Directory_and_Chronicle_1850 — Page 572

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Translation of Two Mongolian Letters.

Oct.

and translates it, "By a supreme decree, seal of the descendant of the emperor, charged to reduce to obedience the ten thousand barbarians (Par un décret supréme sceau du descendant de l'empereur chargé de réduire à l'obéissance les dix mille barbares). After taking the precau- tions that every disagreement with an accurate scholar like Rémiusat requires, I am compelled to give a different interpretation to the in- scription. Even allowing his transcription into Chinese characters of later times to be correct, his translation is a very forced one, separating as it does the fifth from the sixth character. But it is not correctly transcribed by him. Good native scholars, supported by the opinion of the first seal engraver in the city of Canton, a man of some note in

his line, declare the fifth character to be ill not 系: The ancient seal form of has not indeed the thick lines at the bottom given in Rémusat's fac-simile, but our experience of the impressions of Chi- nese official seals on letters has taught us that too much vermilion on the seal constantly transforms its thin lines into thick ones in the impression.

The fifth character being, the whole reads idiomatic Chinese ; and may be rendered "Seal of the Emperor truly decreed [by Heaven], for bringing to harmony the ten thousand barbarians;" that is to say the seal which the Emperor, whom the true decree of heaven has made such, uses when he writes for the purpose of bringing the barbarian nations into concord. It is usual that the in- sciption on a Chinese official seal should be explanatory of the duties of the holder, or of the business the documents to which it is affixed are written on. Thus when an insurrection in the empire becomes se- rious, a special officer is usually commissioned to suppress it, who gets the "Seal of the General charged to reduce the rebellious to order," or some similar one. This was given to general Yihshán sent to Canton during the English war, while Yihking in Chehkiáng held that with the inscription "Seal of the awe-spreading general." Now the reader will perceive how much better the new rendering of the inscription now under discussion agrees with the tone of Öldshäitu's letter than that of Rémusat. He lays great weight on "concord," but says nothing of "obedience." On the other hand my rendering makes the holder of the seal Hwangti or Emperor, a title which no Chinese emperor would consent to give to a foreign sovereign. How then came this seal into the hands of the Persian ruler? The most credible solution of the problem this question raises seems to be the following: Those persons (probably Persian chroniclers) who Réin- musat states, as above, to have asserted that Gazan, the predecessor