d sooth
we _have_ told you all about Great Turkey and the history of Caidu,
and there is really no more to tell. So we will go on and tell you of the
Provinces and nations in the far North.

NOTE 1.--The Christian writers often ascribe Christianity to various
princes of the Mongol dynasties without any good grounds. Certain coins of
the Ilkhans of Persia, up to the time of Ghazan's conversion to Islam,
exhibit sometimes Mahomedan and sometimes Christian formulae, but this is
no indication of the religion of the prince. Thus coins not merely of the
heathen Khans Abaka and Arghun, but of Ahmad Tigudar, the fanatical
Moslem, are found inscribed "In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy
Ghost." Raynaldus, under 1285, gives a fragment of a letter addressed by
Arghun to the European Powers, and dated from Tabriz, "in the year of the
Cock," which begins "_In Christi Nomen, Amen!_" But just in like
manner some of the coins of Norman kings of Sicily are said to bear the
Mahomedan profession of faith; and the copper money of some of the
Ghaznevide sultans bears the pagan effigy of the bull _Nandi_,
borrowed from the coinage of the Hindu kings of Kabul.

The European Princes could not get over the belief that the Mongols were
necessarily the inveterate enemies of Mahomedanism and all its professors.
Though Ghazan was professedly a zealous Mussulman, we find King James of
Aragon, in 1300, offering _Cassan Rey del Mogol_ amity and alliance with
much abuse of the infidel Saracens; and the same feeling is strongly
expressed in a letter of Edward II. of England to the "Emperor of the
Tartars," which apparently was meant for Oljaitu, the successor of Ghazan.
(_Fraehn de Ilchan. Nummis_, vi. and _passim_; _Raynald._ III. 619;
_J.A.S.B._ XXIV. 490; _Kington's Frederick II._ I. 396; _Capmany_,
_Antiguos Tratados_, etc. p. 107; _Rymer_, 2d Ed. III. 34; see also p. 20.)

There are other assertions, besides our author's, that Baidu professed
Christianity. Hayton says so, and asserts that he prohibited Mahomedan
proselytism among the Tartars. The continuator of Abulfaraj says that
Baidu's long acquaintance with the Greek _Despina Khatun_, the wife of
Abaka, had made him favourable to Christians, so that he willingly allowed
a church to be carried about with the camp, and bells to be struck
therein, but he never openly professed Christianity. In fact at this time
the whole body of Mongols in Persia was passing over to Islam, and Baidu
also,