The word Bakhshi has, however, wandered much further from its original meaning.  From its association with persons who could read and write, and who therefore occasionally acted as clerks, it came in Persia to mean a clerk or secretary.  In the Petrarchian Vocabulary, published by Klaproth, we find scriba rendered in Comanian, i.e.  Turkish of the Crimea, by Bacsi.  The transfer of meaning is precisely parallel to that in regard to our Clerk.  Under the Mahomedan sovereigns of India, Bakhshi was applied to an officer performing something like the duties of a quartermaster-general; and finally, in our Indian army, it has come to mean a paymaster.  In the latter sense, I imagine it has got associated in the popular mind with the Persian bakhshidan, to bestow, and bakhshish. (See a note in Q.  R. p. 184 seqq.; Cathay, p. 474; Ayeen Akbery, III. 150; Pallas, Samml. II. 126; Levchine, p. 355; Klap.  Mem. III.; Vambery, Sketches, p. 81.)

The sketch from the life, on p. 326, of a wandering Tibetan devotee, whom I met once at Hardwar, may give an idea of the sordid Bacsis spoken of by Polo.

NOTE 11.—­This feat is related more briefly by Odoric:  “And jugglers cause cups of gold full of good wine to fly through the air, and to offer themselves to all who list to drink.” (Cathay, p. 143.) In the note on that passage I have referred to a somewhat similar story in the Life of Apollonius.  “Such feats,” says Mr. Jaeschke, “are often mentioned in ancient as well as modern legends of Buddha and other saints; and our Lamas have heard of things very similar performed by conjuring Bonpos.”  (See p. 323.) The moving of cups and the like is one of the sorceries ascribed in old legends to Simon Magus:  “He made statues to walk; leapt into the fire without being burnt; flew in the air; made bread of stones; changed his shape; assumed two faces at once; converted himself into a pillar; caused closed doors to fly open spontaneously; made the vessels in a house seem to move of themselves,” etc.  The Jesuit Delrio laments that credulous princes, otherwise of pious repute, should have allowed diabolic tricks to be played before them, “as, for example, things of iron, and silver goblets, or other heavy articles, to be moved by bounds from one end of a table to the other, without the use of a magnet or of any attachment.”  The pious prince appears to have been Charles IX., and the conjuror a certain Cesare Maltesio.  Another Jesuit author describes the veritable mango-trick, speaking of persons who “within three hours’ space did cause a genuine shrub of a span in length to grow out of the table, besides other trees that produced both leaves and fruit.”

In a letter dated 1st December, 1875, written by Mr. R. B. Shaw, after his last return from Kashgar and Lahore, this distinguished traveller says; “I have heard stories related regarding a Buddhist high priest whose temple is said to be not far to the east of Lanchau, which reminds me of Marco Polo and Kublai Khan.  This high priest is said to have the magic power of attracting cups and plates to him from a distance, so that things fly through the air into his hands.” (MS. Note.—­H.  Y.)