Page:Christianity in China, Tartary, and Thibet Volume I.djvu/182

170 170 CHRISTIANITY IN CHINA, ETC. condition that it should be secured to his posterity. The electors then made the declaration — u As long as there shall exist a morsel of the flesh of thy race, which thrown on the grass would repel an ox, we will give to no other person the dignity of Khan ; " and as soon as this was concluded the air was rent by tre- mendous acclamations ; wands, terminated by tufts of scarlet cloth, were bent before Couyouk ; the members of the assembly did him homage by nine prostrations, and the vassal princes, and foreign ambassadors, w1k> had been left outside the enclosure of the imperial tent, as well as the immense multitude that covered the plain, flung themselves prostrate on the ground, and Couyouk then issued from his tent to salute the sun by three genuflexions. After the election of the new emperor, the whole assembly left the Syra-Ordou, to betake themselves on horseback to another encampment three or four leagues off, the Tartar name of which signifies " Golden Horde;" the imperial tent destined for the enthronisation of Cou- youk being in fact supported by pillars covered by plates of gold. This inauguration had been appointed for the 15th of August, but could not, on account of the hail that fell, take place till the 24th. The ceremonies by which it was preceded and followed, present a whimsical mixture of rudeness and magnificence, and were charac- teristic of a people issuing from barbarism to enter on the confines of civilisation. Bergeron, translating the narratives of Piano Carpi ni into his own simple language, says : — " All the lords and barons assembled in the place, put a golden seat in the midst of them, on which they made him sit, saying, ' We will, we pray, and we command that you have power