(Cathay, 153; Rémusat, Nouv. Mél. I. 178; Mines de l'Orient, III. 201 seqq.; Nangis in Duchesne, V. 332; Pipino in Muratori, IX. 705: Defréméry in J. As. ser. 5, tom. v. 34 seqq.; Cent. Nov. Antiche, Firenze, 1572, p. 91; Bauduin de Sebourg, I. 359.)

The following are some of the more notable murders or attempts at murder ascribed to the Ismailite emissaries either from Syria or from Persia :

:

A.D. 1092. Nizam-ul-Mulk, formerly the powerful minister of Malik Shah, Seljukian sovereign of Persia, and a little later his two sons. 1102. The Prince of Homs, in the chief Mosque of that city. 1113. Maudud, Prince of Mosul, in the chief Mosque of Damascus. About 1114. Abul Muzafar 'Ali, Wazir of Sanjár Shah, and Chakar Beg, granduncle of the latter. 1116. Ahmed Yel, Prince of Maragha, at Baghdad, in the presence of Mahomed, Sultan of Persia. 1121. The Amir Afdhal, the powerful Wazir of Egypt, at Cairo. 1126. Kasim Aksonkor, Prince of Mosul and Aleppo, in the Great Mosque at Mosul. 1127. Moyinuddin, Wazir of Sanjár Shah of Persia. 1129. Amír Billah, Khalif of Egypt. 1131. Taj-ul Mulúk Buri, Prince of Damascus. 1134. Shamsul-Mulúk, son of the preceding. 1135-38. The Khalif Mostarshid, the Khalif Rashíd, and Daùd, Seljukian Prince of Adherbaijan. 1149. Raymond, Count of Tripoli. 1191. Kizil Arzlan, Prince of Adherbaijan. 1192. Conrad of Montferrat, titular King of Jerusalem; a murder which King Richard has been accused of instigating. Oghulmish, Prince of Hamadán.

1217.

1271.

And in 1174 and 1176 attempts to murder the great Saladin. Attempt to murder Ala'uddin Juwaini, Governor of Baghdad, and historian of the Mongols. 1272. The attempt to murder Prince Edward of England at Acre.

In latter years the Fidáwi or Ismailite adepts appear to have let out their services simply as hired assassins. Bibars, in a letter to his court at Cairo, boasts of using them when needful. A Mahomedan author ascribes to Bibars the instigation of the attempt on Prince Edward. (Makrizi, II. 100; J. As. XI. 150.)

NOTE 2.-Hammer mentions as what he chooses to call "Grand Priors" under the Shaikh or "Grand Master" at Alamút, the chief in Syria, one in the Kuhistan of E. Persia (Tun-o-Kaïn), one in Kumis (the country about Damghan and Bostam), and one in 'Irák; he does not speak of any in Kurdistan. Colonel Monteith however says, though without stating authority or particulars, "There were several divisions

*This story has been transferred to Peter the Great, who is alleged to have exhibited the docility of his subjects in the same way to the King of Denmark, by ordering a Cossack to jump from the Round Tower at Copenhagen, on the summit of which they were standing.

of them (the Assassins) scattered throughout Syria, Kurdistan (near the Lake of Wan), and Asia Minor, but all acknowledging as Imaum or High Priest the Chief residing at Alamut." And it may be noted that Odoric, a generation after Polo, puts the Old Man at Millescorte, which looks like Malasgird, north of Lake Van. (H. des Assass. p. 104: J. R. G. S. III. 16; Cathay, p. ccxliii.)

CHAPTER XXV.

HOW THE OLD MAN CAME BY HIS END.

Now it came to pass, in the year of Christ's Incarnation, 1252, that Alau, Lord of the Tartars of the Levant, heard tell of these great crimes of the Old Man, and resolved to make an end of him. So he took and sent one of his Barons with a great Army to that Castle, and they besieged it for three years, but they could not take it, so strong was it. And indeed if they had had food within it never would have been taken. But after being besieged those three years they ran short of victual, and were taken. The Old Man was put to death with all his men [and the Castle with its Garden of Paradise was levelled with the ground]. And since that time he has had no successor; and there was an end to all his villainies.'

Now let us go back to our journey.

NOTE 1.-The date in Pauthier is 1242; in the G. T. and in Ramusio 1262. Neither is right, nor certainly could Polo have meant the former.

When Mangku Kaan, after his enthronement (1251), determined at a great Kurultai or Diet, on perfecting the Mongol conquests, he entrusted his brother Kublaï with the completion of the subjugation of China and the adjacent countries, whilst his brother Hulaku received the command of the army destined for Persia and Syria. The complaints that came from the Mongol officers already in Persia determined him to commence with the reduction of the Ismailites, and Hulaku set out from Karakorum in February 1254. He proceeded with great deliberation, and the Oxus was not crossed till January 1256. But an army had been sent long in advance under "one of his Barons," Kitubuka Noyan, and in 1253 it was already actively engaged in besieging the Ismailite for

esses. In 1255, during the progress of the war, ALA'UDDIN MAHOMED, he reigning Prince of the Assassins (mentioned by Polo as Alaodin), was murdered at the instigation of his son Ruknuddin Khurshah, who succeeded to the authority. A year later (November 1256) Ruknuddin surrendered to Hulaku. The fortresses given up, all well furnished with provisions and artillery engines, were 100 in number. Two of them, however, Lembeser and Girdkuh, refused to surrender. The former fell after a year; the latter is stated to have held out for twenty years, actually, as it would seem, about fourteen, or till December 1270. Ruknuddin was well treated by Hulaku, and despatched to the Court of the Kaan. The accounts of his death differ, but that most commonly alleged, according to Rashiduddin, is that Mangku Kaan was irritated at hearing of his approach, asking why his post-horses should be fagged to no purpose, and sent executioners to put Ruknuddin to death on the road. Alamut had been surrendered without any substantial resistance. Some survivors of the sect got hold of it again in 1275-6, and held out for a time. The dominion was extinguished but the sect remained, though scattered indeed and obscure. A very strange case that came before Sir Joseph Arnould in the High Court at Bombay in 1866 threw much new light on the survival of the Ismailis.

Some centuries ago a Dai or Missionary of the Ismailis, named Sadruddín, made converts from the Hindu trading classes in Upper Sind. Under the name of Khojas the sect multiplied considerably in Sind, Kach'h, and Guzerat, whence they spread to Bombay and to Zanzibar. Their numbers in Western India are now probably not less than 50,000 to 60,000. Their doctrine, or at least the books which they revere, appear to embrace a strange jumble of Hindu notions with Mahomedan practices and Shiah mysticism, but the main characteristic endures of deep reverence, if not worship, of the person of their hereditary Imám. To his presence, when he resided in Persia, numbers of pilgrims used to betake themselves, and large remittances of what we may call Ismail's Pence were made to him. Abul Hassan, the last Imam but one, of admitted lineal descent from the later Shaikhs of Alamút, and claiming (as they did) descent from the Imam Ismail and. his great ancestor 'Ali Abu Tálib, had considerable estates at Meheláti, between Kúm and Hamadán, and at one time held the Government of Kerman. His son and successor, Shah Khalilullah, was killed in a brawl at Yezd in 1818. Fatteh 'Ali Shah, fearing Ismailite vengeance, caused the homicide to be severely punished, and conferred gifts and honours on the young Imam, Agha Khan, including the hand of one of his own daughters. In 1840 Agha Khan, who had raised a revolt at Kerman, had to escape from Persia. He took refuge in Sind, and eventually rendered good service both to General Nott at Kandahár and to Sir C. Napier in Sind, for which he receives a pension from our Government.

For many years this genuine Heir and successor of the Viex de la Montaingne has had his headquarters at Bombay, where he devotes, or

for a long time did devote, the large income that he receives from the faithful to the maintenance of a racing stable, being the chief patron and promoter of the Bombay Turf!

A schism among the Khojas, owing apparently to the desire of part of the well-to-do Bombay community to sever themselves from the peculiarities of the sect and to set up as respectable Sunnis, led in 1866 to an action in the High Court, the object of which was to exclude Agha Khan from all rights over the Khojas, and to transfer the property of the community to the charge of orthodox Mahomedans. To the elaborate addresses of Mr. Howard and Sir Joseph Arnould, on this most singular process before an English Court, I owe the preceding particulars. The judgment was entirely in favour of the Old Man of the Mountain.

The Bohras of Western India are identified with the Imámí-Ismáilís in some books, and were so spoken of in the first edition of this work. This is however an error, originally due, it would seem, to Sir John Malcolm. The nature of their doctrine, indeed, seems to be very much alike, and the Bohras, like the Ismáilis, attach a divine character to their Mullah or chief pontiff, and make a pilgrimage to his presence once in life. But the persons so reverenced are quite different; and the Bohras recognise all the 12 Imams of ordinary Shiahs. Their first appearance in India was early, the date which they assign being A.H. 532 (A.D. 1137 8). Their chief seat was in Yemen, from which a large emigration to India took place on its conquest by the Turks in 1538. Ibn Batuta seems to have met with Bohras at Gandár, near Baroch, in 1342 (Voyages, IV. 58).

A Chinese account of the expedition of Hulaku will be found in Rémusat's Nouveaux Mélanges (I.), and in Pauthier's Introduction. (Q. R. 115-219, esp. 213; Ilch. vol. I. ; J.A.S.B. VI. 842 seqq.)

There is some account of the rock of Alamut and its exceedingly slender traces of occupancy, by Col. Monteith, in J.R.G.S. III. 15, and again by Sir Justin Shiel in vol. VIII. p. 431. There does not seem to be any specific authority for assigning the Paradise of the Shaikh to Alamut; and it is at least worthy of note that another of the castles of the Muláhidah, destroyed by Hulaku, was called Firdús, i.e. Paradise. In any case I see no reason to suppose that Polo visited Alamut, which would have been quite out of the road that he is following.

It is possible that "the Castle," to which he alludes at the beginning of next chapter, and which set him off upon this digression, was Girdkuh. It has not, as far as I know, been identified by modern travellers, but it stood within 10 or 12 miles of Damghan (to the west or north-west). It is probably the Tigado of Hayton, of which he thus speaks: "The Assassins had an impregnable castle called Tigado, which was furnished with all necessaries, and was so strong that it had no fear of attack on any side. Howbeit, Haloon commanded a certain captain of his that he should take 10,000 Tartars who had been left in garrison in Persia, and with them lay siege to the said castle, and not leave it till he had taken it. Wherefore the said Tartars continued besieging it for seven whole

years, winter and summer, without being able to take it. At last the Assassins surrendered, from sheer want of clothing, but not of victuals or other necessaries." So Ramusio; other copies read " 27 years." In any case it corroborates the fact that Girdkuh was said to have held out for an extraordinary length of time. If Rashiduddin is right in naming 1270 as the date of surrender, this would be quite a recent event when the

H.H. Agha Khán Meheláti, present Representative of the Old Man of the Mountain.

"Le Seigneur Viel. que je vous ai dit si tient sa court . . . et fait à croire à cele simple gent qui li est entour que il est un grant prophete."

Polo party passed, and draw special attention to the spot. (J. As. ser. 4, tom. xiii. 48; Ilch. I. 93, 104, 274; Q. R. p. 278; Ritter, VIII. 336.) A note which I have from Djihan Numa (I. 259) connects Girdkuh with a district called Chinar. This may be a clue to the term Arbre Sec; but there are difficulties.

CHAPTER XXVI.

CONCERNING THE CITY OF SAPURGAN.

ON leaving the Castle, you ride over fine plains and beautiful valleys, and pretty hill-sides producing excellent