Most of these were remanded to
prison, and only a few were condemned to die, which power resides solely in
the emperor.
All the governors of this vast empire, however distant from
court, send all malefactors to Khanbalik, to appear in presence of the
emperor. Each persons crime is written on one end of the board which he
carries about his neck; and the crimes against religion are the most
severely punished of all. Great care is taken to examine into all the facts
on these occasions, insomuch that the emperor holds council twelve several
times before he condemns any one to death. Hence a person who has been
condemned in eleven successive councils, is sometimes acquitted in the
twelfth, which is always held in presence of the emperor, who never
condemns any but those he cannot save. When the criminals were dismissed,
the ambassadors were led by an officer within fifteen cubits of the throne;
and this officer, on his knees, read out of a paper the purport of their
embassy; adding that they had brought rarities as presents to his majesty,
and were come to knock their heads against the ground before him. Then the
Kadhi Mulana Haji Yusof, a commander of ten thousand, who was a favourite
of the emperor and one of his twelve councillors, approached to the
ambassadors, with some Moslems who spoke the Persian language, and ordered
them to fall on their knees and knock their ground with their foreheads;
but they only bowed their heads three times.
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