Dissert._ II. 229; _Archiv. Storic. Ital._ VIII. 274, 560;
_Klapr. Mem._ III.; _Carp._ 759; _N. and Q., C. and J._ II. 180; _Arrian,
Indica_, XVI.; _Smith's Dict., G. and R. Ant._, s. v. _umbraculum_; _J. R.
A. S._ v. 351; _Ras Mala_, I. 221; _I. B._ II. 440; _Cathay_, 381;
_Ramus._ I. f. 301.)

Alexander, according to Athenaeus, feasted his captains to the number of
6000, and made them all sit upon silver chairs. The same author relates
that the King of Persia, among other rich presents, bestowed upon Entimus
the Gortynian, who went up to the king in imitation of Themistocles,
_a silver chair and a gilt umbrella_. (Bk. I. Epit. ch. 31, and II. 31.)

The silver chair has come down to our own day in India, and is much
affected by native princes.

NOTE 4.--I have not been able to find any allusion, except in our author,
to tablets, with gerfalcons (_shonkar_). The _shonkar_ appears, however,
according to Erdmann, on certain coins of the Golden Horde, struck at
Sarai.

There is a passage from Wassaf used by Hammer, in whose words it runs that
the Sayad Imamuddin, appointed (A.D. 683) governor of Shiraz by Arghun
Khan, "was invested with _both_ the Mongol symbols of delegated
sovereignty, the Golden Lion's Head, and the golden _Cat's Head_." It
would certainly have been more satisfactory to find "Gerfalcon's Head" in
lieu of the latter; but it is probable that the same object is meant. The
cut below exhibits the conventional effigy of a gerfalcon as sculptured
over one of the gates of Iconium, Polo's Conia. The head might easily pass
for a conventional representation of a cat's head, and is indeed
strikingly like the grotesque representation that bears that name in
mediaeval architecture. (_Erdmann, Numi Asiatici_, I. 339; _Ilch._ I.
370.)

[Illustration: Sculptured Gerfalcon. (From the Gate of Iconium.)]

[1] "In anno Simiae, octava luna, die quarto exeunte, juxta fluvium Cobam
(_the Kuban_), apud Ripam Rubeam existentes scripsimus." The original
was in _lingua Persayca_.

[2] See _Golden Horde_, p. 218.

CHAPTER VIII.

CONCERNING THE PERSON OF THE GREAT KAAN.

The personal appearance of the Great Kaan, Lord of Lords, whose name is
Cublay, is such as I shall now tell you. He is of a good stature, neither
tall nor short, but of a middle height. He has a becoming amount of flesh,
and is very shapely in all his limbs. His complexion is white and red, the
eyes black and fine,[NOTE 1] the nose wel