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Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

2 90   M ARCO POLO   BOOK I.

que le autre dou pais et pluJ safes et plus mercaant." Pauthier's text runs thus : " Il ont une generation de gens, ces Crestiens qui ont la Seigneurie, qui s'appellent Argon, qui vaut a dire Gasmul ; et sont plus beaux hommes que les autres mescreans et plus sages. Et pour ce ont it la sell ueurie et sont bons marchans." And Ramusio : " Vi é anche una some di sente che si chia»lano Argon, per che sono nati di due generazioni, cioè da quella di Tendue the adorano gl' idoli, e da quella the osservano la legge di Niacometto. E questi sono i piu belli uomini the si trovino in quel paese e piìc savi, e più accorti nella mercanzia."

In the first quotation the definition of the Anon as sprung de la lens née, etc., is not intelligible as it stands, but seems to be a corruption of the same definition that has been rendered by Ramusio, viz. that the Argon were half-castes between the race of the Tendue Buddhists and that of the Mahomedan settlers. These two texts do not assert that the Argon were Christians. Pauthier's text at first sight seems to assert this, and to identify them with the Christian rulers of the province. But I doubt if it means more than that the Christian rulers have under them a people called Argon, etc. The passage has been read with a bias, owing to an erroneous interpretation of the word Aeon in the teeth of Polo's explanation of it.

Klaproth, I believe, first suggested that Aeon represents the term Arkhaizín, which is found repeatedly applied to Oriental Christians, or their clergy, in the histories of the Mongol era." No quite satisfactory explanation has been given of the origin of that term. It is barely possible that it may be connected with that which Polo uses here ; but he tells us as plainly as possible that he means by the term, not a Christian, but a half breed.

And in this sense the word is stili extant in Tibet, probably also in Eastern Turkestan, precisely in Marco's form, ARGON. It is applied in Ladak, as General Cunningham tells us, specifically to the mixt race produced by the marriages of Kashmirian immigrants with Böt (Tibetan) women. And it was apparently to an analogous cross between Caucasians and Turanians that the term was applied in Tenduc. Moorcroft also speaks of this class in Ladak, calling them Argands. Mr. Shaw styles them " a set of ruffians called AP goons, half-bred between Toorkistan fathers and Ladak mothers. . . . They possess all the evil qualities of both races, without any of their virtues." And the author of the Dabistan, speaking of the Tibetan Lamas, says : " Their king, if his mother be not of royal blood, is by them called Arghzin, and not considered their true king." [See p. 291, my reference to

Wellby's Tibet. —H. C.] Cunningham says the word is probably Turki,

Arghún, " Fair," " not white," as he writes to me, " but ruddy or pink, and therefore ` fair.' Arghún is both Turki and Mogholi, and is applied to all fair children, both male and female, as Arghún Beg, Arghuna Ä'hatun," etc. t We find an Arghún tribe named in Timur's Institutes, which probably derived its descent from such half- breeds. And though the Arghún Dynasty of Kandahar and Sind claimed their descent and name from Arghún Khan of Persia, this may have had no other foundation.

* The term Arkaiun, or Arkaun, in this sense, occurs in the Armenian History of Stephen Orpelian, quoted by St. Martin. The author of the Tárikh Jahán Kuslzai, cited by D'Ohsson, says that Christians were called by the Mongols Arkáztn. When Hulaku invested Baghdad we are told that he sent a letter to the Judges, Shaikhs, Doctors and Arkauns, promising to spare such as should act peaceably. And in the subsequent sack we hear that no houses were spared except those of a few Aykauns and foreigners. In Rashiduddin's account of the Council of State at Peking, we are told that the four Fanchan, or Ministers of the Second Class, were taken from the four nations of Tájiks, Cathayans, Uighúrs, and Arkaun. Sabadin Arkaun was the name of one of the Envoys sent by Arghun Khan of Persia to the Pope in 1283. Traces of the name appear also in Chinese documents of the Mongol era, as denoting some religious body. Some of these have been quoted by M r. Wylie ; but I have seen no notice taken of a very curious extract given by Visdelou. This states that Kúblái in 1289 established a Board of nineteen chief officers to have surveillance of the affairs of the Religion of the Cross, of the llfarha, the Siließan, and the Yelikhawen. This Board was raised to a higher rank in 1315: and at that time 72 minor courts presiding over the religion of the Yelikhawenz existed under its supervision. Here we evidently have the word Arkhaiun in a Chinese form ; and we may hazard the suggestion that Marha, Silieyan and Yelikhawen meant respectively the Armenian, Syrian, or Jacobite, and Nestorian Churches. (St. Marlin, hfe'm. II. 133, 143, 279 D'Ohsson, II. 264 ; /khan, I. 150, 152 ; Cathay, 264 ; Acad. V1I. 359; Wylie in J. As. V. xix. 466. Suppt. to D'Herbelot, 142.)

t The word is not in Zenker or Pavet de Courteille.

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