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.[1] 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
- ↑ This tradition, however, does not agree with history, according to which the body of Chinghiz-Khan, after his death in 1227 A.D., near the town of Ning-hia, was carried to the north and buried not far from the sources of the Tola and Kerulen. — Ritter's Erdkunde von Asien.
Sanang Setzen agrees with the Mahommedan writers in representing that the body of Chinghiz was carried to his native country. It would seem that his tomb was on or beside the Khanola mountain near Urga.— Y.
