Genghis Khan the blacksmith
Editorial contextAt Bukhara Ibn Battuta retells what was said of the Tartars' founder: that Genghis Khan began as a blacksmith in the country of 'Khota', a big, generous man who won followers by feasting them, then conquered Khota, China, Kashgar and Almaliq before turning on Khwarezm. The translator notes that other histories give his origins very differently.
It is said that Jengiz Khan, who came with the Tartars into the countries of Islamism and destroyed them, was in his outset a blacksmith in the country of Khota.
About Mongols ('the Tartars')
Keep in mind
A popular story ('it is said'); the blacksmith tale may have grown from Temujin's name, which resembles the Turkic word for iron. The rest of the story continues on the next page (n115).
A city buried overnight by a rain of sand and earth
Editorial contextEast of Khotan Xuanzang heard of Ho-lo-lo-kia, a rich city that mistreated a holy man and was buried when 'it rained sand and earth' for a night. One man escaped by a tunnel. The town was now a great sand mound; kings who came to dig for its treasure were driven off by sudden winds and darkness. Beal's note points to other sand-buried towns reported by nineteenth-century travellers in the region.
The town of Ho-lo-lo-kia is now a great sand mound. The kings of the neighbouring countries and persons in power from distant spots have many times wished to excavate the mound and take away the precious things buried there; but as soon as they have arrived at the borders of the place, a furious wind has sprung up
About People of Ho-lo-lo-kia (Khotan region)
Keep in mind
A moral legend about punishment for disrespecting a Buddhist saint. It has nothing to do with Tartars; the region is the one 19th-century English writers called 'High Tartary'.
Sacred rats that gnawed a Xiongnu army's harness
Editorial contextWest of Khotan stood mounds made by rats 'as big as hedgehogs', with gold and silver fur. Long ago, the story went, a Xiongnu army camped there; the king of Khotan prayed to the rats, and in the morning the raiders found every strap, bowstring and fastening gnawed through. Khotan built the rats a temple, and travellers still got down from their carts to bow as they passed.
The Hiung-nu, hearing their approach, were overcome by fear. They hastened to harness their horses and equip their chariots, but they found that the leather of their armour, and their horses' gear, and their bow strings, and all the fastenings of their clothes, had been gnawed by the rats.
About Xiongnu (Hiung-nu), ancient steppe raiders
Keep in mind
Xuanzang introduces it as 'the common story' he heard. Beal notes a parallel in Herodotus (mice gnawing an Assyrian army's bowstrings).