KABLAI KHAN, emperor of the Chinese and eastern oriental Tartars, was the sovereign of the most enormous empire that the annals of the world have ever made known. It comprehended the whole of China, Corea, Tibet, Tonquin, Cochin-China, a great part of India beyond the Ganges, many islands of the Indian Ocean, the whole north of the continent of Asia, from the Pacific to the Dnieper ; Persia also was a feuda tory of his throne, its sovereigns, the successors of llulaku, receiving their investiture from the emperor of China ; and as the dominions of these great vassals extended to the Mediterranean and the frontiers of the Greek empire, it may be said that the whole of Asia was subject to the laws of the Great Khan, who had chosen Pekin as the central seat of his government. The empires of Alexander the Great, of the Romans, or even of Chengiz Khan, were as nothing compared with that of Kablai Khan. Kablai Khan had received a Chinese education ; be appreciated the advan tages of civilisation; he admired the institutions of China, and protected literature and the sciences. lie had some of the best Chinese books translated into the Mongol language; he founded schools for the young people of his own country, and gave much encouragement to their studies. lie received with favour learned and literary men of every country and religion, granting them many privi leges, and exempting them from taxes and tributes.
It was he who established the Ilan-lin college, the highest academical institution of China. He was assisted in improving the astronomical cal culations of the Chinese by Arabian and Christian astronomers. Some Christian families were fixed by him in the city of Pekin, and many Greeks, who had followed the Mongol armies, were re tained in his service as men whose attainments were much superior to those of his Tartar and Chinese subjects. Pekin was at the same time raised into an archbishopric by the Patriarch of Baghdad and the Roman pontiff ; embassies and missions passed into Tartary, and the Mongol sovereigns of China afforded their protection to every stranger whose talents might be useful to the state. Arghun Khan was Kablai Khan's great nephew. his wife was Zibellina, the Khatun Bulugan, a lady of great beauty and ability. She had been married to Abaka, but, on his demise, according to the marriage customs of the Mongols, she passed to the Urda of her step son Arghun. On her death, Arghun sent Marco Polo for another wife, out of the Mongol tribe of Bayaut, but Arghun died before the lady, Kuka Chin, was brought, and she passed to Gliazan, the nephew of Argbun, for Argliiin had been succeeded by Kai-Khatu, his brother.—Quart. Rev., July 1868; Hue's Christianity, i. p. 320; Chatfield's Hindustan, p. 298.