e was interrupted and went away.... He was not with me more than
ten minutes, and the incident is a specimen of the difficulty in
obtaining interesting information, except by mere chance.... The idea
that struck me was, that he was perhaps a descendant of King George of
Tenduc; for I had your M. P. before me, and had been inquiring as much
as I dared about subjects it suggested.... At Kwei-hwa Ch'eng I was
very closely spied, and my servant was frequently told to warn me
against asking too many questions."

I should mention that Oppert, in his very interesting monograph, _Der
Presbyter Johannes_, refuses to recognise the Kerait chief at all in
that character, and supposes Polo's King George to be the
representative of a prince of the Liao (supra, p. 205), who, as we
learn from De Mailla's History, after the defeat of the Kin, in which
he had assisted Chinghiz, settled in Liaotung, and received from the
conqueror the title of King of the Liao. This seems to me
geographically and otherwise quite inadmissible.

[2] The term _Arkaiun_, or _Arkaun_, in this sense, occurs in the Armenian
History of Stephen Orpelian, quoted by St. Martin. The author of the
_Tarikh Jahan Kushai_, cited by D'Ohsson, says that Christians were
called by the Mongols _Arkaun_. When Hulaku invested Baghdad we are
told that he sent a letter to the Judges, Shaikhs, Doctors and
_Arkauns_, promising to spare such as should act peaceably. And in the
subsequent sack we hear that no houses were spared except those of a
few _Arkauns_ and foreigners. In Rashiduddin's account of the Council
of State at Peking, we are told that the four _Fanchan_, or Ministers
of the Second Class, were taken from the four nations of Tajiks,
Cathayans, Uighurs, and _Arkaun_. Sabadin _Arkaun_ was the name of one
of the Envoys sent by Arghun Khan of Persia to the Pope in 1288.
Traces of the name appear also in Chinese documents of the Mongol era,
as denoting _some_ religious body. Some of these have been quoted by
Mr. Wylie; but I have seen no notice taken of a very curious extract
given by Visdelou. This states that Kublai in 1289 established a Board
of nineteen chief officers to have surveillance of the affairs of the
Religion of the Cross, of the _Marha_, the _Siliepan_, and the
_Yelikhawen_. This Board was raised to a higher rank in 1315: and at