This Name Is Given Them Because They
Are The Sons Of Indian Mothers By Tartar Fathers.
And you must know that
when these Caraonas wish to make a plundering incursion, they have certain
devilish enchantments
Whereby they do bring darkness over the face of day,
insomuch that you can scarcely discern your comrade riding beside you; and
this darkness they will cause to extend over a space of seven days'
journey. They know the country thoroughly, and ride abreast, keeping near
one another, sometimes to the number of 10,000, at other times more or
fewer. In this way they extend across the whole plain that they are going
to harry, and catch every living thing that is found outside of the towns
and villages; man, woman, or beast, nothing can escape them! The old men
whom they take in this way they butcher; the young men and the women they
sell for slaves in other countries; thus the whole land is ruined, and has
become well-nigh a desert.
The King of these scoundrels is called NOGODAR. This Nogodar had gone to
the Court of Chagatai, who was own brother to the Great Kaan, with some
10,000 horsemen of his, and abode with him; for Chagatai was his uncle.
And whilst there this Nogodar devised a most audacious enterprise, and I
will tell you what it was. He left his uncle who was then in Greater
Armenia, and fled with a great body of horsemen, cruel unscrupulous
fellows, first through BADASHAN, and then through another province called
PASHAI-DIR, and then through another called ARIORA-KESHEMUR. There he lost
a great number of his people and of his horses, for the roads were very
narrow and perilous. And when he had conquered all those provinces, he
entered India at the extremity of a province called DALIVAR. He
established himself in that city and government, which he took from the
King of the country, ASEDIN SOLDAN by name, a man of great power and
wealth. And there abideth Nogodar with his army, afraid of nobody, and
waging war with all the Tartars in his neighbourhood.[NOTE 4]
Now that I have told you of those scoundrels and their history, I must add
the fact that Messer Marco himself was all but caught by their bands in
such a darkness as that I have told you of; but, as it pleased God, he got
off and threw himself into a village that was hard by, called CONOSALMI.
Howbeit he lost his whole company except seven persons who escaped along
with him. The rest were caught, and some of them sold, some put to
death.[NOTE 5]
NOTE 1. - Ramusio has "Adam's apple" for apples of Paradise. This was some
kind of Citrus, though Lindley thinks it impossible to say precisely
what. According to Jacques de Vitry it was a beautiful fruit of the Citron
kind, in which the bite of human teeth was plainly discernible. (Note to
Vulgar Errors, II.
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