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| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.2 |
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Citation Information
I 04 MARCO POLO BOOK II.
knew better how to deal with the beasts than the Tartars
did. The elephant is an animal that bath more wit than
any other ; but in this way at last they were caught, more
than 200 of them. And it was from this time forth that
the Great Kaan began to keep numbers of elephants.
So thus it was that the king aforesaid was defeated by
the sagacity and superior skill of the Tartars as you have
heard.
NOTE i.—Nescradin for Nesradin, as we had Bascra for Basra.
This NÁSRUDDItr was apparently an officer of whom Rashiduddin speaks, and whom he calls governor (or perhaps commander) in Karájáng. He describes him as having succeeded in that command to his father the Sayad Ajil of Bokhara, one of the best of KúLlái's chief Ministers. Nasr-uddin retained his position in Yun-nan till his death, which Rashid, writing about 1300, says occurred five or six years before. His son Bayan, who also bore the grandfather's title of Sayad Ajil, was Minister of Finance under Kúblái's successor ; and another son, Hálá, is also mentioned as one of the governors of the province of Fu-chau. (See Cathay, pp. 265, 268, and D'Ohsson, II. 507-508.)
Nasr-uddin (Nasulatin') is also frequently mentioned as employed on this frontier by the Chinese authorities whom Pauthier cites.
[Na-su-la-ding [Nasr-uddin] was the eldest of the five sons of the Mohammedan Sai-dien-ch'i shan-sze-ding, Sayad Ajil, a native of Bokhara, who died in Yun-nan, where he had been governor when Kúblái, in the reign of Mangu, entered the country. Nasr-uddin " has a separate biography in ch. cxxv of the Yuen-shi. He was governor of the province of Yun-nan, and distinguished himself in the war against the southern tribes of Kiao-chi (Cochin-China) and Mien (Burma). He died in 1292, the father of twelve sons, the names of five of which are given in the biography, viz. Bo yen-ch'a-rli [Bayan], who held a high office, Omar, Djafar, Hussein, and Saadi." (Breischneider, Med. Res. I. 27o-271). Mr. F. H. Parker writes in the China Review, February-March, 1901, pp. 196-197, that the Mongol history states that amongst the reforms of Nasr-uddin's father in Yun-nan, was the introduction of coffins for the dead, instead of burning them.--H. C.]
[NOTE 2.—In his battle near Sardis, Cyrus " collected together all the camels that had come in the train of his army to carry the provisions and the baggage, and taking off their loads, he mounted riders upon them accoutred as horsemen. These he commanded to advance in front of his other troops against the Lydian horse. . . . The reason why Cyrus opposed his camels to the enemy's horse was, because the horse has a natural dread of the camel, and cannot abide either the sight or the smell of that animal. . . . The two armies then joined battle, and immediately the Lydian warhorses, seeing and smelling the camels, turned round and galloped off." ... (Herodotus, Bk. I. i. p. 220) Rawlin:on's ed.)—I-I. C.]
NOTE 3.—We are indebted to Pauthier for very interesting illustrations of this narrative from the Chinese Annalists (p. 410 seqq.). These latter fix the date to the year 1277, and it is probable that the 1272 or MCCLXXII of the Texts was a clerical error for MCCLXXVII. The Annalists describe the people of Mien as irritated at calls upon them to submit to the Mongols (whose power they probably did not appreciate, as their descendants did not appreciate the British power in 1824), and as crossing the frontier of Yung-ch'ang to establish fortified posts. The force of Mien, they say, amount°d to 50,000 men, with Boo elephants and io,000 horses, whilst the Mongol
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