t on the top of it. When the Prince saw that he was greatly
delighted, and seeing how in this matter he found the Christians to tell
the truth, he always treated them with great respect, and held them for
men of truth for ever after.[NOTE 2]

NOTE 1.--Polo in the preceding chapter has stated that this plain of
Tanduc was in Prester John's country. He plainly regards it as identical
with the Tanduc of which he speaks more particularly in ch. lix. as
belonging to Prester John's descendants, and which must be located near
the Chinese Wall. He is no doubt wrong in placing the battle there. Sanang
Setzen puts the battle between the two, the only one which he mentions,
"at the outflow of the Onon near Kulen Buira." The same action is placed
by De Mailla's authorities at Calantschan, by P. Hyacinth at Kharakchin
Schatu, by Erdmann after Rashid in the vicinity of Hulun Barkat and
Kalanchinalt, which latter was on the borders of the Churche or Manchus.
All this points to the vicinity of Buir Nor and Hulan or Kalon Nor (though
the Onon is far from these). But this was _not_ the final defeat of Aung
Khan or Prester John, which took place some time later (in 1203) at a
place called the Chacher Ondur (or Heights), which Gaubil places between
the Tula and the Kerulun, therefore near the modern Urga. Aung Khan was
wounded, and fled over the frontier of the Naiman; the officers of that
tribe seized and killed him. (_Schmidt_, 87, 383; _Erdmann_, 297;
_Gaubil_, p. 10.)

NOTE 2.--A Tartar divination by twigs, but different from that here
employed, is older than Herodotus, who ascribes it to the Scythians. We
hear of one something like the last among the Alans, and (from Tacitus)
among the Germans. The words of Hosea (iv. 12), "My people ask counsel at
their stocks, and their staff declareth unto them," are thus explained by
Theophylactus: "They stuck up a couple of sticks, whilst murmuring certain
charms and incantations; the sticks then, by the operation of devils,
direct or indirect, would fall over, and the direction of their fall was
noted," etc. The Chinese method of divination comes still nearer to that
in the text. It is conducted by tossing in the air two symmetrical pieces
of wood or bamboo of a peculiar form. It is described by Mendoza, and more
particularly, with illustrations, by Doolittle.[1]

But Rubruquis would seem to have witnessed nearly the same process that
Polo describes. He reprehends the conjuring practices of t