They have another notable custom, which is this.  If any man have a daughter who dies before marriage, and another man have had a son also die before marriage, the parents of the two arrange a grand wedding between the dead lad and lass.  And marry them they do, making a regular contract!  And when the contract papers are made out they put them in the fire, in order (as they will have it) that the parties in the other world may know the fact, and so look on each other as man and wife.  And the parents thenceforward consider themselves sib to each other, just as if their children had lived and married.  Whatever may be agreed on between the parties as dowry, those who have to pay it cause to be painted on pieces of paper and then put these in the fire, saying that in that way the dead person will get all the real articles in the other world.[NOTE 3]

Now I have told you all about the manners and customs of the Tartars; but you have heard nothing yet of the great state of the Grand Kaan, who is the Lord of all the Tartars and of the Supreme Imperial Court.  All that I will tell you in this book in proper time and place, but meanwhile I must return to my story which I left off in that great plain when we began to speak of the Tartars.[NOTE 4]

NOTE 1.—­The cudgel among the Mongols was not confined to thieves and such like.  It was the punishment also of military and state offences, and even princes were liable to it without fatal disgrace.  “If they give any offence,” says Carpini, “or omit to obey the slightest beck, the Tartars themselves are beaten like donkeys.”  The number of blows administered was, according to Wassaf, always odd, 3, 5, and so forth, up to 77. (Carp. 712; Ilchan. I. 37.)

["They also punish with death grand larceny, but as for petty thefts, such as that of a sheep, so long has one has not repeatedly been taken in the act, they beat him cruelly, and if they administer an hundred blows they must use an hundred sticks.” (Rockhill, Rubruck, p. 80.)—­H.  C.]

NOTE 2.—­“They have no herdsmen or others to watch their cattle, because the laws of the Turks (i.e.  Tartars) against theft are so severe....  A man in whose possession a stolen horse is found is obliged to restore it to its owner, and to give nine of the same value; if he cannot, his children are seized in compensation; if he have no children, he is slaughtered like a mutton.” (Ibn Batuta, II. 364.)

NOTE 3.—­This is a Chinese custom, though no doubt we may trust Marco for its being a Tartar one also.  “In the province of Shansi they have a ridiculous custom, which is to marry dead folks to each other.  F. Michael Trigault, a Jesuit, who lived several years in that province, told it us whilst we were in confinement.  It falls out that one man’s son and another man’s daughter die.  Whilst the coffins are in the house (and they used to keep them two or three years, or longer) the parents agree to marry them; they send the usual