s shot with an arrow in the
knee, so that he died of his wound. A great pity it was, for he was a
valiant man and a wise.[NOTE 1]

I will now tell you who reigned after Chinghis, and then about the manners
and customs of the Tartars.

NOTE 1.--Chinghiz in fact survived Aung Khan some 24 years, dying during
his fifth expedition against Tangut, 18th August 1227, aged 65 according
to the Chinese accounts, 72 according to the Persian. Sanang Setzen says
that Kurbeljin Goa Khatun, the beautiful Queen of Tangut, who had passed
into the tents of the conqueror, did him some bodily mischief (it is not
said what), and then went and drowned herself in the Karamuren (or
Hwang-ho), which thenceforth was called by the Mongols the _Khatun-gol_, or
Lady's River, a name which it in fact still bears. Carpini relates that
Chinghiz was killed by lightning. The Persian and Chinese historians,
however, agree in speaking of his death as natural. Gaubil calls the place
of his death Lou-pan, which he says was in lat. 38 deg.. Rashiduddin calls it
Leung-Shan, which appears to be the mountain range still so called in the
heart of Shensi.

The name of the place before which Polo represents him as mortally wounded
is very variously given. According to Gaubil, Chinghiz was in reality
dangerously wounded by an arrow-shot at the siege of Taitongfu in 1212.
And it is possible, as Oppert suggests, that Polo's account of his death
before _Caagiu_ (as I prefer the reading), arose out of a confusion
between this circumstance and those of the death of _Mangku Kaan_, which
is said to have occurred at the assault of Hochau in Sze-ch'uan, a name
which Polo would write _Caagiu_, or nearly so. Abulfaragius specifically
says that Mangku Kaan died _by an arrow_; though it is true that other
authors say he died of disease, and Haiton that he was drowned; all which
shows how excusable were Polo's errors as to events occurring 50 to 100
years before his time. (See _Oppert's Presbyter Johannes_, p. 76; _De
Mailla_, IX. 275, and note; _Gaubil_, 18, 50, 52, 121; _Erdmann_, 443;
_Ss. Setzen_, 103.)

It is only by referring back to ch. xlvii., where we are told that
Chinghiz "began to think of conquering a great part of the world," that we
see Polo to have been really aware of the vast extent and aim of the
conquests of Chinghiz; the _aim_ being literally the conquest of the world
as he conceived it; the _extent_ of the empire which he initiated actually
covering (p