They might retain their land and their customs, might worship any god in any way; their Princes might dispute for the thrones as before; but no Prince--not the Grand Prince himself--could ascend a throne until he had permission from the Great Khan, to whom also every dispute between royal claimants must be deferred.

Then when finally the messenger came from the sovereign with the _yarlik_, or royal sanction, the Prince must listen kneeling, with his head in the dust.

And if then he was invited ( ?) to the Mongol court to pay homage, he must go, even though it required (as Marco Polo tells us) four years to make the journey across the plains and the mountains and rivers and the Great Desert of Gobi! When Yaroslaf II., third Grand Prince of Suzdal, succeeded to the Principality, he was _invited_ to pay this visit.

After reaching there, and after all the degrading ceremonies to which he was subjected--kissing the stirrup of his Suzerain, and licking up the drops which fell from his cup as he drank--then this Prince of the family of Rurik perished from exhaustion in the Desert of Gobi on his return journey.

But this was not all.