eror of his day, so that no hereditary feud seems
deducible.

Mr. Wylie, who is of opinion, like Baron Richthofen, that the _Caichu_
which Polo makes the scene of that story, is Kiai-chau (or Hiai-chau as it
seems to be pronounced), north of the Yellow River, has been good enough to
search the histories of the Liao and Kin Dynasties,[1] but without finding
any trace of such a story, or of the Kin Emperors having resided in that
neighbourhood.

On the other hand, he points out that the story has a strong resemblance to
a real event which occurred in Central Asia in the beginning of Polo's
century.

The Persian historians of the Mongols relate that when Chinghiz defeated
and slew Taiyang Khan, the king of the Naimans, Kushluk, the son of
Taiyang, fled to the Gur-Khan of Karakhitai and received both his
protection and the hand of his daughter (see i. 237); but afterwards rose
against his benefactor and usurped his throne. "In the Liao history I
read," Mr. Wylie says, "that Chih-lu-ku, the last monarch of the Karakhitai
line, ascended the throne in 1168, and in the 34th year of his reign, when
out hunting one day in autumn, Kushluk, who had 8000 troops in ambush, made
him prisoner, seized his throne and adopted the customs of the Liao, while
he conferred on Chih-lu-ku the honourable title of _Tai-shang-hwang_ 'the
old emperor.'"[2]

It is this Kushluk, to whom Rubruquis assigns the role of King (or Prester)
John, the subject of so many wonderful stories. And Mr. Wylie points out
that not only was his father Taiyang Khan, according to the Chinese
histories, a much more important prince than Aung Khan or Wang Khan the
Kerait, but his name _Tai-Yang-Khan_ is precisely "Great King John" as near
as John (or Yohana) can be expressed in Chinese. He thinks therefore that
Taiyang and his son Kushluk, the Naimans, and not Aung Khan and his
descendants, the Keraits, were the parties to whom the character of Prester
John properly belonged, and that it was probably this story of Kushluk's
capture of the Karakhitai monarch (_Roi de Fer_) which got converted into
the form in which he relates it of the _Roi d'Or_.

The suggestion seems to me, as regards the story, interesting and probable;
though I do not admit that the character of Prester John properly belonged
to any real person.

I may best explain my view of the matter by a geographical analogy.
Pre-Columbian maps of the Atlantic showed an Island of Brazil, an Island of
Antilli