OF CHINGHIS, AND HOW HE BECAME THE FIRST KAAN OF THE
TARTARS.
Now it came to pass in the year of Christ’s Incarnation 1187 that the
Tartars made them a King whose name was CHINGHIS KAAN.{1} He was a man
of great worth, and of great ability (eloquence), and valour. And as
soon as the news that he had been chosen King was spread abroad through
those countries, all the Tartars in the world came to him and owned him
for their Lord. And right well did he maintain the Sovereignty they had
given him. What shall I say? The Tartars gathered to him in astonishing
multitude, and when he saw such numbers he made a great furniture of
spears and arrows and such other arms as they used, and set about the
conquest of all those regions till he had conquered eight provinces.
When he conquered a province he did no harm to the people or their
property, but merely established some of his own men in the country
along with a proportion of theirs, whilst he led the remainder to the
conquest of other provinces. And when those whom he had conquered
became aware how well and safely he protected them against all others,
and how they suffered no ill at his hands, and saw what a noble prince
he was, then they joined him heart and soul and became his devoted
followers. And when he had thus gathered such a multitude that they
seemed to cover the earth, he began to think of conquering a great
part of the world. Now in the year of Christ 1200 he sent an embassy
to Prester John, and desired to have his daughter to wife. But when
Prester John heard that Chinghis Kaan demanded his daughter in marriage
he waxed very wroth, and said to the Envoys, “What impudence is this,
to ask my daughter to wife! Wist he not well that he was my liegeman
and serf? Get ye back to him and tell him that I had liever set my
daughter in the fire than give her in marriage to him, and that he
deserves death at my hand, rebel and traitor that he is!” So he bade
the Envoys begone at once, and never come into his presence again. The
Envoys, on receiving this reply, departed straightway, and made haste
to their master, and related all that Prester John had ordered them to
say, keeping nothing back.{2}
NOTE 1.—Temujin was born in the year 1155, according to all the
Persian historians, who are probably to be relied on; the Chinese
put the event in 1162. 1187 does not appear to be a date of special
importance in his history. His inauguration as sovereign under
the name of Chinghiz Kaan was in 1202 according to the Persian
authorities, in 1206 according to the Chinese.
In a preceding note (p. 236) we have quoted a passage in which
Rubruquis calls Chinghiz “a certain blacksmith.” This mistaken
notion seems to have originated in the resemblance of his name
_Temújin_ to the Turki _Temúrjí_, a blacksmith; but it was common
throughout Asia in the Middle Ages, and the story is to be found
not only in Rubruquis, but in the books of Hayton, the Armenian
prince, and of Ibn Batuta, the Moor. That cranky Orientalist, Dr.
Isaac Jacob Schmidt, positively reviles William Rubruquis, one of
the most truthful and delightful of travellers, and certainly not
inferior to his critic in mother-wit, for adopting this story,
and rebukes Timkowski—not for adopting it, but for merely telling
us the very interesting fact that the story was still, in 1820,
current in Mongolia. (_Schmidt’s San. Setz._ 376, and _Timkowski_,
I. 147.)
NOTE 2.—Several historians, among others Abulfaraj, represent
Chinghiz as having married a daughter of Aung Khan; and this is
current among some of the mediæval European writers, such as
Vincent of Beauvais. It is also adopted by Pétis de la Croix in his
history of Chinghiz, apparently from a comparatively late Turkish
historian; and both D’Herbelot and St. Martin state the same; but
there seems to be no foundation for it in the best authorities:
either Persian or Chinese. (See _Abulfaragius_, p. 285; _Speculum
Historiale_, Bk. XXIX. ch. lxix.; _Hist. of Genghiz Can_, p. 29;
and _Golden Horde_, pp. 61–62.) But there is a real story at the
basis of Polo’s, which seems to be this: About 1202, when Aung Khan
and Chinghiz were still acting in professed alliance, a double
union was proposed between Aung Khan’s daughter Jaur Bigi and
Chinghiz’s son Juji, and between Chinghiz’s daughter Kijin Bigi and
Togrul’s grandson Kush Buka. From certain circumstances this union
fell through, and this was one of the circumstances which opened
the breach between the two chiefs. There were, however, several
marriages between the families. (_Erdmann_, 283; others are quoted
under ch. lix., note 2.)