The Nāṣirī Generations 252.1

252.1

Kubilah—also written Kubilah—was a man of prodigious strength, immense stature, and great valour. "His voice would pierce the seventh heaven, and his grip was like that of a bear. He could take a strong man, and with both hands bend him like a twig until his back broke; and one author states that he delighted in amusing himself in this pleasant way! During the cold nights of winter he was wont to go to sleep naked before a great fire made of the trunks of trees. He used not to care for the sparks of fire which used to fly out and touch him, for, if he chanced to awake, he would fancy the fleas had disturbed him, and he would scratch himself and go off to sleep again!" In order to avenge the death of his brother, Ukin Barkak, whom the Tartars had carried off, and delivered over to the Altan Khan, who put him to death by having him mounted upon a wooden ass and nailed to it with iron spikes, and kept there until he expired, Kubilah led his forces against the Altan Khan, and the Tattars, overthrew them, and carried off immense booty. Kubilah Khan is not even named by Abu-l-Ghazi, whose work is much confused here; and, in several places, he relates events twice and even three times over, and differently each time.