HOW THE GREAT KAAN ASKED ALL ABOUT THE MANNERS OF THE
CHRISTIANS, AND PARTICULARLY ABOUT THE POPE OF ROME.
And then he inquired about the Pope and the Church, and about all
that is done at Rome, and all the customs of the Latins. And the Two
Brothers told him the truth in all its particulars, with order and good
sense, like sensible men as they were; and this they were able to do as
they knew the Tartar language well.{1}
NOTE 1.—The word generally used for Pope in the original is
_Apostoille_ (_Apostolicus_), the usual French expression of that
age.
It is remarkable that for the most part the text edited by Pauthier
has the correcter Oriental form _Tatar_, instead of the usual
_Tartar_. _Tattar_ is the word used by Yvo of Narbonne, in the
curious letter given by Matthew Paris under 1243.
We are often told that _Tartar_ is a vulgar European error. It is
in any case a very old one; nor does it seem to be of European
origin, but rather Armenian;[1] though the suggestion of Tartarus
may have given it readier currency in Europe. Russian writers, or
rather writers who have been in Russia, sometimes try to force on
us a specific limitation of the word _Tartar_ to a certain class of
Oriental Turkish race, to whom the Russians appropriate the name.
But there is no just ground for this. _Tátár_ is used by Oriental
writers of Polo’s age exactly as Tartar was then, and is still,
used in Western Europe, as a generic title for the Turanian hosts
who followed Chinghiz and his successors. But I believe the name in
this sense was unknown to Western Asia before the time of Chinghiz.
And General Cunningham must overlook this when he connects the
Ṭáṭaríya coins, mentioned by Arab geographers of the 9th century,
with “the Scythic or Tátár princes who ruled in Kabul” in the
beginning of our era. Tartars on the Indian frontier in those
centuries are surely to be classed with the Frenchmen whom Brennus
led to Rome, or the Scotchmen who fought against Agricola.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] See _J. As._ sér. V. tom. xi. p. 203.