THE BATTLE OF CINGHIS AND PRESTER JOHANMARCO POLO she who the more loves [78c] him is buried alive with him. And she counts this a very great joy, because in the other world she alone is his wife. They all have very great tombs, and there in those tombs are placed great ornaments according to what the person is.
ADDITIONAL NOTE •II• TO THE TRANSLATION : A VERSION OF THE PAGES OF VB WHICH CORRESPOND TO CHAPTERS 64 TO 68. (See pp. 161-167.)
Caracoron is a city which in my judgement is three miles in circuit, and according as they say the first lord was a Tartar made by themselves, who got many of those provinces. And it was a city towards tramontana say this Tartar people who lived in this city, which has a very wide country of pastures and waters, paying tribute to lord Umenchan whom we here call Presto Zane, who was a great and most powerful master. And they gave him for tribute the tenth of all their flocks. And when these Tartars multiplied in great number & it seemed to the lord Umenchan that the said Tartars multiplied greatly, that they were valiant and of the greatest daring, he took counsel to divide them so as to lessen their power. And to make this division he determined to send his ambassadors and persons able to cause this his will to be carried out. And when the Tartars learned the purpose of the lord Umenchan they had very great ado and sorrow thereat, and gathered themselves together to consider what they had to do . They determined to abandon the land and province and that they could not be divided and separated. Therefore they gathered all their goods and flocks and set out and entered into the desert towards tramontana so that Umenchan their lord could no longer command them nor any more have tribute from them. In the desert they chose for their lord one of their Tartars, a man of the greatest spirit and energy and very wise, who was named Chan Zinzin, who afterwards did very great deeds and conquered.
When the aforesaid Tartars had chosen Zenzin Chan for their lord in the course of the years of our Lord Jesus Christ 1287 and he ruled that people with such justice and moderation that not as lord but almost as God he was loved and reverenced by all; so that when this his excellent fame was spread through many lands all came to bow down to the said Zinzin Chan, and in such numbers that Zinzino, a very valiant and very wise man, seeing that he had so great a multitude of very valiant men, it enlarged his heart, for it seemed to him that so many most valorous men united
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