And it was from this time forth that the Great Kaan
began to keep numbers of elephants.
So thus it was that the king aforesaid was defeated by the sagacity and
superior skill of the Tartars as you have heard.
NOTE 1. - Nescradin for Nesradin, as we had Bascra for Basra.
This NASRUDDIN was apparently an officer of whom Rashiduddin speaks, and
whom he calls governor (or perhaps commander) in Karajang. He describes
him as having succeeded in that command to his father the Sayad Ajil of
Bokhara, one of the best of Kublai's chief Ministers. Nasr-uddin retained
his position in Yun-nan till his death, which Rashid, writing about 1300,
says occurred five or six years before. His son Bayan, who also bore the
grandfather's title of Sayad Ajil, was Minister of Finance under Kublai's
successor; and another son, Hala, is also mentioned as one of the
governors of the province of Fu-chau. (See Cathay, pp. 265, 268, and
D'Ohsson, II. 507-508.)
Nasr-uddin (Nasulating) is also frequently mentioned as employed on this
frontier by the Chinese authorities whom Pauthier cites.
[Na-su-la-ding [Nasr-uddin] was the eldest of the five sons of the
Mohammedan Sai-dien-ch'i shan-sze-ding, Sayad Ajil, a native of Bokhara,
who died in Yun-nan, where he had been governor when Kublai, in the reign
of Mangu, entered the country.
