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MAY, 1888.]
CHINGHIZ KHAN AND HIS ANCESTORS.
133
The story is also told with very slight varia- leather milking gear in the grass and said to tion by Rashido'd-dîn in his account of the Temujin: "You are quite tired with your journey; Sulduz tribe, and also by El Benaketi, Rashidu'd. I will be your companion and help you to dîn also tells us that while Temujin was a recover the horses. The troubles of young prisoner and encumbered with the heavy wooden men ought to be shared. My father is called collar an old woman named Taija Igjeh," who Nakhu-boyan; I am his only son, my name is had married a Merkit, treated him with kind- Burchu." The two rode together for three ness, combed his hair and put a piece of soft days along the track made by the horses' feet. felt over a sore which had been caused on his At length they reached an enclosure inside neck by the rabbing of the collar."
which were the eight horses. The Altan TopTemujin now set off to find his family, he chi says a number of Taijuts who were on passed the site of his recent adventures, and | guard around had fallen asleep. Temujin then went along the Onon. Having reached wished to enter the enclosure alone, but Burchu the river Kimurkha or Tsimurki, which we are insisted on accompanying him in his dangerous told falls into the Onon on the west, he noticed work. They succeeded in driving away the some footmarks on its banks. He went up horses. The kidnappers now gave chase, one of this small river. Near it we read there is a hill them, seated on a white horse, held a lasso in called Beter, opposite which is another small his hand and had almost overtaken them, when hill called Khorchukui. Here he found his Temujin tarned to shoot at him, whereupon he mother and his brothers, with whom he moved | fell back, and as it was getting evening the to the mountain Burkhan." There is there, robbers drew away. says the Yuan-ch'ao-pi-shi, a mountain called The two boys now made for the residence of Gulialgu, whence flows the river Sangur (doubt- Nakho-boyan. Temujin then said to Burchu: less the Sungher, an affluent of the Kerulon). “Without you I could not have recovered the Near this river is the small mountain called horses; let us divide them; which will you Kharachiruge and a green lake. Further on the have P" Burchu replied that he had accompasame author calls it Kukunar, and the Chinese nied him because he saw he was weary, and he commentator Si-Sun suggests that it may refer did not see why he should ask for what was to lake Kukusher, if this is not too far off. not his. "I am the only son of my father, and
Here Temajin built himself a yurt, and caught there is enough wealth for me, I don't want moles and steppe mice, on which he fed himself. yours. If I were to demand anything from
Some time after this some thieves" stole you how should I be your comrade ?" eight of Temujin's horses. They left him a When they entered the yurt of Nakhulight yellow one, on which Belgutei had ridden boyan they found him in tears for the loss of off to catch these animals. On his return with his son, and on seeing him again be scolded him. a number of moles he had caught Temujin told | Burchu explained the cause of his absence, and him what had happened. Belgutei and Khasar then rode off to fetch the leather skins and apboth volunteered to go in pursuit of the rob- paratus with the milk which he had hidden. bers, but Temujin said he would go himself. He He killed a fat lamb which had been fed on the accordingly went off, and in three days came milk of two ewes, filled a leathern skin with upon a drove of mares, among which was a mare's milk, and gave them all to Temujin for boy milking, whom he asked if he had seen the his journey. Nakhu-boyan said to them: “You stolen horses. He replied that before sunrise are both young. Mind you remain friends, and they had been driven past there and offered to in the future do not forsake each other." show him the direction. He allowed Temujin Temujin now set off home again, and in three to fasten his horse, and also allowed him days reached the banks of the Sangur, where to change it for a white horse with a black his mother and his brothers were delighted band on its back." He then bid the skin and to see him again." According to the Yuan
29 So called because she was a Taijut. # Erdmann, Temujin, 210-211. * i.e. to the Kentei. * The Altan Topchi says they were Taijute.
* The Altan Topchi and Ssenang Setzen says marmota.
* The Altan Topchi calls the horse the swift shorteared piebald.
se Yuan-ch'ao-pi-shi, pp. 45-47.
