Page:Christianity in China, Tartary, and Thibet Volume I.djvu/183

171 CEREMONY OF INAUGURATION. 171 and dominion over us all.' He replied, 'If you wish that I should be your king, are you resolved and disposed, each one of you, to do all that I shall command ? to come when I shall call you ? to go where I shall send you ? and to kill all those whom I shall tell you to kill ? ' " And they all answered, ' Yes.' Then he said to them, ' From henceforward my simple word shall serve me as a sword.' To which they all consented. " That being done, they placed a piece of felt on the ground, made him sit on it, and said to him, ' Look up, and acknowledge God, and consider well the piece of felt upon which thou art seated. If thou governest well thy state ; if thou art liberal and beneficent ; if thou causest justice to reign; if thou honourest thy princes and chiefs, each according to his rank and dignity, — thou shalt reign in all splendour and magnificence, and all the earth shall be subjected to thy sway; but if thou dost the contrary of all that, thou shalt become miserable, vile, and contemptible, and so poor that thou shalt not have as much as the piece of felt upon which thou art seated.' After that the chiefs made the wife of Couyouk sit on the same piece of felt by the side of him, and then raised them both in the air, proclaiming them with loud cries emperor and empress of all the Tartars. This ceremony was followed by an enormous banquet, to which were invited the princes, princesses, and grand dignitaries of the empire. The repast was composed of nothing but meat, served with a profusion of rice wine brought from China, and of kumys, or spirit made from mares' milk ; and the guests drank till the middle of the night, to the sound of musical instru-