The People Have No King Of Their Own, Nor Are They
Subject To Any Foreigner, And Live Like Beasts.
[They are dull of
understanding, like half-witted persons.[NOTE 1]]
The Tartars however sometimes visit the country, and they do it in this
way. They enter the region riding mares that have foals, and these foals
they leave behind. After taking all the plunder that they can get they
find their way back by help of the mares, which are all eager to get back
to their foals, and find the way much better than their riders could do.
[NOTE 2]
Those people have vast quantities of valuable peltry; thus they have those
costly Sables of which I spoke, and they have the Ermine, the Arculin, the
Vair, the Black Fox, and many other valuable furs. They are all hunters by
trade, and amass amazing quantities of those furs. And the people who are
on their borders, where the Light is, purchase all those furs from them;
for the people of the Land of Darkness carry the furs to the Light country
for sale, and the merchants who purchase these make great gain thereby, I
assure you.[NOTE 3]
The people of this region are tall and shapely, but very pale and
colourless. One end of the country borders upon Great Rosia. And as there
is no more to be said about it, I will now proceed, and first I will tell
you about the Province of Rosia.
NOTE 1. - In the Ramusian version we have a more intelligent representation
of the facts regarding the Land of Darkness: "Because for most part of
the winter months the sun appears not, and the air is dusky, as it is just
before the dawn when you see and yet do not see;" and again below it
speaks of the inhabitants catching the fur animals "in summer when they
have continuous daylight." It is evident that the writer of this version
did and the writer of the original French which we have translated from
did not understand what he was writing. The whole of the latter account
implies belief in the perpetuity of the darkness. It resembles Pliny's
hazy notion of the northern regions:[1] "pars mundi damnata a rerum natura
et densa mersa caligine." Whether the fault is due to Rustician's
ignorance or is Polo's own, who can say? We are willing to debit it to the
former, and to credit Marco with the improved version in Ramusio. In the
Masalak-al-Absar, however, we have the following passage in which the
conception is similar: "Merchants do not ascend (the Wolga) beyond
Bolghar; from that point they make excursions through the province of
Julman (supposed to be the country on the Kama and Viatka). The merchants
of the latter country penetrate to Yughra, which is the extremity of the
North. Beyond that you see no trace of habitation except a great Tower
built by Alexander, after which there is nothing but Darkness." The
narrator of this, being asked what he meant, said: "It is a region of
desert mountains, where frost and snow continually reign, where the sun
never shines, no plant vegetates, and no animal lives. Those mountains
border on the Dark Sea, on which rain falls perpetually, fogs are ever
dense, and the sun never shows itself, and on tracts perpetually covered
with snow." (N. et Ex. XIII. i. 285.)
NOTE 2. - This is probably a story of great antiquity, for it occurs in the
legends of the mythical Ughuz, Patriarch of the Turk and Tartar nations,
as given by Rashiduddin. In this hero's campaign towards the far north, he
had ordered the old men to be left behind near Almalik; but a very ancient
sage called Bushi Khwaja persuaded his son to carry him forward in a box,
as they were sure sooner or later to need the counsel of experienced age.
When they got to the land of Kara Hulun, Ughuz and his officers were
much perplexed about finding their way, as they had arrived at the Land of
Darkness. The old Bushi was then consulted, and his advice was that they
should take with them 4 mares and 9 she-asses that had foals, and tie up
the foals at the entrance to the Land of Darkness, but drive the dams
before them. And when they wished to return they would be guided by the
scent and maternal instinct of the mares and she-asses. And so it was
done. (See Erdmann Temudschin, p. 478.) Ughuz, according to the
Mussulman interpretation of the Eastern Legends, was the great-grandson of
Japhet.
The story also found its way into some of the later Greek forms of the
Alexander Legends. Alexander, when about to enter the Land of Darkness,
takes with him only picked young men. Getting into difficulties, the King
wants to send back for some old sage who should advise. Two young men had
smuggled their old father with them in anticipation of such need, and on
promise of amnesty they produce him. He gives the advice to use the mares
as in the text. (See Mueller's ed. of Pseudo-Callisthenes, Bk. II. ch.
xxxiv.)
NOTE 3. - Ibn Batuta thus describes the traffic that took place with the
natives of the Land of Darkness: "When the Travellers have accomplished a
journey of 40 days across this Desert tract they encamp near the borders
of the Land of Darkness. Each of them then deposits there the goods that
he has brought with him, and all return to their quarters. On the morrow
they come back to look at their goods, and find laid beside them skins of
the Sable, the Vair, and the Ermine. If the owner of the goods is
satisfied with what is laid beside his parcel he takes it, if not he
leaves it there. The inhabitants of the Land of Darkness may then (on
another visit) increase the amount of their deposit, or, as often happens,
they may take it away altogether and leave the goods of the foreign
merchants untouched.
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