o President of the _Ta-sz-nung_ department. One of
the ministers protested that there was no precedent for a censor holding
this second post. Kublai insisted.

C. Chap. 8, p. 16-1/2: 1275, second moon. Puh-lo and another sent to look
into the Customs taxation question in Tangut.

D. Chap. 8, p. 22-1/2: 1275, fourth moon. The _Ta-sz-nung_ and _yue-shi
chung-ch'eng_ Puh-lo promoted to be _yue-shi ta-fu_.

E. Chap. 9, p. 11-2/2: 1276, seventh moon. The Imperial Prince Puh-lo
given a seal.

F. Chap. 9, p. 16-2/2: 1277, second moon. The _Ta-sz-nung_ and _yue-shi
ta-fu_, Puh-lo, being also _suean-wei-shi_ and Court Chamberlain, promoted
to be _shu-mih fu-shi_, and also _suean-hwei-shi_ and Court Chamberlain.

"The words _shu-mih fu-shi_ the Chinese characters for which are given on
p. 569 of M. Cordier's second volume, precisely mean 'Second-class
Commissioner attached to the Privy Council,' and hence it is clear that
Pauthier was totally mistaken in supposing the censor of 1270 to have been
Marco. Of course the Imperial Prince Puh-lo is not the same person as the
censor, nor is it clear who the (1) pageant and (2) Tangut Puh-los were,
except that neither could possibly have been Marco, who only arrived in
May--the third moon--at the very earliest.

"In the first moon of 1281 some gold, silver, and bank-notes were handed
to Puh-lo for the relief of the poor. In the second moon of 1282, just
before the assassination of Achmed, the words 'Puh-lo the Minister'
(_ch'eng-siang_) are used in connection with a case of fraud. In the
seventh moon of 1282 (after the fall of Achmed) the 'Mongol man Puh-lo'
was placed in charge of some gold-washings in certain towers of the then
Hu Peh (now in Hu Nan). In the ninth moon of the same year a commission
was sent to take official possession of all the gold-yielding places in
Yuen Nan, and Puh-lo was appointed _darugachi_ (= governor) of the mines.
In this case it is not explicitly stated (though it would appear most
likely) that the two gold superintendents were the same man; if they were,
then neither could have been Marco, who certainly was no 'Mongol man.'
Otherwise there would be a great temptation to identify this event with
the mission to '_una citta, detta Carazan_' of the Ramusio Text.

"There is, however, one man who may possibly be Marco, and that is the
Poh-lo who was probably with Kublai at Chagan Nor when the news of
Achmed's murder by Wang Chu arrived there in the third mo