had given him a son (cf. YS, 106, 3 a; Ber, I, 178; BI, II, 370); another Bayaut, Buiu) an, was the wife of Qubilai's grandson and future successor Tämür-ÖI,äitü (YS, 106, 2 b; 114, 2 b).
HAMMER, in his account of Kökäcin's reception by Ghazan, says that Ghazan himself had sent an envoy to China to ask for her (Hal, II, 20). This is impossible; Ghazan's father Aryun did not die until 1291; there can be no doubt that the embassy had left Persia long before, and Polo's very detailed account about the sending of the embassy by Aryun is to be entirely trusted. A passage in R, omitted by BENEDETTO (RR and B1), but certainly genuine, says that, by the date of Polo's return from the Southern Seas, the envoys had already been away three years. The interval between Buluyan's death and Kökäcin's arrival, of about seven years, may seem almost excessive; but we must not forget that the same journey to China and back took Ghazan's envoys nine years, from 1298 to 1307 (see « Caçan »).
According to HAMMER (Hal, II, 20), Kökäcin came to Ghazan while Ghazan was at «Abher» (Abhar, Äbhär, W.S.W. of Qazwin; cf. Br, II, 113), on his way back from Täbriz to l„Iorasan. The date of the meeting is important, as it has much bearing on the chronology of Polo's return from China. YULE ( Y, I, 24) has supposed that the travellers reached Ormuz about November 1293, and Ghasan's camp one or two months later; in I, 38, he proposes for the meeting « the end of 1293 or quite the beginning of 1294 ». This seems to be too late. From the date in Hal,
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19-20, and Oh, iv, 94-95, it seems to me that Ghazan's second stay at « Abher » (the one meant here) cannot be later than July-August 1293. Before that, the three Polos had taken Kökäcin to Gäibatu, and it is Gäibatu who had her sent along to Ghazan. All that must have taken a fairly long time. The conclusion seems to me unavoidable that the travellers crossed the western Indian Ocean in the winter-monsoon of 1292-1293. Since it took them three months to sail from Zaitun to Sumatra, where they waited five months for the monsoon and spent eighteen months crossing the Indian Ocean, they must have left China not in 1292 as is generally stated, but early in 1291. As, at the time the three Venetians were permitted to go back to the West, Polo was just back from the Indian seas, it may be possible to determine the date and nature of the mission of which he was a member, though probably not the head (see « Seiian »).
Ghazan married Kökäcin. By that time, the ordo, that is to say the camp and property, left by Hülägü's wife Toquz-hatun had become available; it was assigned to Kökäcin. Here we must go back a little. Toquz-hatun, a Christian Kerait princess, had died in 1265, shortly after her husband, and her ordo had been assigned to her Christian niece (or sister ?) ::s, Toqtani (or Tuqtani). This last name has been misread «Toukiti» by QUATREMÈRE (p. 95), «Tuktai» by D'OHSSON (Oh, III, 553), «Tuktai», «Tuktini» and finally «Tukini» and «Takteni» by HAMMER (cf. Ha', II, 554; Hat, 262); «Tuqtai» by BEREZIN (Ber, I, 100); «Takteni» by HOWORTH, III, 312; but it is an old Mongol feminine form Toqtani (< Tuqtani ?) of the name Toqtai (< Tuqtai < Tuytai ?), correctly written «Tuhtani» in Armenian by Vardan (PATKANOV, Istoriya Mongolov, I, 25); cf. TP, 1932, 49-50. In 1288, two letters had been addressed by the Pope to two princesses whose names are always quoted as «Elegag» (or «Elagag») and «Tuctan» (cf. Oh, iv, 69; Ha', I, 360, 395; HOWORTH, III, 319; CHABOT, 203, 231; GROUSSET, Hist. des Croisades,
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722), but in the letters they are called in fact « Elegagi », i. e. Ei-egVi, and «Tuctan ». One
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