You Should Be Told Also That All The Grand Kaans, And All The Descendants
Of Chinghis Their First Lord, Are Carried To A Mountain That Is Called
ALTAY To Be Interred.
Wheresoever the Sovereign may die, he is carried to
his burial in that mountain with his predecessors; no matter an the place
of his death were 100 days' journey distant, thither must he be carried to
his burial.[NOTE 3]
Let me tell you a strange thing too. When they are carrying the body of
any Emperor to be buried with the others, the convoy that goes with the
body doth put to the sword all whom they fall in with on the road, saying:
"Go and wait upon your Lord in the other world!" For they do in sooth
believe that all such as they slay in this manner do go to serve their
Lord in the other world. They do the same too with horses; for when the
Emperor dies, they kill all his best horses, in order that he may have the
use of them in the other world, as they believe. And I tell you as a
certain truth, that when Mongou Kaan died, more than 20,000 persons, who
chanced to meet the body on its way, were slain in the manner I have
told.[NOTE 4]
NOTE 1. - Before parting with Chinghiz let me point out what has not to my
knowledge been suggested before, that the name of "Cambuscan bold" in
Chaucer's tale is only a corruption of the name of Chinghiz. The name of
the conqueror appears in Fr. Ricold as Camiuscan, from which the
transition to Cambuscan presents no difficulty. Camius was, I suppose, a
clerical corruption out of Canjus or Cianjus. In the chronicle of St.
Antonino, however, we have him called "Chinghiscan rectius Tamgius
Cam" (XIX. c. 8). If this is not merely the usual blunder of t for
c, it presents a curious analogy to the form Tankiz Khan always used
by Ibn Batuta. I do not know the origin of the latter, unless it was
suggested by tankis (Ar.) "Turning upside down." (See Pereg. Quat., p.
119; I. B. III. 22, etc.)
NOTE 2. - Polo's history here is inadmissible. He introduces into the list
of the supreme Kaans Batu, who was only Khan of Kipchak (the Golden
Horde), and Hulaku who was Khan of Persia, whilst he omits Okkodai,
the immediate successor of Chinghiz. It is also remarkable that he uses
the form Alacou here instead of Alaue as elsewhere; nor does he seem to
mean the same person, for he was quite well aware that Alaue was Lord of
the Levant, who sent ambassadors to the Great Khan Cublay, and could not
therefore be one of his predecessors. The real succession ran: 1.
Chinghiz; 2. Okkodai; 3. Kuyuk; 4. Mangku; 5. Kublai.
There are quite as great errors in the history of Haiton, who had probably
greater advantages in this respect than Marco. And I may note that in
Teixeira's abridgment of Mirkhond, Hulaku is made to succeed Mangku Kaan
on the throne of Chinghiz.
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