NOTE 5.—[Bretschneider (_Med. Res._ I. p. 114) says: “Hulagu left Karakorum, the residence of his brother, on the 2nd May, 1253, and returned to his ordo, in order to organize his army. On the 19th October of the same year, all being ready, he started for the west.” He arrived at Samarkand in September, 1255. For this chapter and the following of Polo, see: _Hulagu’s Expedition to Western Asia, after the Mohammedan Authors_, pp. 112–122, and the _Translation of the Si Shi Ki_ (Ch’ang Te), pp. 122–156, in Bretschneider’s _Mediæval Researches_, I.—H. C.] NOTE 6.—[“Hulagu proceeded to the lake of _Ormia_ (Urmia), when he ordered a castle to be built on the island of _Tala_, in the middle of the lake, for the purpose of depositing here the immense treasures captured at Baghdad. A great part of the booty, however, had been sent to Mangu Khan.” (_Hulagu’s Exp._, Bretschneider, _Med. Res._ I. p. 120.) Ch’ang Te says (_Si Shi Ki_, p. 139): “The palace of the Ha-li-fa was built of fragrant and precious woods. The walls of it were constructed of black and white jade. It is impossible to imagine the quantity of gold and precious stones found there.”—H. C.] NOTE 7.— “I said to the Kalif: ‘Thou art old, Thou hast no need of so much gold. Thou shouldst not have heaped and hidden it here, Till the breath of Battle was hot and near, But have sown through the land these useless hoards To spring into shining blades of swords, And keep thine honour sweet and clear. * * * * * Then into his dungeon I locked the drone, And left him to feed there all alone In the honey-cells of his golden hive: Never a prayer, nor a cry, nor a groan Was heard from those massive walls of stone, Nor again was the Kalif seen alive.’ This is the story, strange and true, That the great Captain Alaü Told to his brother, the Tartar Khan, When he rode that day into Cambalu, By the road that leadeth to Ispahan.” (_Longfellow_.)[1] The story of the death of Mosta’sim Billah, the last of the Abbaside Khalifs, is told in much the same way by Hayton, Ricold, Pachymeres, and Joinville. The memory of the last glorious old man must have failed him, when he says the facts were related by some merchants who came to King Lewis, when before Saiette (or Sidon), viz. in 1253, for the capture of Baghdad occurred five years later. Mar. Sanuto says melted gold was poured down the Khalif’s throat—a transfer, no doubt, from the old story of Crassus and the Parthians. Contemporary Armenian historians assert that Hulaku slew him with his own hand.