Chapter LXI (1)

OF THE CITY OF CHANDU, AND THE KAAN’S PALACE THERE.

And when you have ridden three days from the city last mentioned, between north-east and north, you come to a city called CHANDU,{1} which was built by the Kaan now reigning. There is at this place a very fine marble Palace, the rooms of which are all gilt and painted with figures of men and beasts and birds, and with a variety of trees and flowers, all executed with such exquisite art that you regard them with delight and astonishment.{2}

Round this Palace a wall is built, inclosing a compass of 16 miles, and inside the Park there are fountains and rivers and brooks, and beautiful meadows, with all kinds of wild animals (excluding such as are of ferocious nature), which the Emperor has procured and placed there to supply food for his gerfalcons and hawks, which he keeps there in mew. Of these there are more than 200 gerfalcons alone, without reckoning the other hawks. The Kaan himself goes every week to see his birds sitting in mew, and sometimes he rides through the park with a leopard behind him on his horse’s croup; and then if he sees any animal that takes his fancy, he slips his leopard at it,{3} and the game when taken is made over to feed the hawks in mew. This he does for diversion.

Moreover [at a spot in the Park where there is a charming wood] he has another Palace built of cane, of which I must give you a description. It is gilt all over, and most elaborately finished inside. [It is stayed on gilt and lackered columns, on each of which is a dragon all gilt, the tail of which is attached to the column whilst the head supports the architrave, and the claws likewise are stretched out right and left to support the architrave.] The roof, like the rest, is formed of canes, covered with a varnish so strong and excellent that no amount of rain will rot them. These canes are a good 3 palms in girth, and from 10 to 15 paces in length. [They are cut across at each knot, and then the pieces are split so as to form from each two hollow tiles, and with these the house is roofed; only every such tile of cane has to be nailed down to prevent the wind from lifting it.] In short, the whole Palace is built of these canes, which (I may mention) serve also for a great variety of other useful purposes. The construction of the Palace is so devised that it can be taken down and put up again with great celerity; and it can all be taken to pieces and removed whithersoever the Emperor may command. When erected, it is braced [against mishaps from the wind] by more than 200 cords of silk.{4}

The Lord abides at this Park of his, dwelling sometimes in the Marble Palace and sometimes in the Cane Palace for three months of the year, to wit, June, July, and August; preferring this residence because it is by no means hot; in fact it is a very cool place. When the 28th day of [the Moon of] August arrives he takes his departure, and the Cane Palace is taken to pieces.{5} But I must tell you what happens when he goes away from this Palace every year on the 28th of the August [Moon].

You must know that the Kaan keeps an immense stud of white horses and mares; in fact more than 10,000 of them, and all pure white without a speck. The milk of these mares is drunk by himself and his family, and by none else, except by those of one great tribe that have also the privilege of drinking it. This privilege was granted them by Chinghis Kaan, on account of a certain victory that they helped him to win long ago. The name of the tribe is HORIAD.{6}

Now when these mares are passing across the country, and any one falls in with them, be he the greatest lord in the land, he must not presume to pass until the mares have gone by; he must either tarry where he is, or go a half-day’s journey round if need so be, so as not to come nigh them; for they are to be treated with the greatest respect. Well, when the Lord sets out from the Park on the 28th of August, as I told you, the milk of all those mares is taken and sprinkled on the ground. And this is done on the injunction of the Idolaters and Idol-priests, who say that it is an excellent thing to sprinkle that milk on the ground every 28th of August, so that the Earth and the Air and the False Gods shall have their share of it, and the Spirits likewise that inhabit the Air and the Earth. And thus those beings will protect and bless the Kaan and his children and his wives and his folk and his gear, and his cattle and his horses, his corn and all that is his. After this is done, the Emperor is off and away.{7}

But I must now tell you a strange thing that hitherto I have forgotten to mention. During the three months of every year that the Lord resides at that place, if it should happen to be bad weather, there are certain crafty enchanters and astrologers in his train, who are such adepts in necromancy and the diabolic arts, that they are able to prevent any cloud or storm from passing over the spot on which the Emperor’s Palace stands. The sorcerers who do this are called TEBET and KESIMUR, which are the names of two nations of Idolaters. Whatever they do in this way is by the help of the Devil, but they make those people believe that it is compassed by dint of their own sanctity and the help of God.{8} [They always go in a state of dirt and uncleanness, devoid of respect for themselves, or for those who see them, unwashed, unkempt, and sordidly attired.]

These people also have a custom which I must tell you. If a man is condemned to death and executed by the lawful authority, they take his body and cook and eat it. But if any one die a natural death then they will not eat the body.{9}

There is another marvel performed by those BACSI, of whom I have been speaking as knowing so many enchantments.{10} For when the Great Kaan is at his capital and in his great Palace, seated at his table, which stands on a platform some eight cubits above the ground, his cups are set before him [on a great buffet] in the middle of the hall pavement, at a distance of some ten paces from his table, and filled with wine, or other good spiced liquor such as they use. Now when the Lord desires to drink, these enchanters by the power of their enchantments cause the cups to move from their place without being touched by anybody, and to present themselves to the Emperor! This every one present may witness, and there are ofttimes more than 10,000 persons thus present. ’Tis a truth and no lie! and so will tell you the sages of our own country who understand necromancy, for they also can perform it.{11}

And when the Idol Festivals come round, these _Bacsi_ go to the Prince and say: “Sire, the Feast of such a god is come” (naming him). “My Lord, you know,” the enchanter will say, “that this god, when he gets no offerings, always sends bad weather and spoils our seasons. So we pray you to give us such and such a number of black-faced sheep,” naming whatever number they please. “And we beg also, good my lord, that we may have such a quantity of incense, and such a quantity of lignaloes, and”—so much of this, so much of that, and so much of t’other, according to their fancy—“that we may perform a solemn service and a great sacrifice to our Idols, and that so they may be induced to protect us and all that is ours.”

The _Bacsi_ say these things to the Barons entrusted with the Stewardship, who stand round the Great Kaan, and these repeat them to the Kaan, and he then orders the Barons to give everything that the Bacsi have asked for. And when they have got the articles they go and make a great feast in honour of their god, and hold great ceremonies of worship with grand illuminations and quantities of incense of a variety of odours, which they make up from different aromatic spices. And then they cook the meat, and set it before the idols, and sprinkle the broth hither and thither, saying that in this way the idols get their bellyful. Thus it is that they keep their festivals. You must know that each of the idols has a name of his own, and a feast-day, just as our Saints have their anniversaries.{12}

They have also immense Minsters and Abbeys, some of them as big as a small town, with more than two thousand monks (_i.e._ after their fashion) in a single abbey.{13} These monks dress more decently than the rest of the people, and have the head and beard shaven. There are some among these _Bacsi_ who are allowed by their rule to take wives, and who have plenty of children.{14}

Then there is another kind of devotees called SENSIN, who are men of extraordinary abstinence after their fashion, and lead a life of such hardship as I will describe. All their life long they eat nothing but bran,{15} which they take mixt with hot water. That is their food: bran, and nothing but bran; and water for their drink. ’Tis a lifelong fast! so that I may well say their life is one of extraordinary asceticism. They have great idols, and plenty of them; but they sometimes also worship fire. The other Idolaters who are not of this sect call these people heretics—_Patarins_ as we should say{16}—because they do not worship their idols in their own fashion. Those of whom I am speaking would not take a wife on any consideration.{17} They wear dresses of hempen stuff, black and blue,{18} and sleep upon mats; in fact their asceticism is something astonishing. Their idols are all feminine, that is to say, they have women’s names.{19}

Now let us have done with this subject, and let me tell you of the great state and wonderful magnificence of the Great Lord of Lords; I mean that great Prince who is the Sovereign of the Tartars, CUBLAY by name, that most noble and puissant Lord.

NOTE 1.—[There were two roads to go from Peking to Shangtu: the
eastern road through Tu-shi-k’ow, and the western (used for the
return journey) road by Ye-hu ling. Polo took this last road, which
ran from Peking to Siuen-te chau through the same places as now;
but from the latter town it led, not to Kalgan as it does now,
but more to the west, to a place called now Shan-fang pú where
the pass across the Ye-hu ling range begins. “On both these roads
_nabo_, or temporary palaces, were built, as resting-places for
the Khans; eighteen on the eastern road, and twenty-four on the
western.” (_Palladius_, p. 25.) The same author makes (p. 26) the
following remarks: “M. Polo’s statement that he travelled three
days from Siuen-te chau to Chagannor, and three days also from the
latter place to Shang-tu, agrees with the information contained
in the ‘Researches on the Routes to Shangtu.’ The Chinese authors
have not given the precise position of Lake Chagannor; there are
several lakes in the desert on the road to Shangtu, and their names
have changed with time. The palace in Chagannor was built in 1280”
(according to the _Siu t’ung kien_).—H. C.]

NOTE 2.—_Chandu_, called more correctly in Ramusio _Xandu_, _i.e._
SHANDU, and by Fr. Odorico _Sandu_, viz. SHANG-TU or “Upper Court,”
the Chinese title of Kúblái’s summer residence at Kaipingfu,
_Mongolicè_ Keibung (see ch. xiii. of Prologue) [is called also
_Loan king_, _i.e._ “the capital on the Loan River,” according to
Palladius, p. 26.—H. C.]. The ruins still exist, in about lat. 40°
22′, and a little west of the longitude of Peking. The site is 118
miles in direct line from Chaghan-nor, making Polo’s three marches
into rides of unusual length.[1] The ruins bear the Mongol name
of _Chao Naiman Sumé Khotan_, meaning “city of the 108 temples,”
and are about 26 miles to the north-west of Dolon-nor, a bustling,
dirty town of modern origin, famous for the manufactory of idols,
bells, and other ecclesiastical paraphernalia of Buddhism. The site
was visited (though not described) by Père Gerbillon in 1691, and
since then by no European traveller till 1872, when Dr. Bushell
of the British Legation at Peking, and the Hon. T. G. Grosvenor,
made a journey thither from the capital, by way of the Nan-kau Pass
(_supra_ p. 26), Kalgan, and the vicinity of Chaghan-nor, the route
that would seem to have been habitually followed, in their annual
migration, by Kúblái and his successors.

The deserted site, overgrown with rank weeds and grass, stands but
little above the marshy bed of the river, which here preserves the
name of Shang-tu, and about a mile from its north or left bank. The
walls, of earth faced with brick and unhewn stone, still stand,
forming, as in the Tartar city of Peking, a double _enceinte_, of
which the inner line no doubt represents the area of the “Marble
Palace” of which Polo speaks. This forms a square of about 2 _li_
(⅔ of a mile) to the side, and has three gates—south, east, and
west, of which the southern one still stands intact, a perfect
arch, 20 ft. high and 12 ft. wide. The outer wall forms a square of
4 _li_ (1⅓ mile) to the side, and has six gates. The foundations
of temples and palace-buildings can be traced, and both enclosures
are abundantly strewn with blocks of marble and fragments of lions,
dragons, and other sculptures, testifying to the former existence
of a flourishing city, but exhibiting now scarcely one stone upon
another. A broken memorial tablet was found, half buried in the
ground, within the north-east angle of the outer rampart, bearing
an inscription in an antique form of the Chinese character, which
proves it to have been erected by Kúblái, in honour of a Buddhist
ecclesiastic called Yun-Hien. Yun-Hien was the abbot of one of
those great minsters and abbeys of _Bacsis_, of which Marco
speaks, and the exact date (no longer visible) of the monument was
equivalent to A.D. 1288.[2]

This city occupies the south-east angle of a more extensive
enclosure, bounded by what is now a grassy mound, and embracing,
on Dr. Bushell’s estimate, about 5 square miles. Further knowledge
may explain the discrepancy from Marco’s dimension, but this must
be the park of which he speaks.[3] The woods and fountains have
disappeared, like the temples and palaces; all is dreary and
desolate, though still abounding in the game which was one of
Kúblái’s attractions to the spot. A small monastery, occupied by
six or seven wretched Lamas, is the only building that remains in
the vicinity. The river Shangtu, which lower down becomes the Lan
[or Loan]-Ho, was formerly navigated from the sea up to this place
by flat grain-boats.

[Mgr. de Harlez gave in the _T’oung Pao_ (x. p. 73) an inscription
in _Chuen_ character on a _stele_ found in the ruins of Shangtu,
and built by an officer with the permission of the Emperor; it is
probably a token of imperial favour; the inscription means: _Great
Longevity_.—H. C.]

In the wail which Sanang Setzen, the poetical historian of the
Mongols, puts, perhaps with some traditional basis, into the mouth
of Toghon Temur, the last of the Chinghizide Dynasty in China, when
driven from his throne, the changes are rung on the lost glories of
his capital _Daïtu_ (see _infra_, Book II. ch. xi.) and his summer
palace _Shangtu_; thus (I translate from Schott’s amended German
rendering of the Mongol):

“My vast and noble Capital, My Daïtu, My splendidly adorned!
And Thou my cool and delicious Summer-seat, my Shangtu-Keibung!
Ye, also, yellow plains of Shangtu, Delight of my godlike Sires!
I suffered myself to drop into dreams,—and lo! my Empire was gone!
Ah Thou my Daïtu, built of the nine precious substances!
Ah my Shangtu-Keibung, Union of all perfections!
Ah my Fame! Ah my Glory, as Khagan and Lord of the Earth!
When I used to awake betimes and look forth, how the breezes blew
loaded with fragrance!
And turn which way I would all was glorious perfection of beauty!
• • • • •
Alas for my illustrious name as the Sovereign of the World!
Alas for my Daïtu, seat of Sanctity, Glorious work of the
Immortal KÚBLÁI!
All, all is rent from me!”

It was, in 1797, whilst reading this passage of Marco’s narrative
in old Purchas that Coleridge fell asleep, and dreamt the dream of
Kúblái’s Paradise, beginning:

“In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred River, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round:
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.”

It would be a singular coincidence in relation to this poem were
Klaproth’s reading correct of a passage in Rashiduddin which he
renders as saying that the palace at Kaiminfu was “called Langtin,
and was built after a plan that Kúblái had seen in a dream, and
had retained in his memory.” But I suspect D’Ohsson’s reading is
more accurate, which runs: “Kúblái caused a Palace to be built for
him east of Kaipingfu, called Lengten; _but he abandoned it in
consequence of a dream._” For we see from Sanang Setzen that the
Palaces of Lengten and Kaiming or Shangtu were distinct; “Between
the year of the Rat (1264), when Kúblái was fifty years old, and
the year of the Sheep (1271), in the space of eight years, he
built four great cities, viz. for Summer Residence SHANGTU KEIBUNG
Kürdu Balgasun, for Winter Residence Yeke DAÏTU Khotan, and on
the shady side of the Altai (see ch. li. note 3, _supra_) Arulun
TSAGHAN BALGASUN, and Erchügin LANGTING Balgasun.” A valuable
letter from Dr. Bushell enables me now to indicate the position
of Langtin: “The district through which the river flows eastward
from Shangtu is known to the Mongolians of the present day by the
name of _Lang-tírh_ (_Lang-ting’rh_).... The ruins of the city are
marked on a Chinese map in my possession Pai-dseng-tzu, _i.e._
‘White City,’ implying that it was formerly an Imperial residence.
The remains of the wall are 7 or 8 _li_ in diameter, of stone, and
situated about 40 _li_ north-north-west from Dolon-nor.”

(_Gerbillon_ in _Astley_, IV. 701–716; Klaproth, in _J. As._
sér. II. tom. xi. 345–350; _Schott, Die letzten Jahre der
Mongolenherrschaft in China_ (Berl. Acad. d. Wissensch. 1850, pp.
502–503); _Huc’s Tartary_, etc., p. 14 _seqq._; _Cathay_, 134, 261;
_S. Setzen_, p. 115; _Dr. S. W. Bushell, Journey outside the Great
Wall_, in _J. R. G. S._ for 1874, and MS. notes.)

One of the pavilions of the celebrated Yuen-ming-Yuen may give some
idea of the probable style, though not of the scale, of Kúblái’s
Summer Palace.

Hiuen Tsang’s account of the elaborate and fantastic ornamentation
of the famous Indian monasteries at Nalanda in Bahár, where Mr.
Broadley has lately made such remarkable discoveries, seems to
indicate that these fantasies of Burmese and Chinese architecture
may have had a direct origin in India, at a time when timber was
still a principal material of construction there: “The pavilions
had pillars adorned with dragons, and posts that glowed with all
the colours of the rainbow, sculptured frets, columns set with
jade, richly chiselled and lackered, with balustrades of vermilion,
and carved open work. The lintels of the doors were tastefully
ornamented, and the roofs covered with shining tiles, the
splendours of which were multiplied by mutual reflection and from
moment to moment took a thousand forms.” (_Vie et Voyages_, 157.)

NOTE 3.—[Rubruck says (_Rockhill_, p. 248): “I saw also the envoy
of a certain Soldan of India, who had brought eight leopards and
ten _greyhounds_, taught to sit on horses’ backs, as leopards
sit.”—H. C.]

NOTE 4.—Ramusio’s is here so much more lucid than the other texts,
that I have adhered mainly to his account of the building. The
roof described is of a kind in use in the Indian Archipelago,
and in some other parts of Transgangetic India, in which the
semi-cylinders of bamboo are laid just like Roman tiles.

Rashiduddin gives a curious account of the way in which the
foundations of the terrace on which this palace stood were erected
in a lake. He says, too, in accord with Polo: “Inside the city
itself a second palace was built, about a bowshot from the first:
but the Kaan generally takes up his residence in the palace outside
the town,” _i.e._, as I imagine, in Marco’s Cane Palace. (_Cathay_,
pp. 261–262.)

[“The _Palace of canes_ is probably the Palm Hall, _Tsung tien_,
alias _Tsung mao tien_, of the Chinese authors, which was situated
in the western palace garden of Shangtu. Mention is made also in
the _Altan Tobchi_ of a cane tent in Shangtu.” (_Palladius_, p.
27.)—H. C.]

Marco might well say of the bamboo that “it serves also a great
variety of other purposes.” An intelligent native of Arakan who
accompanied me in wanderings on duty in the forests of the Burmese
frontier in the beginning of 1853, and who used to ask many
questions about Europe, seemed able to apprehend almost everything
except the possibility of existence in a country without bamboos!
“When I speak of bamboo huts, I mean to say that posts and walls,
wall-plates and rafters, floor and thatch, and the withes that bind
them, are all of bamboo. In fact, it might almost be said that
among the Indo-Chinese nations the staff of life is _a bamboo!_
Scaffolding and ladders, landing-jetties, fishing apparatus,
irrigation wheels and scoops, oars, masts, and yards [and in China,
sails, cables, and caulking, asparagus, medicine, and works of
fantastic art], spears and arrows, hats and helmets, bow, bowstring
and quiver, oil-cans, water-stoups and cooking-pots, pipe-sticks
[tinder and means of producing fire], conduits, clothes-boxes,
pawn-boxes, dinner-trays, pickles, preserves, and melodious musical
instruments, torches, footballs, cordage, bellows, mats, paper;
these are but a few of the articles that are made from the bamboo;”
and in China, to sum up the whole, as Barrow observes, it maintains
order throughout the Empire! (_Ava Mission_, p. 153; and see also
_Wallace, Ind. Arch._ I. 120 _seqq._)

NOTE 5.—“The Emperor ... began this year (1264) to depart from
Yenking (Peking) in the second or third month for Shangtu, not
returning until the eighth month. Every year he made this passage,
and all the Mongol emperors who succeeded him followed his
example.” (_Gaubil_, p. 144.)

[“The Khans usually resorted to Shangtu in the 4th moon and
returned to Peking in the 9th. On the 7th day of the 7th moon there
were libations performed in honour of the ancestors; a shaman, his
face to the north, uttered in a loud voice the names of Chingiz
Khan and of other deceased Khans, and poured mare’s milk on the
ground. The propitious day for the return journey to Peking was
also appointed then.” (_Palladius_, p. 26.)—H. C.]

NOTE 6.—White horses were presented in homage to the Kaan on New
Year’s Day (_the White Feast_), as we shall see below. (Bk. II. ch.
xv.) Odoric also mentions this practice; and, according to Huc,
the Mongol chiefs continued it at least to the time of the Emperor
K’ang-hi. Indeed Timkowski speaks of annual tributes of white
camels and white horses from the Khans of the Kalkas and other
Mongol dignitaries, in the present century. (_Huc’s Tartary_, etc.;
_Tim._ II. 33.)

By the HORIAD are no doubt intended the UIRAD or OIRAD, a name
usually interpreted as signifying the “Closely Allied,” or
Confederates; but Vámbéry explains it as (Turki) _Oyurat_, “Grey
horse,” to which the statement in our text appears to lend colour.
They were not of the tribes properly called Mongol, but after their
submission to Chinghiz they remained closely attached to him.
In Chinghiz’s victory over Aung-Khan, as related by S. Setzen,
we find Turulji Taishi, the son of the chief of the Oirad, one
of Chinghiz’s three chief captains; perhaps that is the victory
alluded to. The seats of the Oirad appear to have been about the
head waters of the Kem, or Upper Yenisei.

In A.D. 1295 there took place a curious desertion from the service
of Gházán Khan of Persia of a vast corps of the Oirad, said
to amount to 18,000 _tents_. They made their way to Damascus,
where they were well received by the Mameluke Sultan. But their
heathenish practices gave dire offence to the Faithful. They were
settled in the _Sáhil_, or coast districts of Palestine. Many died
speedily; the rest embraced Islam, spread over the country, and
gradually became absorbed in the general population. Their sons and
daughters were greatly admired for their beauty. (_S. Setz._ p. 87;
_Erdmann_, 187; _Pallas, Samml._ I. 5 _seqq._; _Makrizi_, III. 29;
_Bretschneider, Med. Res._ II. p. 159 _seqq._)

[With reference to Yule’s conjecture, I may quote Palladius (_l.c._
p. 27): “It is, however, strange that the Oirats alone enjoyed the
privilege described by Marco Polo; for the highest position at the
Mongol Khan’s court belonged to the Kunkrat tribe, out of which the
Khans used to choose their first wives, who were called Empresses
of the first _ordo_.”—H. C.]

NOTE 7.—Rubruquis assigns such a festival to the month of May: “On
the 9th day of the May Moon they collect all the white mares of
their herds and consecrate them. The Christian priests also must
then assemble with their thuribles. They then sprinkle new cosmos
(_kumíz_) on the ground, and make a great feast that day, for
according to their calendar, it is their time of first drinking
new cosmos, just as we reckon of our new wine at the feast of St.
Bartholomew (24th August), or that of St. Sixtus (6th August),
or of our fruit on the feast of St. James and St. Christopher”
(25th July). [With reference to this feast, Mr. Rockhill gives
(_Rubruck_, p. 241, note) extracts from _Pallas, Voyages_, IV. 579,
and _Professor Radloff, Aus Siberien_, I. 378.—H. C.] The Yakuts
also hold such a festival in June or July, when the mares foal, and
immense wooden goblets of kumíz are emptied on that occasion. They
also pour out kumíz for the Spirits to the four quarters of heaven.

The following passage occurs in the narrative of the Journey of
Chang Te-hui, a Chinese teacher, who was summoned to visit the
camp of Kúblái in Mongolia, some twelve years before that Prince
ascended the throne of the Kaans:[4]

“On the 9th day of the 9th Moon (October), the Prince, having
called his subjects before his chief tent, performed the libation
of the milk of a white mare. This was the customary sacrifice
at that time. The vessels used were made of birch-bark, not
ornamented with either silver or gold. Such here is the respect for
simplicity....

“At the last day of the year the Mongols suddenly changed their
camping-ground to another place, for the mutual congratulation
on the 1st Moon. Then there was every day feasting before the
tents for the lower ranks. Beginning with the Prince, all dressed
themselves in white fur clothing....[5]

“On the 9th day of the 4th Moon (May) the Prince again collected
his vassals before the chief tent for the libation of the milk of a
white mare. This sacrifice is performed twice a year.”

It has been seen (p. 308) that Rubruquis also names the 9th day
of the May moon as that of the consecration of the white mares.
The autumn libation is described by Polo as performed on the 28th
day of the August moon, probably because it was unsuited to the
circumstances of the Court at Cambaluc, where the Kaan was during
October, and the day named was the last of his annual stay in the
Mongolian uplands.

Baber tells that among the ceremonies of a Mongol Review the Khan
and his staff took kumíz and sprinkled it towards the standards. An
Armenian author of the Mongol era says that it was the custom of
the Tartars, before drinking, to sprinkle drink towards heaven, and
towards the four quarters. Mr. Atkinson notices the same practice
among the Kirghiz; and I found the like in old days among the
Kasias of the eastern frontier of Bengal.

The time of year assigned by Polo for the ceremony implies some
change. Perhaps it had been made to coincide with the Festival
of Water Consecration of the Lamas, with which the time named
in the text seems to correspond. On that occasion the Lamas go
in procession to the rivers and lakes and consecrate them by
benediction and by casting in offerings, attended by much popular
festivity.

Rubruquis seems to intimate that the Nestorian priests were
employed to consecrate the white mares by incensing them. In the
rear of Lord Canning’s camp in India I once came upon the party of
his _Shutr Suwárs_, or dromedary-express riders, busily engaged in
incensing with frankincense the whole of the dromedaries, which
were kneeling in a circle. I could get no light on the practice,
but it was very probably a relic of the old Mongol custom. (_Rubr._
363; _Erman_, II. 397; _Billings’ Journey_, Fr. Tr. I. 217;
_Baber_, 103; _J. As._ sér. V. tom. xi. p. 249; _Atk. Amoor_, p.
47; _J. A. S. B._ XIII. 628; _Koeppen_, II. 313.)

NOTE 8.—The practice of weather-conjuring was in great vogue among
the Mongols, and is often alluded to in their history.

The operation was performed by means of a stone of magical virtues,
called _Yadah_ or _Jadah-Tásh_, which was placed in or hung over
a basin of water with sundry ceremonies. The possession of such a
stone is ascribed by the early Arab traveller Ibn Mohalhal to the
_Ḳímák_, a great tribe of the Turks. In the war raised against
Chinghiz and Aung Khan, when still allies, by a great confederation
of the Naiman and other tribes in 1202, we are told that Sengun,
the son of Aung Khan, when sent to meet the enemy, caused them to
be enchanted, so that all their attempted movements against him
were defeated by snow and mist. The fog and darkness were indeed so
dense that many men and horses fell over precipices, and many also
perished with cold. In another account of (apparently) the same
matter, given by Mir-Khond, the conjuring is set on foot by the
_Yadachi_ of Buyruk Khan, Prince of the Naiman, but the mischief
all rebounds on the conjurer’s own side.

In Tului’s invasion of Honan in 1231–1232, Rashiduddin describes
him, when in difficulty, as using the _Jadah_ stone with success.

Timur, in his Memoirs, speaks of the Jets using incantations to
produce heavy rains which hindered his cavalry from acting against
them. A _Yadachi_ was captured, and when his head had been taken
off the storm ceased.

Baber speaks of one of his early friends, Khwaja Ka Mulai, as
excelling in falconry and acquainted with _Yadagarí_ or the
art of bringing on rain and snow by means of enchantment. When
the Russians besieged Kazan in 1552 they suffered much from
the constant heavy rains, and this annoyance was universally
ascribed to the arts of the Tartar Queen, who was celebrated as an
enchantress. Sháh Abbás believed he had learned the Tartar secret,
and put much confidence in it. (_P. Della V._ I. 869.)

[Grenard says (II. p. 256) the most powerful and most feared of
sorcerers [in Chinese Turkestan] is the _djâduger_, who, to produce
rain or fine weather, uses a jade stone, given by Noah to Japhet.
Grenard adds (II. 406–407) there are sorcerers (Ngag-pa-snags-pa)
whose specialty is to make rain fall; they are similar to the
Turkish _Yadachi_ and like them use a stone called “water cristal,”
_chu shel_; probably jade stone.

Mr. Rockhill (_Rubruck_, p. 245, note) writes: “Rashideddin states
that when the Urianghit wanted to bring a storm to an end, they
said injuries to the sky, the lightning and thunder. I have seen
this done myself by Mongol storm-dispellers. (See _Diary_, 201,
203.) ‘The other Mongol people,’ he adds, ‘do the contrary. When
the storm rumbles, they remain shut up in their huts, full of
fear.’ The subject of storm-making, and the use of stones for that
purpose, is fully discussed by Quatremère, _Histoire_, 438–440.”
(Cf. also _Rockhill_, _l.c._ p. 254.)—H. C.]

An edict of the Emperor Shi-tsung, of the reigning dynasty,
addressed in 1724–1725 to the Eight Banners of Mongolia, warns
them against this rain-conjuring: “If I,” indignantly observes
the Emperor, “offering prayer in sincerity have yet room to fear
that it may please Heaven to leave MY prayer unanswered, it is
truly intolerable that mere common people wishing for rain should
at their own caprice set up altars of earth, and bring together
a rabble of Hoshang (Buddhist Bonzes) and Taossé to conjure the
spirits to gratify their wishes.”

[“Lamas were of various extraction; at the time of the great
assemblies, and of the Khan’s festivities in Shangtu, they erected
an altar near the Khan’s tent and prayed for fine weather; the
whistling of shells rose up to heaven.” These are the words in
which Marco Polo’s narrative is corroborated by an eye-witness who
has celebrated the remarkable objects of Shangtu (_Loan king tsa
yung_). These Lamas, in spite of the prohibition by the Buddhist
creed of bloody sacrifices, used to sacrifice sheep’s hearts to
Mahakala. It happened, as it seems, that the heart of an executed
criminal was also considered an agreeable offering; and as the
offerings could be, after the ceremony, eaten by the sacrificing
priests, Marco Polo had some reason to accuse the Lamas of
cannibalism. (_Palladius_, 28.)—H. C.]

The practice of weather-conjuring is not yet obsolete in Tartary,
Tibet, and the adjoining countries.[6]

Weather-conjuring stories were also rife in Europe during the
Middle Ages. One such is conspicuously introduced in connection
with a magical fountain in the romance of the _Chevalier au Lyon_:

“Et s’i pant uns bacins d’or fin
A une si longue chaainne
Qui dure jusqu’a la fontainne.
Lez la fontainne troveras
Un perron tel con tu verras
* * * *
S’au bacin viaus de l’iaue prandre
Et dessor le perron espandre,
La verras une tel tanpeste
Qu’an cest bois ne remandra beste,”
etc. etc.[7]

The effect foretold in these lines is the subject of a woodcut
illustrating a Welsh version of the same tale in the first volume
of the _Mabinogion_. And the existence of such a fountain is
alluded to by Alexander Neckam. (_De Naturis Rerum_, Bk. II. ch.
vii.)

In the _Cento Novelle Antiche_ also certain necromancers exhibit
their craft before the Emperor Frederic (Barbarossa apparently):
“The weather began to be overcast, and lo! of a sudden rain began
to fall with continued thunders and lightnings, as if the world
were come to an end, and hailstones that looked like steel-caps,”
etc. Various other European legends of like character will be found
in _Liebrecht’s Gervasius von Tilbury_, pp. 147–148.

Rain-makers there are in many parts of the world; but it is
remarkable that those also of Samoa in the Pacific operate by means
of a _rain-stone_.

Such weather conjurings as we have spoken of are ascribed by Ovid
to Circe:

“Concipit illa preces, et verba venefica dicit;
Ignotosque Deos ignoto carmine adorat,
* * * *
_Tunc quoque cantato densetur carmine caelum,
Et nebulas exhalat humus_.”—_Metam._ XIV. 365.

And to Medea:—

————“Quum volui, ripis mirantibus, amnes
In fontes rediere suos ... (another feat of the Lamas)
... _Nubila pello,
Nubilaque induco; ventos abigoque, vocoque_.”—_Ibid._ VII. 199.

And by Tibullus to the _Saga_ (_Eleg._ I. 2, 45); whilst
Empedocles, in verses ascribed to him by Diogenes Laertius, claims
power to communicate like secrets of potency:—

“By my spells thou may’st
To timely sunshine turn the purple rains,
And parching droughts to fertilising floods.”

(See _Cathay_, p. clxxxvii.; _Erdm._ 282; _Oppert_, 182 _seqq._;
_Erman_, I. 153; _Pallas, Samml._ II. 348 _seqq._; _Timk._ I. 402;
_J. R. A. S._ VII. 305–306; _D’Ohsson_, II. 614; and for many
interesting particulars, _Q. R._ p. 428 _seqq._, and _Hammer’s
Golden Horde_, 207 and 435 _seqq._)

NOTE 9.—It is not clear whether Marco attributes this cannibalism
to the Tibetans and Kashmirians, or brings it in as a particular of
Tartar custom which he had forgotten to mention before.

The accusations of cannibalism indeed against the Tibetans in old
accounts are frequent, and I have elsewhere (see _Cathay_, p. 151)
remarked on some singular Tibetan practices which go far to account
for such charges. Della Penna, too, makes a statement which bears
curiously on the present passage. Remarking on the great use made
by certain classes of the Lamas of human skulls for magical cups,
and of human thigh bones for flutes and whistles, he says that
to supply them with these _the bodies of executed criminals were
stored up at the disposal of the Lamas_; and a Hindu account of
Tibet in the _Asiatic Researches_ asserts that when one is killed
in a fight both parties rush forward and struggle for the liver,
which they eat (vol. xv).

[Carpini says of the people of Tibet: “They are pagans; they have
a most astonishing, or rather horrible, custom, for, when any
one’s father is about to give up the ghost, all the relatives meet
together, and they eat him, as was told to me for certain.” Mr.
Rockhill (_Rubruck_, p. 152, note) writes: “So far as I am aware,
this charge [of cannibalism] is not made by any Oriental writer
against the Tibetans, though both Arab travellers to China in the
ninth century and Armenian historians of the thirteenth century say
the Chinese practised cannibalism. The Armenians designate China by
the name _Nankas_, which I take to be Chinese _Nan-kuo_, ‘southern
country,’ the _Manzi_ country of Marco Polo.”—H. C.]

But like charges of cannibalism are brought against both Chinese
and Tartars very positively. Thus, without going back to the
Anthropophagous Scythians of Ptolemy and Mela, we read in the
_Relations_ of the Arab travellers of the ninth century: “In
China it occurs sometimes that the governor of a province revolts
from his duty to the emperor. In such a case he is slaughtered
and eaten. _In fact, the Chinese eat the flesh of all men who
are executed by the sword_.” Dr. Rennie mentions a superstitious
practice, the continued existence of which in our own day he has
himself witnessed, and which might perhaps have given rise to some
such statement as that of the Arab travellers, if it be not indeed
a relic, in a mitigated form, of the very practice they assert to
have prevailed. After an execution at Peking certain large pith
balls are steeped in the blood, and under the name of _blood-bread_
are sold as a medicine for consumption. _It is only to the blood of
decapitated criminals that any such healing power is attributed_.
It has been asserted in the annals of the _Propagation de la Foi_
that the Chinese executioners of M. Chapdelaine, a missionary who
was martyred in Kwang-si in 1856 (28th February), were seen to eat
the heart of their victim; and M. Huot, a missionary in the Yun-nan
province, recounts a case of cannibalism which he witnessed. Bishop
Chauveau, at Ta Ts’ien-lu, told Mr. Cooper that he had seen men
in one of the cities of Yun-nan eating the heart and brains of a
celebrated robber who had been executed. Dr. Carstairs Douglas of
Amoy also tells me that the like practices have occurred at Amoy
and Swatau.

[With reference to cannibalism in China see _Medical Superstitions
an Incentive to Anti-Foreign Riots in China_, by _D. J. Macgowan,
North China Herald_, 8th July, 1892, pp. 60–62. Mr. E. H. Parker
(_China Review_, February–March, 1901, 136) relates that the
inhabitants of a part of Kwang-si boiled and ate a Chinese officer
who had been sent to pacify them. “The idea underlying this
horrible act [cannibalism] is, that by eating a portion of the
victim, especially the heart, one acquires the valour with which he
was endowed.” (_Dennys’ Folk-lore of China_, 67.)—H. C.]

Hayton, the Armenian, after relating the treason of a Saracen,
called Parwana (he was an Iconian Turk), against Abaka Khan,
says: “He was taken and cut in two, and orders were issued that
in all the food eaten by Abaka there should be put a portion of
the traitor’s flesh. Of this Abaka himself ate, and caused all his
barons to partake. _And this was in accordance with the custom
of the Tartars_.” The same story is related independently and
differently by Friar Ricold, thus: “When the army of Abaga ran
away from the Saracens in Syria, a certain great Tartar baron was
arrested who had been guilty of treason. And when the Emperor Khan
was giving the order for his execution the Tartar ladies and women
interposed, and begged that he might be made over to them. Having
got hold of the prisoner they boiled him alive, and cutting his
body up into mince-meat gave it to eat to the whole army, as an
example to others.” Vincent of Beauvais makes a like statement:
“When they capture any one who is at bitter enmity with them, they
gather together and eat him in vengeance of his revolt, and like
infernal leeches suck his blood,” a custom of which a modern Mongol
writer thinks that he finds a trace in a surviving proverb. Among
more remote and ignorant Franks the cannibalism of the Tartars was
a general belief. Ivo of Narbonne, in his letter written during the
great Tartar invasion of Europe (1242), declares that the Tartar
chiefs, with their dog’s head followers and other _Lotophagi_
(!), ate the bodies of their victims like so much bread; whilst
a Venetian chronicler, speaking of the council of Lyons in 1274,
says there was a discussion about making a general move against the
Tartars, “_porce qu’il manjuent la char humaine._” These latter
writers no doubt rehearsed mere popular beliefs, but Hayton and
Ricold were both intelligent persons well acquainted with the
Tartars, and Hayton at least not prejudiced against them.

The old belief was revived in Prussia during the Seven Years’ War,
in regard to the Kalmaks of the Russian army; and Bergmann says
the old Kalmak warriors confessed to him that they had done what
they could to encourage it by cutting up the bodies of the slain
in presence of their prisoners, and roasting them! But Levchine
relates an act on the part of the Kirghiz Kazaks which was no jest.
They drank the blood of their victim if they did not eat his flesh.

There is some reason to believe that cannibalism was in the Middle
Ages generally a less strange and unwonted horror than we should at
first blush imagine, and especially that it was an idea tolerably
familiar in China. M. Bazin, in the second part of _Chine Moderne_,
p. 461, after sketching a Chinese drama of the Mongol era (“The
Devotion of Chao-li”), the plot of which turns on the acts of a
body of cannibals, quotes several other passages from Chinese
authors which indicate this. Nor is this wonderful in the age that
had experienced the horrors of the Mongol wars.

That was no doubt a fable which Carpini heard in the camp of the
Great Kaan, that in one of the Mongol sieges in Cathay, when the
army was without food, one man in ten of their own force was
sacrificed to feed the remainder.[8] But we are told in sober
history that the force of Tului in Honan, in 1231–1232, was reduced
to such straits as to eat grass and human flesh. At the siege of
the Kin capital Kaifongfu, in 1233, the besieged were reduced to
the like extremity; and the same occurred the same year at the
siege of Tsaichau; and in 1262, when the rebel general Litan was
besieged in Tsinanfu. The Taiping wars the other day revived the
same horrors in all their magnitude. And savage acts of the same
kind by the Chinese and their Turk partisans in the defence of
Kashgar were related to Mr. Shaw.

Probably, however, nothing of the kind in history equals what
Abdallatif, a sober and scientific physician, describes as having
occurred before his own eyes in the great Egyptian famine of A.H.
597 (1200). The horrid details fill a chapter of some length, and
we need not quote from them.

Nor was Christendom without the rumour of such barbarities.
The story of King Richard’s banquet in presence of Saladin’s
ambassadors on the head of a Saracen curried (for so it surely
was),—

“soden full hastily
With powder and with spysory,
And with saffron of good colour”—

fable as it is, is told with a zest that makes one shudder; but the
tale in the _Chanson d’Antioche_, of how the licentious bands of
ragamuffins, who hung on the army of the First Crusade, and were
known as the _Tafurs_,[9] ate the Turks whom they killed at the
siege, looks very like an abominable truth, corroborated as it
is by the prose chronicle of worse deeds at the ensuing siege of
Marrha:—

“A lor cotiaus qu’il ont trenchans et afilés
Escorchoient les Turs, aval parmi les près.
Voiant Paiens, les ont par pièces découpés.
En l’iave et el carbon les ont bien quisinés,
Volontiers les menjuent sans pain et dessalés.”[10]

(_Della Penna_, p. 76; _Reinaud, Rel._ I. 52; _Rennie’s Peking_,
II. 244; _Ann. de la Pr. de la F._ XXIX. 353, XXI. 298; _Hayton_
in _Ram._ ch. xvii.; _Per. Quat._ p. 116; _M. Paris_, sub. 1243;
_Mél. Asiat. Acad. St. Pétersb._ II. 659; _Canale_ in _Arch. Stor.
Ital._ VIII.; _Bergm. Nomad. Streifereien_, I. 14; _Carpini_,
638; _D’Ohsson_, II. 30, 43, 52; _Wilson’s Ever Victorious Army_,
74; _Shaw_, p. 48; _Abdallatif_, p. 363 _seqq._; _Weber_, II. 135;
_Littré, H. de la Langue Franç._ I. 191; _Gesta Tancredi_ in _Thes.
Nov. Anecd._ III. 172.)

NOTE 10.—_Bakhshi_ is generally believed to be a corruption of
_Bhikshu_, the proper Sanscrit term for a religious mendicant,
and in particular for the Buddhist devotees of that character.
_Bakhshi_ was probably applied to a class only of the Lamas, but
among the Turks and Persians it became a generic name for them all.
In this sense it is habitually used by Rashiduddin, and thus also
in the Ain Akbari: “The learned among the Persians and Arabians
call the priests of this (Buddhist) religion _Bukshee_, and in
Tibbet they are styled Lamas.”

According to Pallas the word among the modern Mongols is used in
the sense of _Teacher_, and is applied to the oldest and most
learned priest of a community, who is the local ecclesiastical
chief. Among the Kirghiz Kazaks again, who profess Mahomedanism,
the word also survives, but conveys among them just the idea that
Polo seems to have associated with it, that of a mere conjuror or
“medicine-man”; whilst in Western Turkestan it has come to mean a
Bard.

The word Bakhshi has, however, wandered much further from its
original meaning. From its association with persons who could read
and write, and who therefore occasionally acted as clerks, it
came in Persia to mean a clerk or secretary. In the Petrarchian
Vocabulary, published by Klaproth, we find _scriba_ rendered
in _Comanian_, _i.e._ Turkish of the Crimea, by _Bacsi_. The
transfer of meaning is precisely parallel to that in regard to
our _Clerk_. Under the Mahomedan sovereigns of India, _Bakhshi_ was
applied to an officer performing something like the duties of a
quartermaster-general; and finally, in our Indian army, it has
come to mean a paymaster. In the latter sense, I imagine it has
got associated in the popular mind with the Persian _bakhshídan_,
to bestow, and _bakhshísh_. (See a note in _Q. R._ p. 184 _seqq._;
_Cathay_, p. 474; _Ayeen Akbery_, III. 150; _Pallas, Samml._ II.
126; _Levchine_, p. 355; _Klap. Mém._ III.; _Vámbéry, Sketches_, p.
81.)

The sketch from the life, on p. 326, of a wandering Tibetan
devotee, whom I met once at Hardwár, may give an idea of the sordid
_Bacsis_ spoken of by Polo.

NOTE 11.—This feat is related more briefly by Odoric: “And jugglers
cause cups of gold full of good wine to fly through the air, and
to offer themselves to all who list to drink.” (_Cathay_, p. 143.)
In the note on that passage I have referred to a somewhat similar
story in the _Life of Apollonius_. “Such feats,” says Mr. Jaeschke,
“are often mentioned in ancient as well as modern legends of Buddha
and other saints; and our Lamas have heard of things very similar
performed by conjuring _Bonpos_.” (See p. 323.) The moving of
cups and the like is one of the sorceries ascribed in old legends
to Simon Magus: “He made statues to walk; leapt into the fire
without being burnt; flew in the air; made bread of stones; changed
his shape; assumed two faces at once; converted himself into a
pillar; caused closed doors to fly open spontaneously; made the
vessels in a house seem to move of themselves,” etc. The Jesuit
Delrio laments that credulous princes, otherwise of pious repute,
should have allowed diabolic tricks to be played before them, “as,
for example, things of iron, and silver goblets, or other heavy
articles, to be moved by bounds from one end of a table to the
other, without the use of a magnet or of any attachment.” The pious
prince appears to have been Charles IX., and the conjuror a certain
Cesare Maltesio. Another Jesuit author describes the veritable
mango-trick, speaking of persons who “within three hours’ space did
cause a genuine shrub of a span in length to grow out of the table,
besides other trees that produced both leaves and fruit.”

In a letter dated 1st December, 1875, written by Mr. R. B. Shaw,
after his last return from Kashgar and Lahore, this distinguished
traveller says: “I have heard stories related regarding a Buddhist
high priest whose temple is said to be not far to the east of
Lanchau, which reminds me of Marco Polo and Kúblái Khan. This high
priest is said to have the magic power of attracting cups and
plates to him from a distance, so that things fly through the air
into his hands.” (_MS. Note_.—H. Y.)

The profession and practice of exorcism and magic in general is
greatly more prominent in Lamaism or Tibetan Buddhism than in any
other known form of that religion. Indeed, the old form of Lamaism
as it existed in our traveller’s day, and till the reforms of
Tsongkhapa (1357–1419), and as it is still professed by the _Red_
sect in Tibet, seems to be a kind of compromise between Indian
Buddhism and the old indigenous Shamanism. Even the reformed
doctrine of the Yellow sect recognises an orthodox kind of magic,
which is due in great measure to the combination of Sivaism with
the Buddhist doctrines, and of which the institutes are contained
in the vast collection of the _Jud_ or Tantras, recognised among
the holy books. The magic arts of this code open even a short
road to the Buddhahood itself. To attain that perfection of power
and wisdom, culminating in the cessation of sensible existence,
requires, according to the ordinary paths, a period of three
_asankhyas_ (or say Uncountable Time × 3), whereas by means of
the magic arts of the _Tantras_ it may be reached in the course
of three _rebirths_ only, nay, of one! But from the Tantras also
can be learned how to acquire miraculous powers for objects
entirely selfish and secular, and how to exercise these by means of
_Dhárani_ or mystic Indian charms.

Still the orthodox Yellow Lamas professedly repudiate and despise
the grosser exhibitions of common magic and charlatanism which
the Reds still practise, such as knife-swallowing, blowing fire,
cutting off their own heads, etc. But as the vulgar will not
dispense with these marvels, every great orthodox monastery in
Tibet _keeps a conjuror_, who is a member of the unreformed, and
does not belong to the brotherhood of the convent, but lives in
a particular part of it, bearing the name of _Choichong_, or
protector of religion, and is allowed to marry. The magic of these
Choichong is in theory and practice different from the orthodox
Tantrist magic. The practitioners possess no literature, and hand
down their mysteries only by tradition. Their fantastic equipments,
their frantic bearing, and their cries and howls, seem to identify
them with the grossest Shamanist devil dancers.