rovinces. When
he conquered a province he did no harm to the people or their property,
but merely established some of his own men in the country along with a
proportion of theirs, whilst he led the remainder to the conquest of other
provinces. And when those whom he had conquered became aware how well and
safely he protected them against all others, and how they suffered no ill
at his hands, and saw what a noble prince he was, then they joined him
heart and soul and became his devoted followers. And when he had thus
gathered such a multitude that they seemed to cover the earth, he began to
think of conquering a great part of the world. Now in the year of Christ
1200 he sent an embassy to Prester John, and desired to have his daughter
to wife. But when Prester John heard that Chinghis Kaan demanded his
daughter in marriage he waxed very wroth, and said to the Envoys, "What
impudence is this, to ask my daughter to wife! Wist he not well that he
was my liegeman and serf? Get ye back to him and tell him that I had
liever set my daughter in the fire than give her in marriage to him, and
that he deserves death at my hand, rebel and traitor that he is!" So he
bade the Envoys begone at once, and never come into his presence again.
The Envoys, on receiving this reply, departed straightway, and made haste
to their master, and related all that Prester John had ordered them to
say, keeping nothing back.[NOTE 2]

NOTE 1.--Temujin was born in the year 1155, according to all the Persian
historians, who are probably to be relied on; the Chinese put the event in
1162. 1187 does not appear to be a date of special importance in his
history. His inauguration as sovereign under the name of Chinghiz Kaan was
in 1202 according to the Persian authorities, in 1206 according to the
Chinese.

In a preceding note (p. 236) we have quoted a passage in which Rubruquis
calls Chinghiz "a certain blacksmith." This mistaken notion seems to have
originated in the resemblance of his name _Temujin_ to the Turki
_Temurji_, a blacksmith; but it was common throughout Asia in the Middle
Ages, and the story is to be found not only in Rubruquis, but in the books
of Hayton, the Armenian prince, and of Ibn Batuta, the Moor. That cranky
Orientalist, Dr. Isaac Jacob Schmidt, positively reviles William
Rubruquis, one of the most truthful and delightful of travellers, and
certainly not inferior to his critic in mother-wit, for adopting this
story, and rebukes Timkow