In a footnote, Palladius refers to the geographical parts of the Liao shi, Kin shi, and Yuen shi, and adds:  “M.  Polo’s commentators are wrong in suspecting an anachronism in his statement, or trying to find Tenduc elsewhere.”

We find in the North-China Herald (29th April, 1887, p. 474) the following note from the Chinese Times:  “There are records that the position of this city [Kwei-hwa Ch’eng] was known to the builder of the Great Wall.  From very remote times, it appears to have been a settlement of nomadic tribes.  During the last 1000 years it has been alternately possessed by the Mongols and Chinese.  About A.D. 1573, Emperor Wan-Li reclaimed it, enclosed a space within walls, and called it Kwei-hwa Ch’eng.”

Potanin left Peking on the 13th May, 1884, for Kuku-khoto (or Kwei-hwa-Ch’eng), passing over the triple chain of mountains dividing the Plain of Peking from that on which Kuku-khoto is situate.  The southernmost of these three ridges bears the Chinese name of Wu-tai-shan, “the mountain of five sacrificial altars,” after the group of five peaks, the highest of which is 10,000 feet above the sea, a height not exceeded by any mountain in Northern China.  At its southern foot lies a valley remarkable for its Buddhist monasteries and shrines, one of which, “Shing-tung-tze,” is entirely made of brass, whence its name.

“Kuku-Khoto is the depot for the Mongolian trade with China.  It contains two hundred tea-shops, five theatres, fifteen temples, and six Mongol monasteries.  Among its sights are the Buddhist convent of Utassa, with its five pinnacles and has-reliefs, the convent of Fing-sung-si, and a temple containing a statue erected in honour of the Chinese general, Pai-jin-jung, who avenged an insult offered to the Emperor of China.” (Proc.  R. G. S. IX. 1887, p. 233.)—­H.  C.]

A passage in Rashiduddin does seem to intimate that the Kerait, the tribe of Aung Khan, alias Prester John, did occupy territory close to the borders of Cathay or Northern China; but neither from Chinese nor from other Oriental sources has any illustration yet been produced of the existence of Aung Khan’s descendants as rulers in this territory under the Mongol emperors.  There is, however, very positive evidence to that effect supplied by other European travellers, to whom the fables prevalent in the West had made the supposed traces of Prester John a subject of strong interest.

Thus John of Monte Corvino, afterwards Archbishop of Cambaluc or Peking, in his letter of January, 1305, from that city, speaks of Polo’s King George in these terms:  “A certain king of this part of the world, by name George, belonging to the sect of the Nestorian Christians, and of the illustrious lineage of that great king who was called Prester John of India, in the first year of my arrival here [circa 1295-1296] attached himself to me, and, after he had been converted by me to the verity of the Catholic