For the master who wants to work,
to write, to draw, occasionally to receive officials, the ideal tent would
be one of the same material, but of larger proportions, and comprising two
parallel vertical partitions and surmounted by a ridge roof. The round
form of Kirghiz and Mongol tents is also very comfortable, but it requires
a complicated and inconvenient wooden frame-work, owing to which it takes
some considerable time to raise up the tent." - H. C.]
NOTE 8. - The expressions about the sable run in the G. T., "et l'apellent
les Tartarz les roi des pelaines," etc. This has been curiously
misunderstood both in versions based on Pipino, and in the Geog. Latin and
Crusca Italian. The Geog. Latin gives us "vocant eas Tartari Lenoidae
Pellonae"; the Crusca, "chiamanle li Tartari Leroide Pelame"; Ramusio in
a very odd way combines both the genuine and the blundered interpretation:
"E li Tartari la chiamano Regina delle Pelli; e gli animali si
chiamano Rondes." Fraehn ingeniously suggested that this Rondes (which
proves to be merely a misunderstanding of the French words Roi des) was
a mistake for Kunduz, usually meaning a "beaver," but also a "sable."
(See Ibn Foszlan, p. 57.) Condux, no doubt with this meaning, appears
coupled with vair, in a Venetian Treaty with Egypt (1344), quoted by
Heyd. (II. 208.)
Ibn Batuta puts the ermine above the sable.
