These circumstances called the Kaan’s attention to the accursed doctrines of the Sect of the Saracens, which excuse every crime, yea even murder itself, when committed on such as are not of their religion.  And seeing that this doctrine had led the accursed Achmath and his sons to act as they did without any sense of guilt, the Kaan was led to entertain the greatest disgust and abomination for it.  So he summoned the Saracens and prohibited their doing many things which their religion enjoined.  Thus, he ordered them to regulate their marriages by the Tartar Law, and prohibited their cutting the throats of animals killed for food, ordering them to rip the stomach in the Tartar way.

Now when all this happened Messer Marco was upon the spot.][NOTE 5]

NOTE 1.—­This narrative is from Ramusio’s version, and constitutes one of the most notable passages peculiar to that version.

The name of the oppressive Minister is printed in Ramusio’s Collection Achmach.  But the c and t are so constantly interchanged in MSS. that I think there can be no question this was a mere clerical error for Achmath, and so I write it.  I have also for consistency changed the spelling of Xandu, Chingis, etc., to that hitherto adopted in our text of Chandu, Chinkin, etc.

NOTE 2.—­The remarks of a Chinese historian on Kublai’s administration may be appropriately quoted here:  “Hupilai Han must certainly be regarded as one of the greatest princes that ever existed, and as one of the most successful in all that he undertook.  This he owed to his judgment in the selection of his officers, and to his talent for commanding them.  He carried his arms into the most remote countries, and rendered his name so formidable that not a few nations spontaneously submitted to his supremacy.  Nor was there ever an Empire of such vast extent.  He cultivated literature, protected its professors, and even thankfully received their advice.  Yet he never placed a Chinese in his cabinet, and he employed foreigners only as Ministers.  These, however, he chose with discernment, always excepting the Ministers of Finance.  He really loved his subjects; and if they were not always happy under his government, it is because they took care to conceal their sufferings.  There were in those days no Public Censors whose duty it is to warn the Sovereign of what is going on:  and no one dared to speak out for fear of the resentment of the Ministers, who were the depositaries of the Imperial authority, and the authors of the oppressions under which the people laboured.  Several Chinese, men of letters and of great ability, who lived at Hupilai’s court, might have rendered that prince the greatest service in the administration of his dominions, but they never were intrusted with any but subordinate offices, and they were not in a position to make known the malversations of those public blood-suckers.” (De Mailla, IX. 459-460.)