I do not know if any gold Paizah has been discovered, but several of silver have been found in the Russian dominions; one near the Dnieper, and two in Eastern Siberia.  The first of our plates represents one of these, which was found in the Minusinsk circle of the Government of Yenisei in 1846, and is now in the Asiatic Museum of the Academy of St. Petersburg, For the sake of better illustration of our text, I have taken the liberty to represent the tablet as of gold, instead of silver with only the inscription gilt.  The moulded ring inserted in the orifice, to suspend the plate by, is of iron.  On the reverse side the ring bears some Chinese characters engraved, which are interpreted as meaning “Publication No. 42.”  The inscription on the plate itself is in the Mongol language and Baspa character (supra, Prologue, note 1, ch. xv.), and its purport is a remarkable testimony to the exactness of Marco’s account, and almost a proof of his knowledge of the language and character in which the inscriptions were engraved.  It runs, according to Schmidt’s version:  “By the strength of the eternal heaven!  May the name of the Khagan be holy!  Who pays him not reverence is to be slain, and must die!” The inscriptions on the other plates discovered were essentially similar in meaning.  Our second plate shows one of them with the inscription in the Uighur character.

The superficial dimensions of the Yenisei tablet, as taken from Schmidt’s full-size drawing, are 12.2 in. by 3.65 in.  The weight is not given.

In the French texts nothing is said of the size of the tablets.  But Ramusio’s copy in the Prologue, where the tables given by Kiacatu are mentioned (supra, p. 35), says that they were a cubit in length and 5 fingers in breadth, and weighed 3 to 4 marks each, i.e. 24 to 32 ounces.

(Dupre de St. Maur, Essai sur les Monnoies, etc., 1746, p. viii.; also (on saiga) see Pertz, Script. XVII. 357; Rubruq. 312; Golden Horde, 219-220, 521; Ilch. II. 166 seqq., 355-356; D’Ohsson, III. 412-413; Q.  R. 177-180; Ham.  Wassaf, 154, 176; Makrizi, IV. 158; St. Martin, Mem. sur l’Armenie, II. 137, 169; M.  Mas Latrie in Bibl. de l’Ec. des Chartes, IV. 585 seqq.; J.  As. ser.  V. tom. xvii. 536 seqq.; Schmidt, ueber eine Mongol.  Quadratinschrift, etc., Acad.  St. P., 1847; Russian paper by Grigorieff on same subject, 1846.)

["The History tells us (Liao Shih, Bk.  LVII. f. 2) that the official silver tablets p’ai tzu of the period were 600 in number, about a foot in length, and that they were engraved with an inscription like the above [’Our imperial order for post horses.  Urgent.’] in national characters (kuo tzu), and that when there was important state business the Emperor personally handed the tablet to the envoy, which entitled him to demand horses