Note {1} — Chapter V

Note 1.—Friar Ricold mentions this Tartar maxim: “One Khan will put another to death, to get possession of the throne, but he takes great care that the blood be not spilt. For they say that it is highly improper that the blood of the Great Khan should be spilt upon the ground; so they cause the victim to be smothered somehow or other.” The like feeling prevails at the Court of Burma, where a peculiar mode of execution without bloodshed is reserved for Princes of the Blood. And Kaempfer, relating the conspiracy of Faulcon at the Court of Siam, says that two of the king’s brothers, accused of participation, were beaten to death with clubs of sandal-wood, “for the respect entertained for the blood-royal forbids its being shed.” See also note 6, ch. vi. Bk. I., on the death of the Khalif Mosta’sim Billah. (Pereg. Quat. p. 115; Mission to Ava, p. 229; Kaempfer, I. 19.)