So he summoned the Saracens and
prohibited their doing many things which their religion enjoined. Thus, he
ordered them to regulate their marriages by the Tartar Law, and prohibited
their cutting the throats of animals killed for food, ordering them to rip
the stomach in the Tartar way.
Now when all this happened Messer Marco was upon the spot.][NOTE 5]
NOTE 1. - This narrative is from Ramusio's version, and constitutes one of
the most notable passages peculiar to that version.
The name of the oppressive Minister is printed in Ramusio's Collection
Achmach. But the c and t are so constantly interchanged in MSS. that
I think there can be no question this was a mere clerical error for
Achmath, and so I write it. I have also for consistency changed the
spelling of Xandu, Chingis, etc., to that hitherto adopted in our text
of Chandu, Chinkin, etc.
NOTE 2. - The remarks of a Chinese historian on Kublai's administration may
be appropriately quoted here: "Hupilai Han must certainly be regarded as
one of the greatest princes that ever existed, and as one of the most
successful in all that he undertook. This he owed to his judgment in the
selection of his officers, and to his talent for commanding them. He
carried his arms into the most remote countries, and rendered his name so
formidable that not a few nations spontaneously submitted to his
supremacy. Nor was there ever an Empire of such vast extent. He cultivated
literature, protected its professors, and even thankfully received their
advice. Yet he never placed a Chinese in his cabinet, and he employed
foreigners only as Ministers. These, however, he chose with discernment,
always excepting the Ministers of Finance. He really loved his subjects;
and if they were not always happy under his government, it is because they
took care to conceal their sufferings. There were in those days no Public
Censors whose duty it is to warn the Sovereign of what is going on: and no
one dared to speak out for fear of the resentment of the Ministers, who
were the depositaries of the Imperial authority, and the authors of the
oppressions under which the people laboured. Several Chinese, men of
letters and of great ability, who lived at Hupilai's court, might have
rendered that prince the greatest service in the administration of his
dominions, but they never were intrusted with any but subordinate offices,
and they were not in a position to make known the malversations of those
public blood-suckers." (De Mailla, IX. 459-460.)
AHMAD was a native of Fenaket (afterwards Shah-Rukhia), near the Jaxartes,
and obtained employment under Kublai through the Empress Jamui Khatun, who
had known him before her marriage. To her Court he was originally
attached, but we find him already employed in high financial office in
1264. Kublai's demands for money must have been very large, and he
eschewed looking too closely into the character of his financial agents or
the means by which they raised money for him. Ahmad was very successful in
this, and being a man of great talent and address, obtained immense
influence over the Emperor, until at last nothing was done save by his
direction, though he always appeared to be acting under the orders of
Kublai. The Chinese authorities in Gaubil and De Mailla speak strongly of
his oppressions, but only in general terms, and without affording such
particulars as we derive from the text.
The Hereditary Prince Chingkim was strongly adverse to Ahmad; and some of
the high Chinese officials on various occasions made remonstrance against
the Minister's proceedings; but Kublai turned a deaf ear to them, and
Ahmad succeeded in ruining most of his opponents. (Gaubil, 141, 143,
151; De Mailla, IX. 316-317; D'Ohsson, II. 468-469.)
[The Rev. W. S. Ament (Marco Polo in Cambaluc, 105) writes: "No name is
more execrated than that of Ah-ha-ma (called Achmath by Polo), a Persian,
who was chosen to manage the finances of the Empire. He was finally
destroyed by a combination against him while the Khan was absent with
Crown Prince Chen Chin, on a visit to Shang Tu." Achmath has his biography
under the name of A-ho-ma (Ahmed) in the ch. 205 of the Yuen-shi,
under the rubric "Villanous Ministers." (Bretschneider, Med. Res. I.
p. 272.) - H. C.]
NOTE 3. - This term Bailo was the designation of the representative of
Venetian dignity at Constantinople, called Podesta during the period of
the Latin rule there, and it has endured throughout the Turkish Empire to
our own day in the form Balios as the designation of a Frank Consul.
[There was also a Venetian bailo in Syria. - H. C.] But that term itself
could scarcely have been in use at Cambaluc, even among the handful of
Franks, to designate the powerful Minister, and it looks as if Marco had
confounded the word in his own mind with some Oriental term of like sound,
possibly the Arabic Wali, "a Prince, Governor of a Province,... a chief
Magistrate." (F. Johnson.) In the Roteiro of the Voyage of Vasco da
Gama (2nd ed. Lisbon, 1861, pp. 53-54) it is said that on the arrival of
the ships at Calicut the King sent "a man who was called the Bale, which
is much the same as Alquaide." And the Editor gives the same explanation
that I have suggested.
I observe that according to Pandit Manphul the native governor of Kashgar,
under the Chinese Amban, used to be called the Baili Beg. [In this case
Baili stands for beileh.
