The name of the place before which Polo represents him as mortally wounded is very variously given.  According to Gaubil, Chinghiz was in reality dangerously wounded by an arrow-shot at the siege of Taitongfu in 1212.  And it is possible, as Oppert suggests, that Polo’s account of his death before Caagiu (as I prefer the reading), arose out of a confusion between this circumstance and those of the death of Mangku Kaan, which is said to have occurred at the assault of Hochau in Sze-ch’uan, a name which Polo would write Caagiu, or nearly so.  Abulfaragius specifically says that Mangku Kaan died by an arrow; though it is true that other authors say he died of disease, and Haiton that he was drowned; all which shows how excusable were Polo’s errors as to events occurring 50 to 100 years before his time. (See Oppert’s Presbyter Johannes, p. 76; De Mailla, IX. 275, and note; Gaubil, 18, 50, 52, 121; Erdmann, 443; Ss.  Setzen, 103.)

It is only by referring back to ch. xlvii., where we are told that Chinghiz “began to think of conquering a great part of the world,” that we see Polo to have been really aware of the vast extent and aim of the conquests of Chinghiz; the aim being literally the conquest of the world as he conceived it; the extent of the empire which he initiated actually covering (probably) one half of the whole number of the human race. (See remarks in Koeppen, Die Relig. des Buddha, II. 86.)

CHAPTER LI.

OF THOSE WHO DID REIGN AFTER CHINGHIS KAAN, AND OF THE CUSTOMS OF THE TARTARS.

Now the next that reigned after Chinghis Kaan, their first Lord,[NOTE 1] was CUY KAAN, and the third Prince was BATUY KAAN, and the fourth was ALACOU KAAN, the fifth MONGOU KAAN, the sixth CUBLAY KAAN, who is the sovereign now reigning, and is more potent than any of the five who went before him; in fact, if you were to take all those five together, they would not be so powerful as he is.[NOTE 2] Nay, I will say yet more; for if you were to put together all the Christians in the world, with their Emperors and their Kings, the whole of these Christians,—­aye, and throw in the Saracens to boot,—­would not have such power, or be able to do so much as this Cublay, who is the Lord of all the Tartars in the world, those of the Levant and of the Ponent included; for these are all his liegemen and subjects.  I mean to show you all about this great power of his in this book of ours.

You should be told also that all the Grand Kaans, and all the descendants of Chinghis their first Lord, are carried to a mountain that is called ALTAY to be interred.  Wheresoever the Sovereign may die, he is carried to his burial in that mountain with his predecessors; no matter an the place of his death were 100 days’ journey distant, thither must he be carried to his burial.[NOTE 3]