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| IIIF Color HighRes |
| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
SKETCH OF THE STATE OF THE EAST II
ti
tot á~
Hayton in his Cilician Kingdom had pledged a more frank
allegiance to the Tartar, the enemy of his Moslem enemies.
Barka, son of Juji, the first ruling prince of the House of
Chinghiz to turn Mahomedan, reigned on the steppes of the
Volga, where a standing camp, which eventually became a
great city under the name of Sarai, had been established by
his brother and predecessor Batu.
The House of Chaghatai had settled upon the pastures of
the Ili and the valley of the Jaxartes, and ruled the wealthy
cities of Sogdiana.
Kaidu, the grandson of Okkodai who had been the
successor of Chinghiz in the Kaanship, refused to acknowledge
the transfer of the supreme authority to the House of Tuli, and
was through the long life of Kúblái a thorn in his side, perpetu-
ally keeping his north-western frontier in alarm. His immediate
authority was exercised over some part of what we should now
call Eastern Turkestan and Southern Central Siberia ; whilst
his hordes of horsemen, force of character, and close neighbour-
hood brought the Khans of Chaghatai under his influence, and
they generally acted in concert with him.
The chief throne of the Mongol Empire had just been
ascended by Kúblái, the most able of its occupants after the
Founder. Before the death of his brother and predecessor
Mangku, who died in 1259 before an obscure fortress of
Western China, it had been intended to remove the seat
of government from Kara Korum on the northern verge of
the Mongolian Desert to the more populous regions that
had been conquered in the further East, and this step, which
in the end converted the Mongol Kaan into a Chinese
Emperor, * was carried out by Kúblái.
I I. For about three centuries the Northern provinces of
China had been detached from native rule, and subject to
foreign dynasties ; first to the Khitan, a people from
China.
the basin of the Sungari River, and supposed (but
doubtfully) to have been akin to the Tunguses, whose rule
subsisted for 200 years, and originated the name of KHITAI,
Khata, or CATHAY, by which for nearly woo years China
has been known to the nations of Inner Asia, and to those
* "China is a sea that salts all the rivers that flow into it."—P. Parrenin in Lett. Édif. XXIV. 58.
VOL. I. h 2
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