Page:Mongolia, the Tangut country, and the solitudes of northern Tibet vol 1 (1876).djvu/277

 great warrior, who, to keep his word, was obliged to give his guest the woman he asked for. But as she was one of Chinghiz-Khan's favourites, on parting with her he gave her a white banner. With this present the Russian and his bride departed for Russia. Where they settled is not known; 'but,' say the Mongols, 'the white banner of our great sovereign is still in your country.'

Another and even more interesting tradition about Chinghiz-Khan runs as follows. The ashes of this hero, the Mongols assert, rest in a temple in Southern Ordos in the koshung (banner) of Vang, 130 miles to the south of Lake Tabasun-nor. Here the body of the great warrior is laid in two coffins, one of silver, the other of wood, placed in a yellow silken tent in the centre of the temple; here too, beside the coffin, lie the arms of Chinghiz-Khan. Some 6 miles from the chief temple another smaller shrine has been built, in which are buried twenty of his nearest relatives. On his death-bed he told them that he would rise again after the lapse of not more than a thousand years, and not less than 800. In Chinghiz-Khan's tomb lies the figure of a man apparently asleep, although no mortal can account for this phenomenon. Every evening a roasted