Clavijo describes a somewhat similar tree at
the court of Timur."
Dr. Bretschneider (Peking, 28, 29) mentions a clepsydra with a lantern.
By means of machinery put in motion by water, at fixed times a little man
comes forward exhibiting a tablet, which announces the hours. He speaks
also of a musical instrument which is connected, by means of a tube, with
two peacocks sitting on a cross-bar, and when it plays, the mechanism
causes the peacocks to dance. - H. C.]
Odoric describes the great jar of liquor in the middle of the palace hall,
but in his time it was made of a great mass of jade (p. 130).
NOTE 4. - This etiquette is specially noticed also by Odoric, as well as by
Makrizi, by Rubruquis, and by Plano Carpini. According to the latter the
breach of it was liable to be punished with death. The prohibition to
tread on the threshold is also specially mentioned in a Mahomedan account
of an embassy to the court of Barka Khan. And in regard to the tents,
Rubruquis says he was warned not to touch the ropes, for these were
regarded as representing the threshold. A Russo-Mongol author of our day
says that the memory of this etiquette or superstition is still preserved
by a Mongol proverb:
