OGOTAI, THE SUCCESSOR OF TCIIINGUIZ-KIIAN. 131 Three days after, the first meeting of the Kouriltai were passed in festivity and pleasure, and then the members of this numerous assembly began to deliberate concerning the choice of an emperor. Many voices de- clared for Touloui, but he himself proclaimed in full council, that Tchinguiz-Khan had appointed his brother Ogotai to be his successor, and that the will of his father must be obeyed. Ogotai, on his side, made the most generous exertions to get Touloui invested with the sovereign authority, but the princes cried out with one voice, " Tchinguiz-Khan chose thee to be his suc- cessor, and how can we disobey his will ? " * Then Touloui presented him the cup, and at the same moment all the members of the Kouriltai, with their heads uncovered, and their girdles flung over their shoulders, bent the knee nine times before Ogotai, and saluted him with the title of Kha-kan, which subse- quently served to designate the sovereign prince of the three other branches of Tchinguiz-Khan's family, of which the chiefs only took the title of Khan. Before dispersing itself, the Kouriltai fixed the centre of the Tartar dominion definitively at Kara- Koroum, an ancient town of the Keraites, between the Orgon and the Selinga, in nearly the same latitude as Paris. This great Mongol empire, which had nearly absorbed
- D'Ohsson, " Hist, des Mongols," vol. ii. p. 11. In raising Ogotai
to the throne, the members of the family swore to remain faithful to his descendants in the following curious expressions : — " We swear that whilst there shall remain of thy posterity but a piece of flesh, such as if thrown on the grass would hinder an ox from grazing it, which if put into the fat would prevent the dogs from taking it, — we will not place on the throne the princes of any other branch." k 2
