If they come to a great river, as they know nothing of
boats, they sew skins together, stitch up all their goods therein, tie the
bundle to their horses' tails, mount with a hard grip of the mane, and so
swim over." This passage is an absolute abridgment of many chapters of
Carpini. Still more terse was the sketch of Mongol proceedings drawn by a
fugitive from Bokhara after Chinghiz's devastations there. It was set
forth in one unconscious hexameter:
"Amdand u khandand u sokhtand u kushtand u burdand u raftand!"
"They came and they sapped, they fired and they slew, trussed up their
loot and were gone!"
Juwaini, the historian, after telling the story, adds: "The cream and
essence of whatever is written in this volume might be represented in
these few words."
A Musulman author quoted by Hammer, Najmuddin of Rei, gives an awful
picture of the Tartar devastations, "Such as had never been heard of,
whether in the lands of unbelief or of Islam, and can only be likened to
those which the Prophet announced as signs of the Last Day, when he said:
'The Hour of Judgment shall not come until ye shall have fought with the
Turks, men small of eye and ruddy of countenance, whose noses are flat,
and their faces like hide-covered shields. Those shall be Days of Horror!'
'And what meanest thou by horror?' said the Companions; and he replied,
'SLAUGHTER! SLAUGHTER!' This beheld the Prophet in vision 600 years ago.
And could there well be worse slaughter than there was in Rei, where I,
wretch that I am, was born and bred, and where the whole population of
five hundred thousand souls was either butchered or dragged into slavery?"
Marco habitually suppresses or ignores the frightful brutalities of the
Tartars, but these were somewhat less, no doubt, in Kublai's time.
The Hindustani poet Amir Khosru gives a picture of the Mongols more
forcible than elegant, which Elliot has translated (III. 528).
This is Hayton's account of the Parthian tactics of the Tartars: "They
will run away, but always keeping their companies together; and it is very
dangerous to give them chase, for as they flee they shoot back over their
heads, and do great execution among their pursuers. They keep very close
rank, so that you would not guess them for half their real strength."
Carpini speaks to the same effect. Baber, himself of Mongol descent, but
heartily hating his kindred, gives this account of their military usage in
his day: "Such is the uniform practice of these wretches the Moghuls; if
they defeat the enemy they instantly seize the booty; if they are
defeated, they plunder and dismount their own allies, and, betide what
may, carry off the spoil." (Erdmann, 364, 383, 620; Gold.
