For They Got A Cane And Split It
Lengthwise, And Laid One Half On This Side And One Half On That, Allowing
No One To Touch The Pieces.
And one piece of cane they called Chinghis
Kaan, and the other piece they called Prester John.
And then they said
to Chinghis: "Now mark! and you will see the event of the battle, and who
shall have the best of it; for whose cane soever shall get above the
other, to him shall victory be." He replied that he would fain see it, and
bade them begin. Then the Christian astrologers read a Psalm out of the
Psalter, and went through other incantations. And lo! whilst all were
beholding, the cane that bore the name of Chinghis Kaan, without being
touched by anybody, advanced to the other that bore the name of Prester
John, and got on the top of it. When the Prince saw that he was greatly
delighted, and seeing how in this matter he found the Christians to tell
the truth, he always treated them with great respect, and held them for
men of truth for ever after.[NOTE 2]
NOTE 1. - Polo in the preceding chapter has stated that this plain of
Tanduc was in Prester John's country. He plainly regards it as identical
with the Tanduc of which he speaks more particularly in ch. lix. as
belonging to Prester John's descendants, and which must be located near
the Chinese Wall. He is no doubt wrong in placing the battle there. Sanang
Setzen puts the battle between the two, the only one which he mentions,
"at the outflow of the Onon near Kulen Buira." The same action is placed
by De Mailla's authorities at Calantschan, by P. Hyacinth at Kharakchin
Schatu, by Erdmann after Rashid in the vicinity of Hulun Barkat and
Kalanchinalt, which latter was on the borders of the Churche or Manchus.
All this points to the vicinity of Buir Nor and Hulan or Kalon Nor (though
the Onon is far from these). But this was not the final defeat of Aung
Khan or Prester John, which took place some time later (in 1203) at a
place called the Chacher Ondur (or Heights), which Gaubil places between
the Tula and the Kerulun, therefore near the modern Urga. Aung Khan was
wounded, and fled over the frontier of the Naiman; the officers of that
tribe seized and killed him. (Schmidt, 87, 383; Erdmann, 297;
Gaubil, p. 10.)
NOTE 2. - A Tartar divination by twigs, but different from that here
employed, is older than Herodotus, who ascribes it to the Scythians. We
hear of one something like the last among the Alans, and (from Tacitus)
among the Germans. The words of Hosea (iv. 12), "My people ask counsel at
their stocks, and their staff declareth unto them," are thus explained by
Theophylactus: "They stuck up a couple of sticks, whilst murmuring certain
charms and incantations; the sticks then, by the operation of devils,
direct or indirect, would fall over, and the direction of their fall was
noted," etc.
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