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 passionate 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 analogies as a notable instance of like results produced by like circumstances 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 Il'estern China, in the Ed. Review' for April 1868;* Cathay, p. 261.) 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 (σvμμíkтo), 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 ships; 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 dayeves, 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 (yévos Toù l'aσμovdiкoî), to whom he assigns the same characteristics as Pachymeres (IV. v. 5, also VI. iii. 3, and XIV. x. 11). 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 analogous case of the Turcopuli, sprung from Turk fathers and Greek mothers, their name had come to be applied technically to a * A translation of Heins was kindly lent me by the author of this article, the lamented Mr. J. W. S. Wyllie. class of troops. Ducange, in one of his notes on Joinville, says: "During the time that the French possessed Constantinople, they gave the name of Gasmoules 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 mishmash. In Davanzati's Tacitus, the words "Colluviem illam nationum” (Annal. II. 55) are rendered “ quello guazzabuglio di nazioni," in which case we come very close to the meaning assigned 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 Etrangères, 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. We shall see presently that the Great Wall is spoken of by his contemporaries Rashiduddin 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.* 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, chap. iv., note 3). Abulfeda says: "The Ocean turns northward along the east of China, and then expands in the same direction till it passes China, and comes opposite to the Rampart of Yájúj and Májúj;" 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 Yájúj and Májúj, 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 Yájúj wa Majúj) when he is at Sin Kalán, i.e. Canton, and, as might be expected, gets little satisfaction. Apart from this interesting point Marsden seems to be right in the * I owe the suggestion of this to a remark in Oppert's Presbyter Johannes, p. 77. general bearing of his explanation of the passage, and I conceive that the two classes 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 Rashiduddin, the White and Black Tartars. To the latter class belonged Chinghiz and his MONGOLS proper, with a number of other tribes detailed by Rashiduddin, 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-kút were a Turk tribe who were vassals 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 Monguls Ungu, a name which some connect with that of the tribe. Erdmann indeed asserts 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. 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 assigns 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 Büsching, IV. 140, 274-5; I. B. IV. 274; Golden Horde, 34, 68; Erdmann, 241-2, 257-8; Timk. I. 259, 263, 268; Vinc. Bellov. Spec. Hist. XXIX. 73, XXXI. 32-34; Pereg. Quat. 118.) NOTE 6. The towns and villages were probably those immediately north of the Great Wall, between 112° and 115° E. long., of which many remains exist, ascribed to the time of the Yuan or Mongol dynasty. This tract, between the Great Wall and the volcanic plateau of Mongolia, is extensively colonised by Chinese, and has resumed the flourishing aspect that Polo describes. It is known now as the Ku wei, or extramural region. Of the cloths called nakh and nasij we have spoken before (suprà, chap. vi. note 4). These stuffs, or some such as these, were, I believe, what the medieval 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., p. 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 segg.) NOTE 7. SINDACHU (Sindacui, Suidatui, .&c., of the MSS) is SIWANHWA-FU, called under the Kin dynasty Siwante-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 m. 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. Ydifu has not been identified. But Baron Richthofen saw old mines N.E. of Kalgan, which used to yield argentiferous galena; and Pumpelly heard of silver-mines near Yuchau, in the same department. CHAPTER LX. CONCERNING THE KAAN'S PALACE OF CHAGANNOR. At the end of those three days you find a city called CHAGAN NOR [which is as much as to say White Pool], at which there is a great Palace of the Grand Kaan's; and he likes much to reside there on account of the Lakes and Rivers in the neighbourhood, which are the haunt of swans and of a great variety of other birds. The adjoining plains too abound with cranes, partridges, pheasants, and other game birds, so that the Emperor takes all the more delight in staying there, in order to go a-hawking with his gerfalcons and other falcons, a sport of which he is very fond.2 There are five different kinds of cranes found in those tracts, as I shall tell you. First, there is one which is very big, and all over as black as a crow; the second kind again |