Even then they would not have been able to take them without the
help of the king's own men who had been taken, and who knew better how to
deal with the beasts than the Tartars did. The elephant is an animal that
hath more wit than any other; but in this way at last they were caught,
more than 200 of them. And it was from this time forth that the Great Kaan
began to keep numbers of elephants.
So thus it was that the king aforesaid was defeated by the sagacity and
superior skill of the Tartars as you have heard.
NOTE 1. - Nescradin for Nesradin, as we had Bascra for Basra.
This NASRUDDIN was apparently an officer of whom Rashiduddin speaks, and
whom he calls governor (or perhaps commander) in Karajang. He describes
him as having succeeded in that command to his father the Sayad Ajil of
Bokhara, one of the best of Kublai's chief Ministers. Nasr-uddin retained
his position in Yun-nan till his death, which Rashid, writing about 1300,
says occurred five or six years before. His son Bayan, who also bore the
grandfather's title of Sayad Ajil, was Minister of Finance under Kublai's
successor; and another son, Hala, is also mentioned as one of the
governors of the province of Fu-chau. (See Cathay, pp. 265, 268, and
D'Ohsson, II. 507-508.)
Nasr-uddin (Nasulating) is also frequently mentioned as employed on this
frontier by the Chinese authorities whom Pauthier cites.
[Na-su-la-ding [Nasr-uddin] was the eldest of the five sons of the
Mohammedan Sai-dien-ch'i shan-sze-ding, Sayad Ajil, a native of Bokhara,
who died in Yun-nan, where he had been governor when Kublai, in the reign
of Mangu, entered the country. Nasr-uddin "has a separate biography in ch.
cxxv of the Yuen-shi. He was governor of the province of Yun-nan, and
distinguished himself in the war against the southern tribes of Kiao-chi
(Cochin-China) and Mien (Burma). He died in 1292, the father of twelve
sons, the names of five of which are given in the biography, viz.
Bo-yen-ch'a-rh [Bayan], who held a high office, Omar, Djafar, Hussein,
and Saadi." (Bretschneider, Med. Res. I. 270-271). Mr. E.H. Parker
writes in the China Review, February-March, 1901, pp. 196-197, that the
Mongol history states that amongst the reforms of Nasr-uddin's father in
Yun-nan, was the introduction of coffins for the dead, instead of burning
them. - H.C.]
[NOTE 2. - In his battle near Sardis, Cyrus "collected together all the
camels that had come in the train of his army to carry the provisions and
the baggage, and taking off their loads, he mounted riders upon them
accoutred as horsemen.
