The Idolaters come thither on pilgrimage from very long distances and with great devotion, just as Christians go to the shrine of Messer Saint James in Gallicia.  And they maintain that the monument on the mountain is that of the king’s son, according to the story I have been telling you; and that the teeth, and the hair, and the dish that are there were those of the same king’s son, whose name was Sagamoni Borcan, or Sagamoni the Saint.  But the Saracens also come thither on pilgrimage in great numbers, and they say that it is the sepulchre of Adam our first father, and that the teeth, and the hair, and the dish were those of Adam.[NOTE 5]

Whose they were in truth, God knoweth; howbeit, according to the Holy Scripture of our Church, the sepulchre of Adam is not in that part of the world.

Now it befel that the Great Kaan heard how on that mountain there was the sepulchre of our first father Adam, and that some of his hair and of his teeth, and the dish from which he used to eat, were still preserved there.  So he thought he would get hold of them somehow or another, and despatched a great embassy for the purpose, in the year of Christ, 1284.  The ambassadors, with a great company, travelled on by sea and by land until they arrived at the island of Seilan, and presented themselves before the king.  And they were so urgent with him that they succeeded in getting two of the grinder teeth, which were passing great and thick; and they also got some of the hair, and the dish from which that personage used to eat, which is of a very beautiful green porphyry.  And when the Great Kaan’s ambassadors had attained the object for which they had come they were greatly rejoiced, and returned to their lord.  And when they drew near to the great city of Cambaluc, where the Great Kaan was staying, they sent him word that they had brought back that for which he had sent them.  On learning this the Great Kaan was passing glad, and ordered all the ecclesiastics and others to go forth to meet these reliques, which he was led to believe were those of Adam.

And why should I make a long story of it?  In sooth, the whole population of Cambaluc went forth to meet those reliques, and the ecclesiastics took them over and carried them to the Great Kaan, who received them with great joy and reverence.[NOTE 6] And they find it written in their Scriptures that the virtue of that dish is such that if food for one man be put therein it shall become enough for five men:  and the Great Kaan averred that he had proved the thing and found that it was really true.[NOTE 7]

So now you have heard how the Great Kaan came by those reliques; and a mighty great treasure it did cost him!  The reliques being, according to the Idolaters, those of that king’s son.

NOTE 1.—­Sagamoni Borcan is, as Marsden points out, SAKYA-MUNI, or Gautama-Buddha, with the affix BURKHAN, or “Divinity,” which is used by the Mongols as the synonym of Buddha.