Their weddings are celebrated with
great ado.[NOTE 5]
NOTE 1. - The word here in the G. T. is "fennes," which seems usually to
mean ropes, and in fact Pauthier's text reads: "Il ont mesons de verges
et les cueuvrent de cordes." Ramusio's text has feltroni, and both
Muller and the Latin of the S. G. have filtro. This is certainly the
right reading. But whether fennes was ever used as a form of feltres
(as pennes means peltry) I cannot discover. Perhaps some words have
dropped out. A good description of a Kirghiz hut (35 feet in diameter),
and exactly corresponding to Polo's account, will be found in Atkinson's
Siberia, and another in Vambery's Travels. How comfortable and
civilised the aspect of such a hut may be, can be seen also in Burnes's
account of a Turkoman dwelling of this kind. This description of hut or
tent is common to nearly all the nomade tribes of Central Asia. The
trellis-work forming the skeleton of the tent-walls is (at least among the
Turkomans) loosely pivoted, so as to draw out and compress like
"lazy-tongs."
[Illustration: Dressing up a tent.]
Rubruquis, Pallas, Timkowski, and others, notice the custom of turning the
door to the south; the reason is obvious. (Atkinson, 285; Vamb. 316;
Burnes, III. 51; Conolly, I. 96) But throughout the Altai, Mr. Ney
Elias informs me, K'alkas, Kirghiz, and Kalmaks all pitch their tents
facing east. The prevailing winter wind is there westerly.
[Mr. Rockhill (Rubruck, p. 56, note) says that he has often seen Mongol
tents facing east and south-east. He adds: "It is interesting to find it
noted in the Chou Shu (Bk. 50, 3) that the Khan of the Turks, who lived
always on the Tu-kin mountains, had his tent invariably facing south, so
as to show reverence to the sun's rising place." - H. C.]
NOTE 2. - Aeschylus already knows the
"wandering Scyths who dwell
In latticed huts high-poised on easy wheels."
(Prom. Vinct. 709-710.)
And long before him Hesiod says Phineus was carried by the Harpies -
"To the Land of the Milk-fed nations, whose houses are waggons."
(Strabo, vii. 3-9.)
Ibn Batuta describes the Tartar waggon in which he travelled to Sarai as
mounted on four great wheels, and drawn by two or more horses: -
"On the waggon is put a sort of pavilion of wands laced together with
narrow thongs. It is very light, and is covered with felt or cloth, and
has latticed windows, so that the person inside can look out without being
seen. He can change his position at pleasure, sleeping or eating, reading
or writing, during the journey." These waggons were sometimes of enormous
size. Rubruquis declares that he measured between the wheel-tracks of one
and found the interval to be 20 feet. The axle was like a ship's mast, and
twenty-two oxen were yoked to the waggon, eleven abreast. (See opposite
cut.) He describes the huts as not usually taken to pieces, but carried
all standing. The waggon just mentioned carried a hut of 30 feet diameter,
for it projected beyond the wheels at least 5 feet on either side. In
fact, Carpini says explicitly, "Some of the huts are speedily taken to
pieces and put up again; such are packed on the beasts. Others cannot be
taken to pieces, but are carried bodily on the waggons. To carry the
smaller tents on a waggon one ox may serve; for the larger ones three oxen
or four, or even more, according to the size." The carts that were used to
transport the Tartar valuables were covered with felt soaked in tallow or
ewe's milk, to make them waterproof. The tilts of these were rectangular,
in the form of a large trunk. The carts used in Kashgar, as described by
Mr. Shaw, seem to resemble these latter. (I. B. II. 381-382; Rub. 221;
Carp. 6, 16.)
The words of Herodotus, speaking generally of the Scyths, apply perfectly
to the Mongol hordes under Chinghiz: "Having neither cities nor forts, and
carrying their dwellings with them wherever they go; accustomed, moreover,
one and all, to shoot from horseback; and living not by husbandry but on
their cattle, their waggons the only houses that they possess, how can
they fail of being unconquerable?" (Bk. IV. ch. 46, p. 41, Rawlins.)
Scythian prisoners in their waggons are represented on the Column of
Theodosius at Constantinople; but it is difficult to believe that these
waggons, at least as figured in Banduri, have any really Scythian
character.
It is a curious fact that the practice of carrying these yurts or felt
tents upon waggons appears to be entirely obsolete in Mongolia. Mr. Ney
Elias writes: "I frequently showed your picture [that opposite] to
Mongols, Chinese, and Russian border-traders, but none had ever seen
anything of the kind. The only cart I have ever seen used by Mongols is a
little low, light, roughly-made bullock-dray, certainly of Chinese
importation." The old system would, however, appear to have been kept up
to our own times by the Nogai Tartars, near the Sea of Azof. (See note
from Heber, in Clark's Travels, 8vo ed. I. 440, and Dr. Clark's vignette
at p. 394 in the same volume.)
[Illustration: Mediaeval Tartar Huts and Waggons.]
NOTE 3. - Pharaoh's Rat was properly the Gerboa of Arabia and North
Africa, which the Arabs also regard as a dainty. There is a kindred animal
in Siberia, called Alactaga, and a kind of Kangaroo-rat (probably the
same) is mentioned as very abundant on the Mongolian Steppe. There is also
the Zieselmaus of Pallas, a Dormouse, I believe, which he says the
Kalmaks, even of distinction, count a delicacy, especially cooked in sour
milk.
