_, pp. 10 seqq. and _Pavet de
Courteille, Dict. Turk-Oriental._) The tendency of swelling titles is
always to degenerate, and when the value of Khan had sunk, a new form,
_Khan-khanan_, was devised at the Court of Delhi, and applied to one
of the high officers of state.

[Mr. Rockhill writes (_Rubruck_, p. 108, note): "The title _Khan_,
though of very great antiquity, was only used by the Turks after A.D.
560, at which time the use of the word _Khatun_ came in use for the
wives of the Khan, who himself was termed _Ilkhan_. The older title of
_Shan-yue_ did not, however, completely disappear among them, for
Albiruni says that in his time the chief of the Ghuz Turks, or
Turkomans, still bore the title of _Jenuyeh_, which Sir Henry
Rawlinson (_Proc. R. G. S._, v. 15) takes to be the same word as that
transcribed _Shan-yue_ by the Chinese (see _Ch'ien Han shu_, Bk. 94,
and _Chou shu_, Bk. 50, 2). Although the word _Khakhan_ occurs in
Menander's account of the embassy of Zemarchus, the earliest mention I
have found of it in a Western writer is in the _Chronicon_ of
Albericus Trium Fontium, where (571), under the year 1239, he uses it
in the form _Cacanus_"--Cf. _Terrien de Lacouperie, Khan, Khakan, and
other Tartar Titles_. Lond., Dec. 1888.--H. C.]

[3] "China is a sea that salts all the rivers that flow into it."--_P.
Parrenin_ in _Lett. Edif._ XXIV. 58.

[4] E.g. the Russians still call it Khitai. The pair of names, _Khitai_
and _Machin_, or Cathay and China, is analogous to the other pair,
_Seres_ and _Sinae_. _Seres_ was the name of the great nation in the
far East as known by land, _Sinae_ as known by sea; and they were
often supposed to be diverse, just as Cathay and China were
afterwards.

[5] There has been much doubt about the true form of this name.
_Iltitmish_ is that sanctioned by Mr. Blochmann (see _Proc. As. Soc.
Bengal_, 1870, p. 181).

III. THE POLO FAMILY. PERSONAL HISTORY OF THE TRAVELLERS DOWN TO THEIR
FINAL RETURN FROM THE EAST.

[Sidenote: Alleged origin of the Polos.]

13. In days when History and Genealogy were allowed to draw largely on the
imagination for the _origines_ of states and families, it was set down by
one Venetian Antiquary that among the companions of King Venetus, or of
Prince Antenor of Troy, when they settled on the northern shores of the
Adriatic, there was one