Note (6) — 25.—Of a king’s son.

(6.) “Ugine.”—One is liable at first sight to identify the “Ugine” with the Ung of Marco Polo (Yule, i, 276), whom he distinguishes from the Mongols proper; “two races of people that existed in that province (Tenduc) before the migration of the Tartars. Ung was the title of the people of the country, and Mungul a name sometimes applied to the Tartars.” Pauthier (Marco Polo, i, 218) explains, that by Ung are meant the Keraits, or subjects of Prester John, so named because, like them, he was a Nestorian. A descendant of this Prester John, named George, mentioned by Marco Polo, was converted to Catholicism by Giovanni di Montecorvino, who had numerous partisans in China during the stay in that country of Giovanni de Marignolli (Reis. in das Morgenl., 41); Pauthier is therefore of opinion that, in Schiltberger’s time, there were Christian Ung in Northern Asia, who, if not Catholics, were perhaps Nestorians. There could scarcely, however, have been anything in common between the Ung and the “Ugine”, for the author says that, although they worshipped the infant Jesus, they were not Christians; and this he makes more explicit in Chap. 45, where he includes them among the five classes of infidels known to him, being those who confessed the three kings before receiving baptism. None of the three kings became the founder of any religion whatsoever. Neumann’s views may, therefore, be accepted, viz., that Schiltberger alludes to Buddhism, introduced among the Mongols by Jengiz from Thibet. I should consequently prefer to associate the “Ugine”, not with the Keraits, but with the great Turk tribe, the Ung-kut, in whom Colonel Yule (Marco Polo, i, 285) recognises the real Ung of Marco Polo.—Bruun.