Identifier: bookofsermarcopo00polo (find matches)
Title: The book of Ser Marco Polo : the Venetian concerning the kingdoms and marvels of the East
Year: 1903 (1900s)
Authors: Polo, Marco, 1254-1323? Cordier, Henri, 1849-1925 Yule, Amy Frances Yule, Henry, Sir, 1820-1889
Subjects: Polo, Marco, 1254-1323? Yule, Henry, Sir, 1820-1889 Genghis Khan, 1162-1227 Polo family Inscriptions, Chinese Early maps Mongols Voyages and travels
Publisher: London : John Murray
Contributing Library: Harold B. Lee Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Brigham Young University

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lins.) Scythian prisoners in their waggons are represented on the Columnof Theodosius at Constantinople ; but it is difficult to believe that these waggons, atleast as figured in Banduri, have any really Scythian character. It is a curious fact that the practice of carrying these yurts or felt tents uponwaggons appears to be entirely obsolete in Mongolia. Mr. Ney Elias writes : Ifrequently showed your picture (that opposite) to Mongols, Chinese, and Russianborder-traders, but none had ever seen anything of the kind. The only cart I haveever seen used by Mongols is a little low, light, roughly-made bullock-dray, certainlyof Chinese importation. The old system would, however, appear to have been keptup to our own times by the Nogai Tartars, near the Sea of Azof. (See note fromIleber, in Claris Travels, 8vo ed. I. 440, and Dr. Clarks vignette at p. 394 in thesame volume.) Note 3,—PharqpKs Rat was properly the Gerboa of Arabia and North Africa, Chap. LI I. THE CUSTOMS OF THE TARTARS 255
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> H 256 MARCO POLO Book I. which the Arabs also regard as a dainty. There is a kindred animal in Siberia, calledAlactaga, and a kind of Kangaroo-rat (probably the same) is mentioned as very abun-dant on the Mongolian Steppe. There is also the Zieselmatcs of Pallas, a Dormouse,I believe, which he says the Kalmaks, even of distinction, count a delicacy, especiallycooked in sour milk. They eat not only the flesh of all their different kinds ofcattle, including horses and camels, but also that of many wild animals which othernations eschew, e.g. marmots and zieselmice, beavers, badgers, otters, and lynxes,leaving none untouched except the dog and weasel kind, and also (unless very hardpressed) the flesh of the fox and the wolf. (Pallas, Samml. I. 128; also Rtibr.229-230.) (In the Mongol biography of Chinghiz Khan (Mongol text of the Yuan clCao pishi), mention is made of two kinds of animals (mice) used for food ; the tarbagat(Aritomys Bobac) and kuchugur (Palladium, I.e. p. 14.) Regard

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