And whither would ye have me go?"
They answered, and said: "You shall come with us, will ye: nill ye, to
Prester John our Lord."
[Illustration: The "Roi d'Or." (From a MS. in the Royal Asiatic Society's
Collection.)
"Et en ceste chastians ha un mout bians paleis en quel a une grandisme sale
la ou il sunt portrait a mont belles pointures tout les rois de celes
provences que furent ansienemant, et ce est mout belle viste a voir."]
NOTE 1. - The name of the castle is very doubtful. But of that and the
geography, which in this part is tangled, we shall speak further on.
Whilst the original French texts were unknown, the king here spoken of
figured in the old Latin versions as King Darius, and in Ramusio as Re
Dor. It was a most happy suggestion of Marsden's, in absence of all
knowledge of the fact that the original narrative was French, that this
Dor represented the Emperor of the Kin or Golden Dynasty, called by the
Mongols Altun Khan, of which Roi D'Or is a literal translation.
Of the legend itself I can find no trace. Rashiduddin relates a story of
the grandfather of Aung Khan (Polo's Prester John), Merghuz Boiruk Khan,
being treacherously made over to the King of the Churche (the Kin
sovereign), and put to death by being nailed to a wooden ass. But the same
author tells us that Aung Khan got his title of Aung (Ch. Wang) or king
from the Kin Emperor of his day, so that no hereditary feud seems
deducible.
Mr. Wylie, who is of opinion, like Baron Richthofen, that the Caichu
which Polo makes the scene of that story, is Kiai-chau (or Hiai-chau as it
seems to be pronounced), north of the Yellow River, has been good enough to
search the histories of the Liao and Kin Dynasties,[1] but without finding
any trace of such a story, or of the Kin Emperors having resided in that
neighbourhood.
On the other hand, he points out that the story has a strong resemblance to
a real event which occurred in Central Asia in the beginning of Polo's
century.
The Persian historians of the Mongols relate that when Chinghiz defeated
and slew Taiyang Khan, the king of the Naimans, Kushluk, the son of
Taiyang, fled to the Gur-Khan of Karakhitai and received both his
protection and the hand of his daughter (see i. 237); but afterwards rose
against his benefactor and usurped his throne. "In the Liao history I
read," Mr. Wylie says, "that Chih-lu-ku, the last monarch of the Karakhitai
line, ascended the throne in 1168, and in the 34th year of his reign, when
out hunting one day in autumn, Kushluk, who had 8000 troops in ambush, made
him prisoner, seized his throne and adopted the customs of the Liao, while
he conferred on Chih-lu-ku the honourable title of Tai-shang-hwang 'the
old emperor.'"[2]
