Tatar is
used by Oriental writers of Polo's age exactly as Tartar was then, and is
still, used in Western Europe, as a generic title for the Turanian hosts
who followed Chinghiz and his successors. But I believe the name in this
sense was unknown to Western Asia before the time of Chinghiz. And General
Cunningham must overlook this when he connects the Tatariya coins,
mentioned by Arab geographers of the 9th century, with "the Scythic or
Tatar princes who ruled in Kabul" in the beginning of our era. Tartars on
the Indian frontier in those centuries are surely to be classed with the
Frenchmen whom Brennus led to Rome, or the Scotchmen who fought against
Agricola.
[1] See J. As. ser. V. tom. xi. p. 203.
CHAPTER VII.
HOW THE GREAT KAAN SENT THE TWO BROTHERS AS HIS ENVOYS TO THE POPE.
When that Prince, whose name was CUBLAY KAAN, Lord of the Tartars all over
the earth, and of all the kingdoms and provinces and territories of that
vast quarter of the world, had heard all that the Brothers had to tell him
about the ways of the Latins, he was greatly pleased, and he took it into
his head that he would send them on an Embassy to the Pope.