Another kind of devotees were called the Seusin, men of extraordinary abstemiousness, who led a life of extreme endurance. Their sole food was bran mixed with hot water, so that one might call their lives a prolonged fast. They had numerous idols, and idols of a monstrous size, but they also worshipped fire. Idolaters not belonging to this sect naturally called them “heretics,” on the old principle that “my doxy” is “orthodoxy,” and “your doxy” “heterodoxy.” Their dresses were made of hempen stuff, black and blue, and they slept upon mats. In fact, says Marco Polo, “their asceticism is something remarkable.” * * * * * Chandu, or Xanadu, and its palace, suggested to Coleridge one of his most exquisite passages of description:-- “In Xanadu did Kubla Kaan A stately pleasure dome decree: Where Alph, the sacred river, ran, By caverns measureless to man, Down to a sunless sea. So twice five miles of fertile ground, With walls and towers were girdled round: And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills, Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree; And here were forests, ancient as the hills, Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.” Xanadu has disappeared, and so has its palace, but the superstitions practised in it are still in vogue among the Mongolian peoples. The word “Bakhshi,” however, has come to have a different meaning in different districts; among the Kirghiz Kazzaks it is applied, as Marco Polo applied it, to a conjuror or medicine-man; among the modern Mongols it signifies “a teacher,” and is bestowed on the oldest and most learned priest of a community; in Western Turkestan it means “a bard;” in our Indian army it is “a paymaster.” The jugglery of the goblets, to which Marco Polo refers, was not uncommon in Mediæval Europe. Colonel Yule cites[37] the Jesuit Delrio as lamenting the credulity of certain princes, otherwise of pious repute, who allowed diabolic tricks to be played in their presence; as for instance that things of iron, and silver goblets, or other heavy articles, should be moved by bounds from one end of a table to the other, without the use of a magnet or of any attachment. The pious prince appears to have been Charles IX., and the conjuror a certain Cesare Maltesio. In old legends this trick is one of the sorceries ascribed to Simon Magus. “He made statues to walk; leapt into the fire without being burnt; flew in the air; made bread of stones; changed his shape; assumed two faces at once,”--an accomplishment not confined to conjurors,--“converted himself into a pillar; caused closed doors to fly open of their own will; and made the vessels in a house seem to move of themselves.”