II. ch. iv. note 3.) Baber on
several occasions speaks of conferring the Tugh upon his generals for
distinguished service. One of the military titles at Bokhara is still
Tokhsabai, a corruption of Tugh-Sahibi, (Master of the Tugh).
We find the whole gradation except the Tuc in a rescript of Janibeg,
Khan of Sarai, in favour of Venetian merchants dated February 1347. It
begins in the Venetian version: "La parola de Zanibeck allo puovolo di
Mogoli, alli Baroni di Thomeni,[1] delli miera, delli centenera, delle
dexiene." (Erdmann, 576; D'Avezac, 577-578; Remusat, Langues
Tartares, 303; Pallas, Samml. I. 283; Schmidt, 379, 381; Baber,
260, etc.; Vambery, 374; Timour Inst. pp. 283 and 292-293; Bibl. de
l'Ec. des Chartes, tom. lv. p. 585.)
The decimal division of the army was already made by Chinghiz at an early
period of his career, and was probably much older than his time. In fact
we find the Myriarch and Chiliarch already in the Persian armies of Darius
Hystaspes. From the Tartars the system passed into nearly all the Musulman
States of Asia, and the titles Min-bashi or Bimbashi, Yuzbashi,
Onbashi, still subsist not only in Turkestan, but also in Turkey and
Persia. The term Tman or Tma was, according to Herberstein, still used
in Russia in his day for 10,000. (Ramus. II. 159.)
[The King of An-nam, Dinh Tien-hoang (A.D. 968) had an army of 1,000,000
men forming 10 corps of 10 legions; each legion forming 10 cohorts of 10
centuries; each century forming 10 squads of 10 men. - H. C.]
NOTE 3. - Ramusio's edition says that what with horses and mares there will
be an average of eighteen beasts (?) to every man.
NOTE 4. - See the Oriental account quoted below in Note 6.
So Dionysius, combining this practice with that next described, relates of
the Massagetae that they have no delicious bread nor native wine:
"But with horse's blood
And white milk mingled set their banquets forth."
(Orbis Desc. 743-744.)
And Sidonius:
"Solitosque cruentum
Lac potare Getas, et pocula tingere venis."
(Parag. ad Avitum.)
["The Scythian soldier drinks the blood of the first man he overthrows in
battle." (Herodotus, Rawlinson, Bk. IV. ch. 64, p. 54.) - H. C.] "When
in lack of food, they bleed a horse and suck the vein. If they need
something more solid, they put a sheep's pudding full of blood under the
saddle; this in time gets coagulated and cooked by the heat, and then they
devour it." (Georg. Pachymeres, V. 4.) The last is a well-known story,
but is strenuously denied and ridiculed by Bergmann. (Streifereien, etc.
I. 15.) Joinville tells the same story. Hans Schiltberger asserts it very
distinctly: "Ich hon och gesehen wann sie in reiss ylten, das sie ein
fleisch nemen, und es dunn schinden und legents unter den sattel, und
riten doruff; und essents wann sie hungert" (ch.
