of many years he was again ejected, and in the greatest necessity sought the help of Temujin (afterwards called Chinghiz Khan), by whom he was treated with the greatest consideration.  This was in 1196.  For some years the two chiefs conducted their forays in alliance, but differences sprang up between them; the son of Aung Khan entered into a plot to kill Temujin, and in 1202-1203 they were in open war.  The result will be related in connection with the next chapters.

We may observe that the idea which Joinville picked up in the East about Prester John corresponds pretty closely with that set forth by Marco.  Joinville represents him as one of the princes to whom the Tartars were tributary in the days of their oppression, and as “their ancient enemy”; one of their first acts, on being organized under a king of their own, was to attack him and conquer him, slaying all that bore arms, but sparing all monks and priests.  The expression used by Joinville in speaking of the original land of the Tartars, “une grande berrie de sablon,” has not been elucidated in any edition that I have seen.  It is the Arabic [Arabic] Baeriya, “a Desert.”  No doubt Joinville learned the word in Palestine.  (See Joinville, p. 143 seqq.; see also Oppert, Der Presb.  Johannes in Sage und Geschichte, and Cathay, etc., pp. 173-182.) [Fried.  Zarncke, Der Priester Johannes; Cordier, Odoric.—­H.  C.]

[1] A passage in Mirkhond extracted by Erdmann (Temudschin, p. 532)
    seems to make Bala Saghun the same as Bishbalik, now Urumtsi, but this
    is inconsistent with other passages abstracted by Oppert (Presbyter
    Johan. 131-32); and Vambery indicates a reason for its being sought
    very much further west (H. of Bokhara, 116). [Dr. Bretschneider
    (Med.  Res.) has a chapter on Kara-Khitai (I. 208 seqq.) and in a
    long note on Bala Sagun, which he calls Belasagun, he says (p. 226)
    that “according to the Tarikh Djihan Kushai (d’Ohsson, i. 433), the
    city of Belasagun had been founded by Buku Khan, sovereign of the
    Uigurs, in a well-watered plain of Turkestan with rich pastures.  The
    Arabian geographers first mention Belasagun, in the ninth or tenth
    century, as a city beyond the Sihun or Yaxartes, depending on
    Isfidjab (Sairam, according to Lerch), and situated east of Taras. 
    They state that the people of Turkestan considered Belasagun to
    represent ‘the navel of the earth,’ on account of its being situated
    in the middle between east and west, and likewise between north and
    south.” (Sprenger’s Poststr. d.  Or., Mavarannahar).  Dr.
    Bretschneider adds (p. 227):  “It is not improbable that ancient
    Belasagun was situated at the same place where, according to the T’ang
    history, the Khan of one branch of the Western T’u Kue (Turks) had his