“On every trumpe hanging a broad banere Of fine Tartarium.”

Again, in the French inventory of the Garde-Meuble of 1353 we find two pieces of Tartary, one green and the other red, priced at 15 crowns each. (Flower and Leaf, 211; Dante, Inf. XVII. 17, and Longfellow, p. 159; Douet d’Arcq, p. 328; Fr.-Michel, Rech. I. 315, II. 166 seqq.)

NOTE 7.—­SINDACHU (Sindacui, Suidatui, etc., of the MSS.) is SIUEN-HWA-FU, called under the Kin Dynasty Siuen-te-chau, more than once besieged and taken by Chinghiz.  It is said to have been a summer residence of the later Mongol Emperors, and fine parks full of grand trees remain on the western side.  It is still a large town and the capital of a Fu, about 25 miles south of the Gate on the Great Wall at Chang Kia Kau, which the Mongols and Russians call Kalgan.  There is still a manufacture of felt and woollen articles here.

[Mr. Rockhill writes to me that this place is noted for the manufacture of buckskins.—­H.  C.]

Ydifu has not been identified.  But Baron Richthofen saw old mines north-east of Kalgan, which used to yield argentiferous galena; and Pumpelly heard of silver-mines near Yuchau, in the same department.

[In the Yuen-shi it is “stated that there were gold and silver mines in the districts of Siuen-te-chow and Yuchow, as well as in the Kiming shan Mountains.  These mines were worked by the Government itself up to 1323, when they were transferred to private enterprise.  Marco Polo’s Ydifu is probably a copyist’s error, and stands instead of Yuchow.” (Palladius, 24, 25.)—­H.  C.]

[1] Mr. Ney Elias favours me with a curious but tantalising communication
    on this subject:  “An old man called on me at Kwei-hwa Ch’eng (Tenduc),
    who said he was neither Chinaman, Mongol, nor Mahomedan, and lived on
    ground a short distance to the north of the city, especially allotted
    to his ancestors by the Emperor, and where there now exist several
    families of the same origin.  He then mentioned the connection of his
    family with that of the Emperor, but in what way I am not clear, and
    said that he ought to be, or had been, a prince.  Other people coming
    in, he was interrupted and went away....  He was not with me more than
    ten minutes, and the incident is a specimen of the difficulty in
    obtaining interesting information, except by mere chance....  The idea
    that struck me was, that he was perhaps a descendant of King George of
    Tenduc; for I had your M. P. before me, and had been inquiring as much
    as I dared about subjects it suggested....  At Kwei-hwa Ch’eng I was
    very closely spied, and my servant was frequently told to warn me
    against asking too many questions.”