ia, _Kurdistan_ (near the Lake of Wan),
and Asia Minor, but all acknowledging as Imaum or High Priest the Chief
residing at Alamut." And it may be noted that Odoric, a generation after
Polo, puts the Old Man at _Millescorte_, which looks like _Malasgird_,
north of Lake Van, (_H. des Assass._ p. 104; _J. R. G. S._ III. 16;
_Cathay_, p. ccxliii.)

[1] This story has been transferred to Peter the Great, who is alleged to
have exhibited the docility of his subjects in the same way to the
King of Denmark, by ordering a Cossack to jump from the Round Tower at
Copenhagen, on the summit of which they were standing.

CHAPTER XXV.

HOW THE OLD MAN CAME BY HIS END.

Now it came to pass, in the year of Christ's Incarnation, 1252, that Alaue,
Lord of the Tartars of the Levant, heard tell of these great crimes of the
Old Man, and resolved to make an end of him. So he took and sent one of
his Barons with a great Army to that Castle, and they besieged it for
three years, but they could not take it, so strong was it. And indeed if
they had had food within it never would have been taken. But after being
besieged those three years they ran short of victual, and were taken. The
Old Man was put to death with all his men [and the Castle with its Garden
of Paradise was levelled with the ground]. And since that time he has had
no successor; and there was an end to all his villainies.[NOTE 1]

Now let us go back to our journey.

NOTE 1.--The date in Pauthier is 1242; in the G. T. and in Ramusio 1262.
Neither is right, nor certainly could Polo have meant the former.

When Mangku Kaan, after his enthronement (1251), determined at a great
_Kurultai_ or Diet, on perfecting the Mongol conquests, he entrusted his
brother Kublai with the completion of the subjugation of China and the
adjacent countries, whilst his brother Hulaku received the command of the
army destined for Persia and Syria. The complaints that came from the
Mongol officers already in Persia determined him to commence with the
reduction of the Ismailites, and Hulaku set out from Karakorum in
February, 1254. He proceeded with great deliberation, and the Oxus was not
crossed till January, 1256. But an army had been sent long in advance
under "one of his Barons," Kitubuka Noyan, and in 1253 it was already
actively engaged in besieging the Ismailite fortresses. In 1255, during
the progress of the war, ALA'UDDIN MAHOMED, the reigning Prince of the
Assassins (