CHAPTER XLVII.

OF CHINGHIS, AND HOW HE BECAME THE FIRST KAAN OF THE TARTARS.

Now it came to pass in the year of Christ’s Incarnation 1187 that the Tartars made them a King whose name was CHINGHIS KAAN.[NOTE 1] He was a man of great worth, and of great ability (eloquence), and valour.  And as soon as the news that he had been chosen King was spread abroad through those countries, all the Tartars in the world came to him and owned him for their Lord.  And right well did he maintain the Sovereignty they had given him.  What shall I say?  The Tartars gathered to him in astonishing multitude, and when he saw such numbers he made a great furniture of spears and arrows and such other arms as they used, and set about the conquest of all those regions till he had conquered eight provinces.  When he conquered a province he did no harm to the people or their property, but merely established some of his own men in the country along with a proportion of theirs, whilst he led the remainder to the conquest of other provinces.  And when those whom he had conquered became aware how well and safely he protected them against all others, and how they suffered no ill at his hands, and saw what a noble prince he was, then they joined him heart and soul and became his devoted followers.  And when he had thus gathered such a multitude that they seemed to cover the earth, he began to think of conquering a great part of the world.  Now in the year of Christ 1200 he sent an embassy to Prester John, and desired to have his daughter to wife.  But when Prester John heard that Chinghis Kaan demanded his daughter in marriage he waxed very wroth, and said to the Envoys, “What impudence is this, to ask my daughter to wife!  Wist he not well that he was my liegeman and serf?  Get ye back to him and tell him that I had liever set my daughter in the fire than give her in marriage to him, and that he deserves death at my hand, rebel and traitor that he is!” So he bade the Envoys begone at once, and never come into his presence again.  The Envoys, on receiving this reply, departed straightway, and made haste to their master, and related all that Prester John had ordered them to say, keeping nothing back.[NOTE 2]

NOTE 1.—­Temujin was born in the year 1155, according to all the Persian historians, who are probably to be relied on; the Chinese put the event in 1162. 1187 does not appear to be a date of special importance in his history.  His inauguration as sovereign under the name of Chinghiz Kaan was in 1202 according to the Persian authorities, in 1206 according to the Chinese.