But
I doubt if it means more than that the Christian rulers have under them
a people called Argon, etc. The passage has been read with a bias, owing
to an erroneous interpretation of the word Argon in the teeth of Polo's
explanation of it.
Klaproth, I believe, first suggested that Argon represents the term
Arkhaiun, which is found repeatedly applied to Oriental Christians, or
their clergy, in the histories of the Mongol era.[2] No quite satisfactory
explanation has been given of the origin of that term. It is barely
possible that it may be connected with that which Polo uses here; but he
tells us as plainly as possible that he means by the term, not a
Christian, but a half-breed.
And in this sense the word is still extant in Tibet, probably also in
Eastern Turkestan, precisely in Marco's form, ARGON. It is applied in
Ladak, as General Cunningham tells us, specifically to the mixt race
produced by the marriages of Kashmirian immigrants with Bot (Tibetan)
women. And it was apparently to an analogous cross between Caucasians and
Turanians that the term was applied in Tenduc. Moorcroft also speaks of
this class in Ladak, calling them Argands. Mr. Shaw styles them "a set
of ruffians called Argoons, half-bred between Toorkistan fathers and
Ladak mothers.... They possess all the evil qualities of both races,
without any of their virtues." And the author of the Dabistan, speaking of
the Tibetan Lamas, says:
