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0069 Cathay and the Way Thither : vol.1
Cathay and the Way Thither : vol.1 / Page 69 (Grayscale High Resolution Image)

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doi: 10.20676/00000042
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   PRELIMINARY ESSAY.   liil

writer till we get to LAONICUS CHALCONDYLAS in the latter half of the fifteenth century. We need not he surprised at the vagueness of the site ascribed to Taugas by Theophylactus when we find this author, who wrote from one to two centuries after the, travels of Polo, Odoric, and Ibn Batuta, describing Cathay in one passage as somewhere near the Caspian, in another as in India, between the Ganges and Indus.'

Abulfeda kindly translated for me by Mr. Badger. I do not know how the last word is written in the Arabic, and its closer correspondence to the Taugas of Theophylactus is almost certainly due to accident. The Niswy or Nessawi quoted by Abulfeda was secretary to Sultan Jalaluddin of Khwarizm, and no doubt the allusion is to the anecdote told in the text from D'Ohsson.

11VIasudi says the King of China when addressed was termed Thamghama JabMin (qu. Thamgaj ?) (Prairies d' Or, i, 306).

Clavijo says, " The Zagatays call him (the Emperor of China) Tangus, which means Pig Emperor." (!) See Markham, p. 133-4. In the Universal History it is mentioned (probably after Sharifuddin) that in 1398 envoys carne to Timur from Tamgaj Khan, Emperor of Cathay.

   The following examples are more doubtful.   We call this region
China, the which they in their language name Tame, and the people Tangis, whom we name Chinois" (Alhacen,, his Arabike Historie of Tamerlane, in Purchas, iii, 152).

Tangtash, Tangnash, Taknas, occur repeatedly in the translation of Sadik Isfahani and of the Shajrat ul Atrcék as synonymous with Machin, or a great city therein. But these words are perhaps corrupt readings of Nangici,s, which was a name applied by the Mongols to Southern China (see.D'Ohsson, i, 190-1; Quat., Rashidedclin, p. lxxxvi).

The name can scarcely have any reference to the Thang dynasty, for they did not attain the throne till the latter years of Theophylactus, and he mentions Taugas in connexion with a Khan of the Turks in the time of the Emperor Maurice. It should be mentioned, however, that the title Thangdj is found on a coin of a Turkish Khakan of A.D. 1043-44 (see Fræhn's remarks on this in Meyendorff's Voyage cl'Orenbourg d Bokhara, p. 314 segq.; see also D'Herbelot in v. Thamgaj). The geographer Bakui also defines Thamgaj as a great city of the Turks' country, near which are many villages between two mountains, and only approached by a narrow defile (Not. et Extr., ii, 491).•

1 " Hence he (Timur) directed his march against the Chataides, threatening them with destruction. This people are believed to be the same with the ancient Massagetæ, who crossed the Araxes (Jaxartes ?) and took possession of an extensive region adjoining that river, in which they settled." (De Rebus Turcicis, iii, p. 67.) Again : " Chataia is a city towards the east of Hyrcania, great and flourishing in population, and surpassing in wealth and all other attributes of prosperity all the cities