlier than the After T'ang period, and that the _Meng-wa_ (or _ngo_ as this character may have been p.r.o.nounced at the time), a branch of the s.h.i.+h-wei, a Tungusic or Kitan people living around Lake Keule, to the east of the Baikal, and along the Kerulun, which empties into it, during the 7th and subsequent centuries, and referred to in the _T'ang shu_ (Bk.

219), is the same as the later Meng-ku. Though I have been unable to find, as stated by Howorth (_History_, i. pt. I. 28), that the name _Meng-ku_ occurs in the T'ang shu, his conclusion that the northern s.h.i.+h-wei of that time const.i.tuted the Mongol nation proper is very likely correct.... I. J.

Schmidt (_Ssanang Setzen_, 380) derives the name _Mongol_ from _mong_, meaning 'brave, daring, bold,' while Ras.h.i.+duddin says it means 'simple, weak' (_d'Ohsson_, i. 22). The Chinese characters used to transcribe the name mean 'dull, stupid,' and 'old, ancient,' but they are used purely phonetically.... The Mongols of the present day are commonly called by the Chinese _Ta-tzu_, but this name is resented by the Mongols as opprobrious, though it is but an abbreviated form of the name _Ta-ta-tzu_, in which, according to Rubruck, they once gloried."--H. C.]

Vincent of Beauvais has got from some of his authorities a conception of the distinction of the Tartars into two races, to which, however, he a.s.signs no names: "_Sunt autem duo genera Tartarorum, diversa quidem habentia idiomata, sed unicam legem ac ritum, sicut Franci et Theutonici_." But the result of _his_ effort to find a realisation of Gog and Magog is that he makes _Guyuk Kaan_ into Gog, and _Mangu Kaan_ into Magog. Even the intelligent Friar Ricold says of the Tartars: "They say themselves that they are descended from Gog and Magog: and on this account they are called _Mogoli_, as if from a corruption of _Magogoli_."

(_Abulfeda_ in _Busching_, IV. 140, 274-275; _I. B._ IV. 274; _Golden Horde_, 34, 68; _Erdmann_, 241-242, 257-258; _Timk._ I. 259, 263, 268; _Vinc. Bellov. Spec. Hist._ XXIX. 73, x.x.xI. 32-34; _Pereg. Quat._ 118; _Not. et Ext._ II. 536.)

NOTE 6.--The towns and villages were probably those immediately north of the Great Wall, between 112 and 115 East longitude, of which many remains exist, ascribed to the time of the Yuen or Mongol Dynasty. This tract, between the Great Wall and the volcanic plateau of Mongolia, is extensively colonised by Chinese, and has resumed the flouris.h.i.+ng aspect that Polo describes. It is known now as the _Ku-wei_, or extramural region.

[After Kalgan, Captain Younghusband, on the 12th April, 1886, "pa.s.sed through the [outer] Great Wall ... entering what Marco Polo calls the land of Gog and Magog. For the next two days I pa.s.sed through a hilly country inhabited by Chinese, though it really belongs to Mongolia; but on the 14th I emerged on to the real steppes, which are the characteristic features of Mongolia Proper." (_Proc. R. G. S._ X., 1888, p. 490.)--H. C.]

Of the cloths called _nakh_ and _nasij_ we have spoken before (supra ch.

vi. note 4). These stuffs, or some such as these, were, I believe, what the mediaeval writers called _Tartary cloth_, not because they were made in Tartary, but because they were brought from China and its borders through the Tartar dominions; as we find that for like reason they were sometimes called stuffs of _Russia_. Dante alludes to the supposed skill of Turks and Tartars in weaving gorgeous stuffs, and Boccaccio, commenting thereon, says that Tartarian cloths are so skilfully woven that no painter with his brush could equal them. Maundevile often speaks of cloths of Tartary (e.g. pp. 175, 247). So also Chaucer:

"On every trumpe hanging a broad banere Of fine _Tartarium_."

Again, in the French inventory of the _Garde-Meuble_ of 1353 we find two pieces of _Tartary_, one green and the other red, priced at 15 crowns each. (_Flower and Leaf_, 211; _Dante, Inf._ XVII. 17, and _Longfellow_, p. 159; _Douet d'Arcq_, p. 328; _Fr.-Michel, Rech._ I. 315, II. 166 seqq.)

NOTE 7.--SINDACHU (Sindacui, Suidatui, etc., of the MSS.) is SIUEN-HWA-FU, called under the Kin Dynasty _Siuen-te-chau_, more than once besieged and taken by Chinghiz. It is said to have been a summer residence of the later Mongol Emperors, and fine parks full of grand trees remain on the western side. It is still a large town and the capital of a _Fu_, about 25 miles south of the Gate on the Great Wall at Chang Kia Kau, which the Mongols and Russians call Kalgan. There is still a manufacture of felt and woollen articles here.

[Mr. Rockhill writes to me that this place is noted for the manufacture of buckskins.--H. C.]

_Ydifu_ has not been identified. But Baron Richthofen saw old mines north-east of Kalgan, which used to yield argentiferous galena; and Pumpelly heard of silver-mines near Yuchau, in the same department.

[In the _Yuen-s.h.i.+_ it is "stated that there were gold and silver mines in the districts of Siuen-te-chow and Yuchow, as well as in the Kiming shan Mountains. These mines were worked by the Government itself up to 1323, when they were transferred to private enterprise. Marco Polo's _Ydifu_ is probably a copyist's error, and stands instead of Yuchow." (_Palladius_, 24, 25.)--H. C.]

[1] Mr. Ney Elias favours me with a curious but tantalising communication on this subject: "An old man called on me at Kwei-hwa Ch'eng (Tenduc), who said he was neither Chinaman, Mongol, nor Mahomedan, and lived on ground a short distance to the north of the city, especially allotted to his ancestors by the Emperor, and where there now exist several families of the same origin. He then mentioned the connection of his family with that of the Emperor, but in what way I am not clear, and said that he ought to be, or had been, a prince. Other people coming in, he was interrupted and went away.... He was not with me more than ten minutes, and the incident is a specimen of the difficulty in obtaining interesting information, except by mere chance.... The idea that struck me was, that he was perhaps a descendant of King George of Tenduc; for I had your M. P. before me, and had been inquiring as much as I dared about subjects it suggested.... At Kwei-hwa Ch'eng I was very closely spied, and my servant was frequently told to warn me against asking too many questions."

I should mention that Oppert, in his very interesting monograph, _Der Presbyter Johannes_, refuses to recognise the Kerait chief at all in that character, and supposes Polo's King George to be the representative of a prince of the Liao (supra, p. 205), who, as we learn from De Mailla's History, after the defeat of the Kin, in which he had a.s.sisted Chinghiz, settled in Liaotung, and received from the conqueror the t.i.tle of King of the Liao. This seems to me geographically and otherwise quite inadmissible.

[2] The term _Arkaiun_, or _Arkaun_, in this sense, occurs in the Armenian History of Stephen Orpelian, quoted by St. Martin. The author of the _Tarikh Jahan Kushai_, cited by D'Ohsson, says that Christians were called by the Mongols _Arkaun_. When Hulaku invested Baghdad we are told that he sent a letter to the Judges, Shaikhs, Doctors and _Arkauns_, promising to spare such as should act peaceably. And in the subsequent sack we hear that no houses were spared except those of a few _Arkauns_ and foreigners. In Ras.h.i.+duddin's account of the Council of State at Peking, we are told that the four _Fanchan_, or Ministers of the Second Cla.s.s, were taken from the four nations of Tajiks, Cathayans, Uighurs, and _Arkaun_. Sabadin _Arkaun_ was the name of one of the Envoys sent by Arghun Khan of Persia to the Pope in 1288.

Traces of the name appear also in Chinese doc.u.ments of the Mongol era, as denoting _some_ religious body. Some of these have been quoted by Mr. Wylie; but I have seen no notice taken of a very curious extract given by Visdelou. This states that Kublai in 1289 established a Board of nineteen chief officers to have surveillance of the affairs of the Religion of the Cross, of the _Marha_, the _Siliepan_, and the _Yelikhawen_. This Board was raised to a higher rank in 1315: and at that time 72 minor courts presiding over the religion of the _Yelikhawen_ existed under its supervision. Here we evidently have the word _Arkhaiun_ in a Chinese form; and we may hazard the suggestion that _Marha_, _Siliepan_ and _Yelikhawen_ meant respectively the Armenian, Syrian, or Jacobite, and Nestorian Churches. (_St. Martin, Mem._ II. 133, 143, 279; _D'Ohsson_, II. 264; _Ilchan_, I. 150, 152; _Cathay_, 264; _Acad._ VII. 359; Wylie in _J. As._ V. xix. 406. Suppt.

to _D'Herbelot_, 142.)

[3] The word is not in Zenker or Pavet de Courteille.

[4] Mr. Shaw writes _Toonganee_. The first mention of this name that I know of is in Izzat Ullah's Journal. (Vide _J. R. A. S._ VII. 310.) The people are there said to have got the name from having first settled in _Tungan_. Tung-gan is in the same page the name given to the strong city of T'ung Kwan on the Hw.a.n.g-ho. (See Bk. II. ch. xli.

note 1.) A variety of etymologies have been given, but Vambery's seems the most probable.

[5] Probably no man could now say what this means. But the following note from Mr. Ney Elias is very interesting in its suggestion of a.n.a.logy: "In my report to the Geographical Society I have noticed the peculiar Western appearance of Kwei-hwa-ch'eng, and the little gardens of creepers and flowers in pots which are displayed round the porches in the court-yards of the better cla.s.s of houses, and which I have seen in no other part of China. My attention was especially drawn to these by your quotation from Ras.h.i.+duddin."