The Successors of Genghis Khan - Robert Bedrosian's Armenian ...

THE SUCCESSORS OF GENGHIS KHAN
and in the middle they raised up an exceedingly tall pavilion. These
buildings were finished off in the best possible fashion and painted
with all kinds of designs and pictures. They called it Qarshi:266 he
made it his residence and orders were given that each of his brothers
and sons and the rest of the princes that were in attendance should
build tall houses in that neighborhood. They all obeyed the command,
and when those buildings were completed and joined one to
another they covered a great area. He then ordered distinguished
goldsmiths to fashion, for the wine cellar, utensils267 of gold and silver
in the shape of animals such as elephants, lions, horses, etc. These
were laid down in place of vats and filled with wine and kumys.
In front of each of them was a silver basin, and wine and kumys
came out of the mouths of those animals and poured into those basins.268
He asked: "Which is the fairest city in the whole world?" They
answered: "Baghdad." He ordered a great city to be built on the
banks of the Orkhon and given the name of Qara-Qprum.269
Between the countries of Khitai and that town other yams'1'10 were
established in addition to the tayan yams. At every stage a lumen was
posted for the protection of the yams. And he had issued a yasa to the
effect that every day five hundred wagons fully loaded with food and
drink should arrive thither from the provinces to be placed in stores
266 Mo. qarshi, "palace." It was built in 1235, its Chinese name being Wan-an
kung ("Myriad Tranquillities Palace"). See Cleaves 1952, p. 25. This must be the
"great palace" described by Rubruck (Rockhill, p. 207) as "situated next to the city
walls, enclosed within a high wall like those which enclose monks' priories amongst us."
267 These utensils cannot have been seen by Juvaini during his stay in Qara-Qprum,
for he speaks of them (HWC, p. 237) as real animals ("elephants, camels, horses,
and their attendants") used in lifting up the various beverages, that is, presumably
in raising the great vats " which could not be moved because of their weight."
268 This contrivance is surely identical with the "magic fountain" constructed by
the Parisian goldsmith, William Buchier, for the Great Khan Mongke. See Rockhill,
p. 208; also Olschki, pp. 45 ff.
269 In fact, though Qara-Qprum was not walled till 1235, the capital seems to have
been fixed there as early as 1220. See Polo I, p. 167.
270 T. yam, Mo. jam, "post station." For the fullest account of this postal relay
system, see Benedetto, pp. 152-57. There were, according to the Chinese sources,
three kinds of stations with the Mongol names: morin jam, "horse station," tergen
jam, "wagon station," and narinjam, "secret station," the last-named used for urgent
military matters. See Olbricht, p. 45, note 101. The tayan yam of Rashid al-DIn—the
spelling of the first element (TATAN) is quite uncertain—seems to stand in opposition
to the narinjam and so to mean something like " ordinary post station."
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