Directory_and_Chronicle_1850 — Page 571

1850.

Translation of Two Mongolian Letters.

629

to the King of France, whose title he places low in the page, and to whom he conveys, with sufficient plainness, the intimation that it was his duty to have sent in the tribute of a vassal.

The seal bears the inscription 輔國安民之寶“ Seal of

Supporter of the State and Pacifier of the People." Rémusat's transla- tion is "Sceau du Ministre d'état, Pacificateur des peuples;" which I am obliged to think erroneous. From his own remarks it seems

plain that he has mistaken the construction. The phrase 輔國

does form a portion of some customary titles; but here the words 輔 and 安 are both verbs, holding parallel relations to their res- pective objects and, and an exactly similar relation to . 寶 During the reigns of Argun's successors, Gaikhatu, Gazan, and Öldshäitu, the Mongol armies began for the first time to suffer reverses. Syria was alternately occupied by them and the forces of the Egyptian sultans, but on the whole the fortune of war was against the Mongols, whose position in Persia became less secure. This may account for the more civil tone of Öldshäitu's letter. Argun merely answered briefly and haughtily in the affirmative to an overture made him: Öld- shäitu commences a correspondence, and writes in a style of solicita- tion, though even he is careful to place the title of the sovereign he is addressing lower than his own. This letter says as little as the other; but they were doubtless merely intended as the credentials of the envoys sent with each, and who were empowered to treat of affairs in detail.

With respect to the seal, Rémusat says "it verifies a fact which is perhaps not otherwise known; that Khodabendah * recognized, like the first princes of his dynasty, the supremacy of the khan or emperor of all the Tartars, who reigned at Peking. It has been asserted that Gazan, on coming to the Empire, had caused the name of the grand khans of Tartary on the coin current in his states to be effaced, and that he had declined to recognize these princes. If that be true, his successor must have himself renewed the bonds, which attached him to the head of his house, since he makes use under solemn circumn- stances, of the seal which he had obtained of him, and the inscription of which in Chinese characters proves at once his authority and his vassalage." The inscription, which is as usual in the ancient seal

character, decipherable only by those who have made them a special object of study, he transcribes as follows:-

之萬系皇眞

寶夷順帝命

The Persian name of Öldshäitu.

VOL. XIX. NO. X.

67