Other probable reasons for the confusion are of a _real_ character. I believe that, in some cases, the soldiers were Turk, whilst the captains were Mongolian; and that, sometimes, descent from the high blood of Zingiz-Khan was claimed by Turk chieftains of another stock and pedigree. At any rate, the careful examiner of any history of this people--excepting for the times of Zingiz-Khan, and his immediate successors--will find it very difficult to disengage the Mongolian exploits from the Turk; and will, probably after some trouble, come to the conclusion that the greater share belongs to the latter. I shall let an eye-witness, Marco Polo, describe the Mongols of the fourteenth century, in the third generation from Zingiz-Khan, and before they had taken up the Buddhist religion of their conquered subjects. 1. Translation by Marsden,--Chapters XLV-XLVIII. "It has been an invariable custom, that all the grand _kans_, and chiefs of the race of _Chingis-kan_, should be carried for interment to a certain lofty mountain, named _Altai_; and in whatever place they may happen to die, although it should be at the distance of a hundred days' journey, they are, nevertheless, conveyed thither. It is likewise the custom, during the progress of removing the bodies of these princes, for those who form the escort to sacrifice such persons as they chance to meet on the road, saying to them, 'Depart for the next world, and there attend upon your deceased master!' being impressed with the belief that all whom they thus slay do actually become his servants in the next life. They do the same also with respect to horses, killing the best of the stud, in order that he may have the use of them. When the corpse of _Mongù_ was transported to this mountain, the horsemen who accompanied it, having this blind and horrible persuasion, slew upwards of ten thousand persons who fell in their way.