No doubt the number in the text should have been 108, which is apparently a mystic number among both Brahmans and Buddhists.  Thus at Gautama’s birth 108 Brahmans were summoned to foretell his destiny; round the great White Pagoda at Peking are 108 pillars for illumination; 108 is the number of volumes constituting the Tibetan scripture called Kahgyur; the merit of copying this work is enhanced by the quality of the ink used, thus a copy in red is 108 times more meritorious than one in black, one in silver 108^2 times, one in gold, 108^3 times; according to the Malabar Chronicle Parasurama established in that country 108 Iswars, 108 places of worship, and 108 Durga images; there are said to be 108 shrines of especial sanctity in India; there are 108 Upanishads (a certain class of mystical Brahmanical sacred literature); 108 rupees is frequently a sum devoted to alms; the rules of the Chinese Triad Society assign 108 blows as the punishment for certain offences;—­108, according to Athenaeus, were the suitors of Penelope!  I find a Tibetan tract quoted (by Koeppen, II. 284) as entitled, “The Entire Victor over all the 104 Devils,” and this is the only example I have met with of 104 as a mystic number.

NOTE 4.—­The Saggio, here as elsewhere, probably stands for the Miskal.

NOTE 5.—­This is stated also by Abu Zaid, in the beginning of the 10th century.  And Reinaud in his note refers to Mas’udi, who has a like passage in which he gives a name to these companions exactly corresponding to Polo’s Feoilz or Trusty Lieges:  “When a King in India dies, many persons voluntarily burn themselves with him.  These are called Balanjariyah (sing. Balanjar), as if you should say ‘Faithful Friends’ of the deceased, whose life was life to them, and whose death was death to them.” (Anc.  Rel. I. 121 and note; Mas. II. 85.)

On the murder of Ajit Singh of Marwar, by two of his sons, there were 84 satis, and “so much was he beloved,” says Tod, “that even men devoted themselves on his pyre” (I. 744).  The same thing occurred at the death of the Sikh Guru Hargovind in 1645. (H. of Sikhs, p. 62.)

Barbosa briefly notices an institution like that described by Polo, in reference to the King of Narsinga, i.e.  Vijayanagar. (Ram. I. f. 302.) Another form of the same bond seems to be that mentioned by other travellers as prevalent in Malabar, where certain of the Nairs bore the name of Amuki, and were bound not only to defend the King’s life with their own, but, if he fell, to sacrifice themselves by dashing among the enemy and slaying until slain.  Even Christian churches in Malabar had such hereditary Amuki. (See P.  Vinc.  Maria, Bk.  IV. ch. vii., and Cesare Federici in Ram. III. 390, also Faria y Sousa, by Stevens, I. 348.) There can be little doubt that this is the Malay Amuk, which would therefore