every city, the material for which is furnished by the tithe aforesaid.  You should know that the Tartars, before they were converted to the religion of the Idolaters, never practised almsgiving.  Indeed, when any poor man begged of them they would tell him, “Go with God’s curse, for if He loved you as He loves me, He would have provided for you.”  But the sages of the Idolaters, and especially the Bacsis mentioned before, told the Great Kaan that it was a good work to provide for the poor, and that his idols would be greatly pleased if he did so.  And since then he has taken to do for the poor so much as you have heard.[NOTE 1]]

NOTE 1.—­This is a curious testimony to an ameliorating effect of Buddhism on rude nations.  The general establishment of medical aid for men and animals is alluded to in the edicts of Asoka;[1] and hospitals for the diseased and destitute were found by Fahian at Palibothra, whilst Hiuen Tsang speaks of the distribution of food and medicine at the Punyasalas or “Houses of Beneficence,” in the Panjab.  Various examples of a charitable spirit in Chinese Institutions will be found in a letter by Pere d’Entrecolles in the XVth Recueil of Lettres Edifiantes; and a similar detail in Nevius’s China and the Chinese, ch. xv. (See Prinsep’s Essays, II. 15; Beal’s Fah-hian, 107; Pel.  Boudd. II. 190.) The Tartar sentiment towards the poor survives on the Arctic shores:—­“The Yakuts regard the rich as favoured by the gods; the poor as rejected and cast out by them.” (Billings, Fr. Tranls.  I. 233.)

[1] As rendered by J. Prinsep.  But I see that Professor H. H. Wilson did
    not admit the passage to bear that meaning.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

[CONCERNING THE ASTROLOGERS IN THE CITY OF CAMBALUC.]

[There are in the city of Cambaluc, what with Christians, Saracens, and Cathayans, some five thousand astrologers and soothsayers, whom the Great Kaan provides with annual maintenance and clothing, just as he provides the poor of whom we have spoken, and they are in the constant exercise of their art in this city.

They have a kind of astrolabe on which are inscribed the planetary signs, the hours and critical points of the whole year.  And every year these Christian, Saracen, and Cathayan astrologers, each sect apart, investigate by means of this astrolabe the course and character of the whole year, according to the indications of each of its Moons, in order to discover by the natural course and disposition of the planets, and the other circumstances of the heavens, what shall be the nature of the weather, and what peculiarities shall be produced by each Moon of the year; as, for example, under which Moon there shall be thunderstorms and tempests, under which there shall be disease, murrain, wars, disorders, and treasons, and so on, according to the indications of each; but always adding