chapter; the connexion twice indicated (see Prologue, ch. xviii. note 6, and Book IV. ch. v.) of the Arbre Sec with the head-quarters of Ghazan Khan in watching the great passes, of which the principal ones debouche at Bostam, at which place also buildings erected by Ghazan still exist; and the statement that the decisive battle between Alexander and Darius was placed there by local tradition. For though no such battle took place in that region, we know that Darius was murdered near Hecatompylos. Some place this city west of Bostam, near Damghan; others east of it, about Jah Jerm; Ferrier has strongly argued for the vicinity of Bostam itself. Firdusi indeed places the final battle on the confines of Kerman, and the death of Darius within that province. But this could not have been the tradition Polo met with.

I may add that the temperate climate of Bostam is noticed in words almost identical with Polo's by both Fraser and Ferrier.

The Chinar abounds in Khorasan (as far as any tree can be said to abound in Persia), and even in the Oases of Tun-o-Kain wherever there is water. A traveller quoted by Ritter notices Chinars of great size and age at Shahrúd, near Bostam. Other remarkable specimens are mentioned at Meyomid, and at Mehr, west of Sabzawar, which last are said to date from the time of Naoshirwan (7th century). There is a town to the N.W. of Meshid called Chinárán, "The Planes."

The following note by De Sacy regarding the Chinar has already been quoted by Marsden, and though it may be doubtful whether the term Arbre Sec had any relation to the idea expressed, it seems to me too interesting to be omitted: "Its sterility seems to have become proverbial among certain people of the East. For in a collection of sundry moral sentences pertaining to the Sabaeans or Christians of St. John . . . . we find the following: 'The vain-glorious man is like a showy Plane Tree, rich in boughs but producing nothing, and affording no fruit to its owner.'' And I add from Khanikoff another passage, though put forward in special illustration of what I believe to be a mistaken reading (Arbre Seul): "Where the Chinar is of spontaneous growth, or occupies the centre of a vast and naked plain, this tree is even in our own day invested with a quite exceptional veneration, and the locality often comes to be called 'The Place of the Solitary Tree.' (J. R. G. S. XXIX. 345; Ferrier, 69-76; Fraser, 343; Ritter, VIII. 332, XI. 512 seqq.; De Sacy's Abdallatif, p. 81; Khanikoff, Not. p. 38.)

CHAPTER XXIII.

CONCERNING THE OLD MAN OF THE MOUNTAIN.

MULEHET is a country in which the Old Man of the Mountain dwelt in former days; and the name means "Place of the Aram." I will tell you his whole history as related by Messer Marco Polo, who heard it from several natives of that region.'

The Old Man was called in their language ALOADIN. He had caused a certain valley between two mountains to be enclosed, and had turned it into a garden, the largest and most beautiful that ever was seen, filled with every variety of fruit. In it were erected pavilions and palaces the most elegant that can be imagined, all covered with gilding and exquisite painting. And there were runnels too, flowing freely with wine and milk and honey and water; and numbers of ladies, and of the most beautiful damsels in the world, who could play on all manner of instruments, and sung most sweetly, and danced in a manner that it was charming to behold. For the Old Man desired to make his people believe that this was actually Paradise. So he had fashioned it after the description that Mahommet gave of his Paradise, to wit, that it should be a beautiful garden running with conduits of wine and milk. and honey and water, and full of lovely women for the delectation of all its inmates. And sure enough the Saracens of those parts believed that it was Paradise!

Now no man was allowed to enter the Garden save those whom he intended to be his ASHISHIN. There was a Fortress at the entrance to the Garden, strong enough to resist all the world, and there was no other way to get in. He kept at his Court a number of the youths of the country, from 12 to 20 years of age, such as had a taste for soldiering, and to these he used to tell tales about Paradise, just as Mahommet had been wont to do, and they

believed in him just as the Saracens believe in Mahommet. Then he would introduce them into his garden, some four, or six, or ten at a time, having first made them drink a certain potion which cast them into a deep sleep, and then causing them to be lifted and carried in. So when they awoke, they found themselves in the Garden.2

NOTE 1. Marco in this chapter speaks of the Dynasty of the Ismaelites, a heretical secession from Islam, the chiefs of which were established in the mountainous districts of Northern Persia for about 170 years; and before their extinction by the Mongols had spread their dominion over the Eastern Kohistan, at least as far as Káïn. Their head-quarters were at Alamút ("Eagle's Nest"), about 32 miles northeast of Kazwin, and all over the territory which they held they established fortresses of great strength. De Sacy seems to have proved that they were called Hashishiya or Hashishin, from their use of the preparation of hemp called Hashish; and thence through their system of murder and terrorism came the modern application of the word Assassin. I have adopted in the text one of the readings of the G. Text Asciscin, as expressing the original word with the greatest accuracy that Italian spelling admits. In another author we find it as Chazisii (see Bollandists, May, vol. ii. p. xi); Joinville calls them Assacis; whilst Nangis and others corrupt the name into Harsacidae, and what not.

The explanation of the name MULEHET as it is in Ramusio, or Mulcete as it is in the G. Text (the last expressing in Rusticiano's Pisan tongue the strongly aspirated Mulhětě), is given by the former: "This name of Mulehet is as much as to say in the Saracen tongue The Abode of Heretics," the fact being that it does represent the Arabic term Mulhid, pl. Muláhidah, "Impii, heretici," which is in the Persian histories (as of Rashiduddín and Wassáf) the title most commonly used to indicate this community. The curious reading of the G. Text which we have preserved "vaut à dire Des Aram," should be read as we have rendered it. I conceive that Marco was here unconsciously using one Oriental term to explain another, and that Aram stands for Harámi, pl. Harámiya, "Impii, scelerati," where Freytag adds the example Din-ul-Harámiya, "Impiorum religio," seeming to point its application to heretics and the like.

In Pauthier's Text, instead of Desaram, we find “veult dire en françois Diex Terrien," or Terrestrial God. This may have been substituted by a transcriber for des Aram, because he naturally could make nothing of the latter, and perhaps because he found the Diex Terrien in another part of the book as descriptive of a Tartar idol (see ch. liii.). But the error is of very early date. For in the romance of Bauduin de Sebourg, which I believe dates early in the 14th century, the Caliph, on witness

ing the extraordinary devotion of the followers of the Old Man (see note 1, ch. xxiv.), exclaims :

"Par Mahon

Vous estes Diex en terre, autre coze n'i a!"-I. p. 360.

So also Fr. Jacopo d'Aqui in the Imago Mundi, says of the Assassins : "Dicitur iis quod sunt in Paradiso magno Dei Terreni." Expressions, no doubt, taken in both cases from Polo's book.

Khanikoff, and before him J. R. Forster, have supposed that the name Mulehet represents Alamút. But the resemblance is much closer and more satisfactory to Mulhid or Muláhidah. Mulhet is precisely the name by which the kingdom of the Ismaelites is mentioned in Armenian history, and Mulihet is already applied in the same way by Rabbi Benjamin in the 12th century, and by Rubruquis in the 13th. The Chinese narrative of Hulaku's expedition calls it the kingdom of Mulahi. (J. As. ser. 2, tom. xii. 285; Benj. Tudela, p. 106; Rub. p. 265; Remusat, Nouv. Mélanges, I. 176; Gaubil, p. 128; Pauthier, pp. cxxxix-cxli; Mon. Hist. Patr. Scriptorum, III. 1559, Turin, 1848.)

"Old Man of the Mountain" was the title applied by the Crusaders to the chief of that branch of the sect which was settled in the mountains north of Lebanon, being a translation of his popular Arabic title Shaikh-ul-Jibal. Whether the latter was really applied to the Prince of Alamut, I have not ascertained; but it is probable, as his territory was known as the Balad-ul-Jibal. (Abulf. in Büsching, V. 319.)

NOTE 2.-Boccaccio had perhaps read Marco. In the Decameron Day III. Nov. 8, we find a profligate abbot administering to an inconvenient personage "a powder of marvellous efficacy, which in the East he had got from a great Prince, who declared it to be the same that the Old Man of the Mountain used to employ when he wished to transport any one in sleep into or out of his Paradise."

CHAPTER XXIV.

HOW THE OLD MAN USED TO TRAIN HIS ASSASSINS.

WHEN therefore they awoke, and found themselves in a place so charming, they deemed that it was Paradise in very truth. And the ladies and damsels dallied with them to their heart's content, so that they had what young men. would have; and with their own good will they never would have quitted the place.