"Eddeva Puella Homo Stigandi Archiepiscopi."
(Theatre Francais Au Moyen Age, P. 145; Joinville, Pp.
21, 37; S.
R., 6th September, 1873, p. 305.)
CHAPTER XV.
HOW THE EMPEROR SENT MARK ON AN EMBASSY OF HIS.
Now it came to pass that Marco, the son of Messer Nicolo, sped wondrously
in learning the customs of the Tartars, as well as their language, their
manner of writing, and their practice of war; in fact he came in brief
space to know several languages, and four sundry written characters. And
he was discreet and prudent in every way, insomuch that the Emperor held
him in great esteem.[NOTE 1] And so when he discerned Mark to have so much
sense, and to conduct himself so well and beseemingly, he sent him on an
ambassage of his, to a country which was a good six months' journey
distant.[NOTE 2] The young gallant executed his commission well and with
discretion. Now he had taken note on several occasions that when the
Prince's ambassadors returned from different parts of the world, they were
able to tell him about nothing except the business on which they had gone,
and that the Prince in consequence held them for no better than fools and
dolts, and would say: "I had far liever hearken about the strange things,
and the manners of the different countries you have seen, than merely be
told of the business you went upon;" - for he took great delight in hearing
of the affairs of strange countries. Mark therefore, as he went and
returned, took great pains to learn about all kinds of different matters
in the countries which he visited, in order to be able to tell about them
to the Great Kaan.[NOTE 3]
NOTE 1. - The word Emperor stands here for Seigneur.
What the four characters acquired by Marco were is open to discussion.
The Chronicle of the Mongol Emperors rendered by Gaubil mentions, as
characters used in their Empire, the Uighur, the Persian and Arabic, that
of the Lamas (Tibetan), that of the Niuche, introduced by the Kin Dynasty,
the Khitan, and the Bashpah character, a syllabic alphabet arranged, on
the basis of the Tibetan and Sanskrit letters chiefly, by a learned chief
Lama so-called, under the orders of Kublai, and established by edict in
1269 as the official character. Coins bearing this character, and dating
from 1308 to 1354, are extant. The forms of the Niuche and Khitan were
devised in imitation of Chinese writing, but are supposed to be syllabic.
Of the Khitan but one inscription was known, and no key. "The Khitan had
two national scripts, the 'small characters' (hsiao tzu) and the 'large
characters' (ta tzu)." S. W. Bushell, Insc. in the Juchen and Allied
Scripts, Cong. des Orientalistes, Paris, 1897. - Die Sprache und Schrift
der Juchen von Dr. W. Grube, Leipzig, 1896, from a polyglot MS.
dictionary, discovered by Dr. F. Hirth and now kept in the Royal Library,
Berlin. - H. Y. and H. C.
Chinghiz and his first successors used the Uighur, and sometimes the
Chinese character. Of the Uighur character we give a specimen in Bk. IV.
It is of Syriac origin, undoubtedly introduced into Eastern Turkestan by
the early Nestorian missions, probably in the 8th or 9th century. The
oldest known example of this character so applied, the Kudatku Bilik, a
didactic poem in Uighur (a branch of Oriental Turkish), dating from A.D.
1069, was published by Prof. Vambery in 1870. A new edition of the
Kudatku Bilik was published at St. Petersburg, in 1891, by Dr. W.
Radloff. Vambery had a pleasing illustration of the origin of the Uighur
character, when he received a visit at Pesth from certain Nestorians of
Urumia on a begging tour. On being shown the original MS. of the Kudatku
Bilik, they read the character easily, whilst much to their astonishment
they could not understand a word of what was written. This Uighur is the
basis of the modern Mongol and Manchu characters. (Cf. E. Bretschneider,
Mediaeval Researches, I. pp. 236, 263.) - H. Y. and H. C.
[Illustration: Hexaglot Inscription on the East side of the Kiu Yong Kwan]
[Illustration: Hexaglot Inscription on the West side of the Kiu Yong Kwan]
[At the village of Keuyung Kwan, 40 miles north of Peking, in the sub-
prefecture of Ch'ang Ping, in the Chih-li province, the road from Peking
to Kalgan runs beyond the pass of Nankau, under an archway, a view of
which will be found at the end of this volume, on which were engraved, in
1345, two large inscriptions in six different languages: Sanskrit,
Tibetan, Mongol, Bashpah, Uighur, Chinese, and a language unknown till
recently. Mr. Wylie's kindness enabled Sir Henry Yule to present a specimen
of this. (A much better facsimile of these inscriptions than Wylie's
having since been published by Prince Roland Bonaparte in his valuable
Recueil des Documents de l'Epoque Mongole, this latter is, by
permission, here reproduced.) The Chinese and Mongol inscriptions have
been translated by M. Ed. Chavannes; the Tibetan by M. Sylvain Levi
(Jour. Asiat., Sept.-Oct. 1894, pp. 354-373); the Uighur, by Prof. W.
Radloff (Ibid. Nov.-Dec. 1894, pp. 546, 550); the Mongol by Prof. G. Huth.
(Ibid. Mars-Avril 1895, pp. 351-360.) The sixth language was supposed by
A. Wylie (J. R. A. S. vol. xvii. p. 331, and N.S., vol. v. p. 14) to be
Neuchih, Niuche, Niuchen or Juchen. M. Deveria has shown that the
inscription is written in Si Hia, or the language of Tangut, and gave a
facsimile of a stone stele (pei) in this language kept in the great
Monastery of the Clouds (Ta Yun Ssu) at Liangchau in Kansuh, together with
a translation of the Chinese text, engraved on the reverse side of the
slab. M. Deveria thinks that this writing was borrowed by the Kings of
Tangut from the one derived in 920 by the Khitans from the Chinese.
(Stele Si-Hia de Leang-tcheou ... J. As., 1898; L'ectriture du
royaumes de Si-Hia ou Tangout, par M. Deveria ... Ext.
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