Palladius (19) adds:  “Erigaia is not to be confounded with Urahai, often mentioned in the history of Chingis Khan’s wars with the Tangut kingdom.  Urahai was a fortress in a pass of the same name in the Alashan Mountains.  Chingis Khan spent five months there (an. 1208), during which he invaded and plundered the country in the neighbourhood. [Si hia shu shi.] The Alashan Mountains form a semicircle 500 li in extent, and have over forty narrow passes leading to the department of Ning-hia; the broadest and most practicable of these is now called Ch’i-mu-K’ow; it is not more than 80 feet broad. [Ning hia ju chi.] It may be that the Urahai fortress existed near this pass.”

“From Liang-chow fu, M. Polo follows a special route, leaving the modern postal route on his right; the road he took has, since the time of the Emperor K’ang-hi, been called the courier’s route.” (Palladius, 18.)—­H.  C.]

NOTE 2.—­Calachan, the chief town of Egrigaia, is mentioned, according to Klaproth, by Rashiduddin, among the cities of Tangut, as KALAJAN.  The name and approximate position suggest, as just noticed, identity with Alashan, the modern capital of which, called by Prjevalsky Dyn-yuan-yin, stands some distance west of the Hwang-Ho, in about lat. 39 deg..  Polo gives no data for the interval between this and his next stage.

[The Dyn-yuan-yin of Prjevalsky is the camp of Ting-yuan-yng or Fu-ma-fu of M. Bonin, the residence of the Si-wang (western prince), of Alashan, an abbreviation of Alade-shan (shan, mountain in Chinese), Alade = Eleuth or Oeloet; the sister of this prince married a son of Prince Tuan, the chief of the Boxers. (La Geographie, 1901.  I. 118.) Palladius (l.c. 19) says:  “Under the name of Calachan, Polo probably means the summer residence of the Tangut kings, which was 60 li from Ning-hia, at the foot of the Alashan Mountains.  It was built by the famous Tangut king Yuen-hao, on a large scale, in the shape of a castle, in which were high terraces and magnificent buildings.  Traces of these buildings are visible to this day.  There are often found coloured tiles and iron nails 1 foot, and even 2 feet long.  The last Tangut kings made this place their permanent residence, and led there an indolent and sensual life.  The Chinese name of this residence was Ho-lan shan Li-Kung.  There is sufficient reason to suppose that this very residence is named (under the year 1226) in the Mongol text Alashai nuntuh; and in the chronicles of the Tangut Kingdom, Halahachar, otherwise Halachar apparently in the Tangut language.  Thus M. Polo’s Calachan can be identified with the Halachar of the Si hia shu shi, and can be taken to designate the Alashan residence of the Tangut kings.”—­H.  C.]

NOTE 3.—­Among the Buraets and Chinese at Kiakhta snow-white camels, without albino character, are often seen, and probably in other parts of Mongolia. (See Erdmann, II. 261.) Philostratus tells us that the King of Taxila furnished white camels to Apollonius.  I doubt if the present King of Taxila, whom Anglo-Indians call the Commissioner of Rawal Pindi, could do the like.