And savage acts of the same kind by the
Chinese and their Turk partisans in the defence of Kashgar were related to
Mr. Shaw.
Probably, however, nothing of the kind in history equals what Abdallatif,
a sober and scientific physician, describes as having occurred before his
own eyes in the great Egyptian famine of A.H. 597 (1200). The horrid
details fill a chapter of some length, and we need not quote from them.
Nor was Christendom without the rumour of such barbarities. The story of
King Richard's banquet in presence of Saladin's ambassadors on the head of
a Saracen curried (for so it surely was), -
"soden full hastily
With powder and with spysory,
And with saffron of good colour" -
fable as it is, is told with a zest that makes one shudder; but the tale
in the Chanson d'Antioche, of how the licentious bands of ragamuffins,
who hung on the army of the First Crusade, and were known as the
Tafurs,[9] ate the Turks whom they killed at the siege, looks very like
an abominable truth, corroborated as it is by the prose chronicle of worse
deeds at the ensuing siege of Marrha: -
"A lor cotiaus qu'il ont trenchans et afiles
Escorchoient les Turs, aval parmi les pres.
Voiant Paiens, les ont par pieces decoupes.
En l'iave et el carbon les ont bien quisines,
Volontiers les menjuent sans pain et dessales."[10]
(Della Penna, p. 76; Reinaud, Rel. I. 52; Rennie's Peking, II. 244;
Ann. de la Pr. de la F. XXIX. 353, XXI. 298; Hayton in Ram. ch.
xvii.; Per. Quat. p. 116; M. Paris, sub. 1243; Mel. Asiat. Acad. St.
Petersb. II. 659; Canale in Arch. Stor. Ital. VIII.; Bergm. Nomad.
Streifereien, I. 14; Carpini, 638; D'Ohsson, II. 30, 43, 52;
Wilson's Ever Victorious Army, 74; Shaw, p. 48; Abdallatif, p. 363
seqq.; Weber, II. 135; Littre, H. de la Langue Franc. I. 191; Gesta
Tancredi in Thes. Nov. Anecd. III. 172.)
NOTE 10. - Bakhshi is generally believed to be a corruption of Bhikshu,
the proper Sanscrit term for a religious mendicant, and in particular for
the Buddhist devotees of that character. Bakhshi was probably applied to
a class only of the Lamas, but among the Turks and Persians it became a
generic name for them all. In this sense it is habitually used by
Rashiduddin, and thus also in the Ain Akbari: "The learned among the
Persians and Arabians call the priests of this (Buddhist) religion
Bukshee, and in Tibbet they are styled Lamas."
According to Pallas the word among the modern Mongols is used in the sense
of Teacher, and is applied to the oldest and most learned priest of a
community, who is the local ecclesiastical chief. Among the Kirghiz
Kazzaks again, who profess Mahomedanism, the word also survives, but
conveys among them just the idea that Polo seems to have associated with
it, that of a mere conjuror or "medicine-man"; whilst in Western Turkestan
it has come to mean a Bard.
The word Bakhshi has, however, wandered much further from its original
meaning. From its association with persons who could read and write, and
who therefore occasionally acted as clerks, it came in Persia to mean a
clerk or secretary. In the Petrarchian Vocabulary, published by Klaproth,
we find scriba rendered in Comanian, i.e. Turkish of the Crimea, by
Bacsi. The transfer of meaning is precisely parallel to that in regard
to our Clerk. Under the Mahomedan sovereigns of India, Bakhshi was
applied to an officer performing something like the duties of a
quartermaster-general; and finally, in our Indian army, it has come to
mean a paymaster. In the latter sense, I imagine it has got associated in
the popular mind with the Persian bakhshidan, to bestow, and
bakhshish. (See a note in Q. R. p. 184 seqq.; Cathay, p. 474; Ayeen
Akbery, III. 150; Pallas, Samml. II. 126; Levchine, p. 355; Klap.
Mem. III.; Vambery, Sketches, p. 81.)
The sketch from the life, on p. 326, of a wandering Tibetan devotee, whom
I met once at Hardwar, may give an idea of the sordid Bacsis spoken of
by Polo.
NOTE 11. - This feat is related more briefly by Odoric: "And jugglers cause
cups of gold full of good wine to fly through the air, and to offer
themselves to all who list to drink." (Cathay, p. 143.) In the note on
that passage I have referred to a somewhat similar story in the Life of
Apollonius. "Such feats," says Mr. Jaeschke, "are often mentioned in
ancient as well as modern legends of Buddha and other saints; and our
Lamas have heard of things very similar performed by conjuring Bonpos."
(See p. 323.) The moving of cups and the like is one of the sorceries
ascribed in old legends to Simon Magus: "He made statues to walk; leapt
into the fire without being burnt; flew in the air; made bread of stones;
changed his shape; assumed two faces at once; converted himself into a
pillar; caused closed doors to fly open spontaneously; made the vessels in
a house seem to move of themselves," etc. The Jesuit Delrio laments that
credulous princes, otherwise of pious repute, should have allowed diabolic
tricks to be played before them, "as, for example, things of iron, and
silver goblets, or other heavy articles, to be moved by bounds from one
end of a table to the other, without the use of a magnet or of any
attachment." The pious prince appears to have been Charles IX., and the
conjuror a certain Cesare Maltesio. Another Jesuit author describes the
veritable mango-trick, speaking of persons who "within three hours' space
did cause a genuine shrub of a span in length to grow out of the table,
besides other trees that produced both leaves and fruit."
In a letter dated 1st December, 1875, written by Mr. R. B. Shaw, after his
last return from Kashgar and Lahore, this distinguished traveller says; "I
have heard stories related regarding a Buddhist high priest whose temple
is said to be not far to the east of Lanchau, which reminds me of Marco
Polo and Kublai Khan.
