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| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
CHAI'. IX. TIIE GREAT KAAN'S SONS
359
t
two of IIulaku's seven wives, one of Mangku Kaan's, two at least of Kdblái's including the beloved Jamúi Khátún, one at least of Abaka's, two of Ahmed Tigudar's, two of Arghun's, and two of Ghazan's.
The seat of the Kungurats was near the Great Wall. Their name is still applied to one of the tribes of the Uzbeks of Western Turkestan, whose body appears to have been made up of fractions of many of the Turk and Mongol tribes. Kungurat is also the name of a town of Khiva, near the Sea of Aral, perhaps borrowed from the Uzbek clan.
The conversion of Kuzz 'urat into U;zg rat is due, I suppose, to that Mongol tendency to soften gutturals which has been before noticed. (Erdm. 199-20o ; Hammer, passim ; Burnes, III. 143, 225.)
The Ramusian version adds here these curious and apparently genuine particulars :--
" The Great Kaan sends his commissioners to the Province to select four or five hundred, or v, hatever number may be ordered, of the most beautiful young women, according to the scale of beauty enjoined upon them. And they set a value upon the comparative beauty of the damsels in this way. The commissioners on arriving assemble all the girls of the province, in presence of appraisers appointed for the purpose. These carefully survey the points of each girl in succession, as (for example) her hair, her complexion, eyebrows, mouth, lips, and the proportion of all her limbs. They will then set down some as estimated at 16 carats, some at 17, 18, 20, or more or less, according to the suds of the beauties or defects of each. And whatever standard the Great Kaan may have fixed for those that are to be brought to him, whether it be 20 carats or 21, the commissioners select the required number from those who have attained that standard, and bring them to him. And when they reach his presence he has them appraised anew by other parties, and has a selection made of 3o or 40 of those, who then get the highest valuation."
Marsden and Murray miss the meaning of this curious statement in a surprising manner, supposing the carat to represent some absolute value, 4 grains of gold according to the former, whence the damsel of 20 carats was estimated at 13s. 4d. ! This is sad nonsense ; but Marsden would not have made the mistake had he not been fortunate enough to live before the introduction of Competitive Examinations. This Kungurat business was in fact a competitive examination in beauty ; total marks attainable 24 ; no candidate to pass who did not get 20 or 21. Carat expresses n
24, not any absolute value.
Apart from the mode of valuation, it appears that a like system of selection was continued by the Fling, and that some such selection from the daughters of the Manchu nobles has been maintained till recent times. IIerodotus tells that the like custom prevailed among the Adyrmachidae, the Libyan tribe next Egypt. Old Eden too relates it of the " Princes of Moscovia." (Middle It-m. I. 318 ; Herod. IV. 168, Rawl. ; Notes on Russia, Hak. Soc. II. 253.)
CHAPTER IX.
CONCERNING THE GREAT KAAN'S SONS.
THE Emperor bath, by those four wives of his, twenty-
two male children ; the eldest of whom was called
CHINKIN for the love of the good Ching-his Kaan, the
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