NOTE 3.-The Wild Ass of Mongolia is the Dshiggetai of Pallas (Asinus hemionus of Gray), and identical with the Tibetan Kyang of Moorcroft and Trans-himalayan sportsmen. It differs, according to Blyth, only in shades of colour and unimportant markings, from the Ghor Khar of Western India and the Persian Deserts, the Kulan of Turkestan, which Marco has spoken of in a previous passage (suprà Ch. xvi.; J. A. S. B. XXVIII. 229 seqq.). There is a fine Kyang in the Zoological Gardens.

CARACORON is a city of some three miles in compass. [It is surrounded by a strong earthen rampart, for stone is scarce there. And beside it there is a great citadel wherein is a fine palace in which the Governor resides.] 'Tis the first city that the Tartars possessed after they issued from

their own country. And now I will tell you all about how they first acquired dominion and spread over the world.'

Originally the Tartars dwelt in the north on the borders of CHORCHA. Their country was one of great plains; and there were no towns or villages in it, but excellent pasturelands, with great rivers and many sheets of water; in fact But there was no it was a very fine and extensive region. sovereign in the land. They did, however, pay tax and tribute to a great prince who was called in their tongue UNC CAN, the same that we call Prester John, him in fact about whose great dominion all the world talks.' The tribute he had of them was one beast out of every ten, and also a tithe of all their other gear.

Now it came to pass that the Tartars multiplied exceedingly. And when Prester John saw how great a people they had become, he began to fear that he should have trouble from them. So he made a scheme to distribute them over sundry countries, and sent one of his Barons to When the Tartars became aware of this carry this out. they took it much amiss, and with one consent they left their country and went off across a desert to a distant region towards the north, where Prester John could not get at them to annoy them. Thus they revolted from his authority and paid him tribute no longer. And so things continued for a time.

NOTE 1.-Karáķorum, near the upper course of the River Orkhon, is said by Chinese authors to have been founded by Búkú Khan of the Hoei-Hu or Uigurs, in the 8th century. In the days of Chinghiz we are told that it was the head-quarters of his ally, and afterwards enemy, Togrul Wang Khan, the Prester John of Polo. Okkodai, the successor of Chinghiz established his capital at Karakorum, and founded the walls and palace in 1234. It continued to be the Mongol head-quarters till 1256, when Mangu Kaan decided to transfer the seat of government to Kaipingfu north of Peking (suprà in Prologue, chap. xiii. note 1). The Chinese make the compass of the walls only 5 li, or about a mile. the Imperial Camp in its vicinity, was visited by Plano Carpini (1246), and by Rubruquis (1253). The following is the latter's account of it:

The city, or

"As regards the city of Caracaron, you must understand that if you set aside the Kaan's own Palace, it is not as good as the Borough of St. Denis; and as for the Palace, the Abbey of St. Denis is worth ten of it! There are two streets in the town; one of which is occupied by the Saracens, and in that is the market-place. The other street is occupied by the Cathayans, who are all craftsmen. Besides these two streets there are some great palaces occupied by the court secretaries. There are also twelve idol temples belonging to different nations, two Mahummeries in which the Law of Mahomet is preached, and one church of the Christians at the extremity of the town. The town is enclosed by a mud-wall, and has four gates. At the east gate they sell millet and other corn, but the supply is scanty; at the west gate they sell rams and goats; at the south gate oxen and waggons; at the north gate horses. . . . Mangu Kaan has a great Court beside the Town Rampart, which is enclosed by a brick wall, just like our priories. Inside there is a big palace, within which he holds a drinking-bout twice a year; . . . . there are also a number of long buildings like granges, in which are kept his treasures and his stores of victual" (345-6; 334).

NOTE 2. CHORCHA (Ciorcia) is the Manchu country, whose people were at that time called by the Chinese Yuché or Niuché, and by the Mongols Churché, or as it is in Sanang Setzen Jurchid. The country in question is several times mentioned by Rashiduddin as Churché. The founders of the Kin Dynasty, which the Mongols superseded in Northern China, were of Churché race.

NOTE 3.-A note on Prester John might easily spread over many pages. It is impossible to treat it without some expansion, even though omitting many interesting though not essential points.

The idea that a Christian potentate of enormous wealth and power, and bearing this title, ruled over vast tracts in the far East, was universal in Europe from the middle of the 12th to the end of the 13th century, after which time the Asiatic story seems gradually to have died away, whilst the Royal Presbyter was assigned to a locus in Abyssinia; the equivocal application of the term India to the East of Asia and the East of Africa facilitating this transfer. Indeed I have a suspicion, contrary to the view now generally taken, that the term may from the first have belonged to the Abyssinian Prince, though circumstances led to its being applied in another quarter for a time.

Be that as it may, the inordinate report of Prester John's magnificence became especially diffused from about the year 1165, when a letter full of the most extravagant details was circulated, which purported to have been addressed by this potentate to the Greek Emperor Manuel, the Roman Emperor Frederick, the Pope, and other Christian sovereigns. By the circulation of this letter, glaring fiction as it is, the idea of this Christian Conqueror was planted deep in the mind of Europe, and twined itself round every rumour of revolution in further Asia. Even

when the din of the conquests of Chinghiz began to be audible in the West, he was invested with the character of a Christian King, and more or less confounded with the mysterious Prester John.

The first notice of a conquering Asiatic potentate so styled, had been brought to Europe by the Syrian Bishop of Gabala (Jibal, south of Laodicea in Northern Syria), who came in 1145 to lay various grievances before Pope Eugene III. He reported that not long before a certain John, inhabiting the extreme East, king and Nestorian priest, and claiming descent from the Three Wise Kings, had made war on the Samiard Kings of the Medes and Persians, and had taken Ecbatana their capital. He was then proceeding to the deliverance of Jerusalem, but was stopped by the Tigris which he could not cross, and compelled by disease in his host to retire.

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

This Karacathayan prince is undoubtedly the first conqueror (in Asia at all events) to whom the name of Prester John was applied, though how that name arose remains obscure. Oppert supposes that Gurkhan or Kurkhan, softened in W. Turkish pronunciation into Yurkan, was confounded with Yochanan or Johannes; but he finds no evidence of the conqueror's profession of Christianity except the fact, notable certainly, that the daughter of the last of his brief dynasty is

According to Mirkhond, Bala Sagun seems to have been the same as Bishbálik (now Urumtsi: see Erdmann, 532).

recorded to have been a Christian. Indeed, D'Ohsson says that the first Gurkhan was a Buddhist, though on what authority is not clear. There seems a probability at least that it was an error in the original ascription of Christianity to the Karacathayan prince, which caused the confusions as to the identity of Prester John which appear in the next century, of which we shall presently speak. Leaving this doubtful point, it has been plausibly suggested that the title of Presbyter Johannes was connected with the legends of the immortality of John the Apostle (ó πрeσẞúτeрos, as he calls himself in the 2nd and 3rd epistles), and the belief referred to by some of the Fathers that he would be the Forerunner of our Lord's second coming as John the Baptist had been of His first. When the Mongol conquests threw Asia open to Frank travellers in the middle of the 13th century, their minds were full of Prester John; they sought in vain for an adequate representative, but it was not in the nature of things but they should find some representative. In fact they found several. Apparently no real tradition existed among the Eastern Christians of any such personage, but the persistent demand produced a supply, and the honour of identification with Prester John, after hovering over one head and another, settled finally upon that of the King of the Keraits, whom we find to play the part in our text.

Thus in Plano Carpini's single mention of Prester John as the King of the Christians of India the Greater, who defeats the Tartars by an elaborate stratagem, Oppert recognizes Sultan Jaláluddín of Khwarizm and his temporary success over the Mongols in Afghanistan. In the Armenian Prince Sempad's account, on the other hand, this Christian King of India is aided by the Tartars to defeat and harass the neighbouring Saracens his enemies, and becomes the Mongol's vassal. the statement of Rubruquis, though distinct reference is made to the conquering Gurkhan (under the name of Coir Cham of Caracatay), the title of King John is assigned to the Naiman Prince (Kushluk), who had married the daughter of the last lineal sovereign of Karakhitai, and usurped his power, whilst with a strange complication of confusion, UNC Prince of the Crit and Merkit (Kerait and Merkit, two great tribes of Mongolia), and Lord of Caracorum, is made the brother and successor of this Naiman Prince. His version of the story, as it proceeds, has so much resemblance to Polo's, that we shall quote the words. The Crit and Merkit, he says, were Nestorian Christians. "But their Lord had abandoned the worship of Christ to follow idols, and kept by him those priests of the idols who are all devil-raisers and sorcerers. Beyond his pastures, at the distance of 10 or 15 days' journey, were the pastures of the MOAL (Mongol), who were a very poor people without a leader and without any religion except sorceries and divinations, such as all the people of those parts put so much faith in. Next to Moal was another poor tribe called TARTAR. King John having died without an heir, his brother Unc got his wealth, and caused himself to be proclaimed Cham, and sent out his flocks and