Directory_and_Chronicle_1850 — Page 575

1850.

Translation of Two Mongolian Letters.

533

LETTER OF OLDSHAITU.

Öldshäitu, Sultan, Our word.

King of France, Sultan! It can not have escaped you that you, the sultans of the Frankish nations, all from early times have lived in friendship with our noble great-grandfather, grandfather, father, and eldest brother, and that they, although distant, regarding each other as near, have mutually sent envoys with presents of greeting, in order to make various communications. Now as We have by the power of God ascended the great throne, let Us in nothing alter or de- part from the policy of the former noble personages, Our grandfather, noble father, and brother, in what respects the established administra- tion of the territories, agreed on by the former noble personages, but regarding the same as ou oath, knit the friendship still closer than be- fore, and always send envoys reciprocally to each other. These are Our thoughts.

Through the inciting words of bad people we, elder and younger brothers, have lived in mutual illwill. Now having obtained from God one heart, we descendants of Genghis Khan, who have warred against each other for forty-five years, and in particular Temu Khan, Toktogha, Chäbär, and Togha, have reconciled ourselves; and have united the people and reëstablished friendly intercourse from the land of the Chinese where the sun rises, to the Talu lake.

We have agreed that all shall fall united on any one among us who might think differently. And now how should We abandon your ways of friendship with the noble personages, Our grandfather, father, and brother. Thus informing you, We send the two envoys Mamuluk and Tumon. It has been reported to Us that you, the various sultans of the Franks live in concord; and truly what could there be better than concord? That we now by the power of God will fall with united force upon all opposed to concord, that may God know!

Our letter is written in the seven hundred and fourteenth year (of the Hejra), on the eighth day of the last half of the first summer month of the serpent year (1305).

*

地支

• Each of the Chinese characters known as ti chí

terrestrial branches, used in the names of their cycle of sixty years, has a certain animal approriated to it as a rat, an ox, a tiger &c, whose names, though never used in authorized or standard Chinese works to denote time, are frequently so employed by other nations of Eastern and Central Asia.