[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. "They eat not only the flesh of all their different kinds of cattle,
including horses and camels, but also that of many wild animals which
other nations eschew, e.g. marmots and zieselmice, beavers, badgers,
otters, and lynxes, leaving none untouched except the dog and weasel kind,
and also (unless very hard pressed) the flesh of the fox and the wolf."
(Pallas, Samml. I. 128; also Rubr. 229-230.)
["In the Mongol biography of Chinghiz Khan (Mongol text of the Yuan ch'ao
pi shi), mention is made of two kinds of animals (mice) used for food;
the tarbagat (Aritomys Bobac) and kuchugur." (Palladius, l.c. p.
14.) Regarding the marmots called Sogur by Rubruquis, Mr. Rockhill
writes (p. 69): "Probably the Mus citillus, the Suslik of the
Russians.... M. Grenard tells me that Soghur, more usually written
sour in Turki, is the ordinary name of the marmot." - H. C.]
NOTE 4.
