Europe - The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques And Discoveries Of The English Nation - Volume 4 - Collected By Richard Hakluyt
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For Their Manner Is When Any Will
Inuade Them, To Allure And Drawe Them On By Flying And Reculing (As If They
Were Afraide) Till They Haue Drawen Them Some Good Way Within Their
Countrey.
Then when they begin to want victuall and other necessaries (as
needes they must where nothing is to be had) to stoppe vp the passages, and
inclose them with multitudes.
By which stratagem (as we reade in Laonicus
Chalcacondylas in his Turkish storie) they had welnigh surprised the great
and huge armie of Tamerlan, but that hee retired with all speede hee could
towardes the riuer Tanais or Don, not without great losse of his men, and
cariages.
[Sidenote: Pachymerius.] In the storie of Pachymerius the Greek (which he
wrote of the the elder) I remember he telleth to the same purpose of one
Nogas a Tartarian captaine vnder Cazan the Emperor of the East Tartars (of
whom the citie and kingdome of Cazan may seeme to Emperors of
Constantinople from the beginning of the reigne of Michael Palaeologus to
the time of Andronicus haue taken the denomination) who refused a present
of Pearle and other iewels sent vnto him from Michael Palaeologus: asking
withall, for what vse they serued, and whether they were good to keepe away
sicknesse, death, or other misfortunes of this life, or no. So that it
seemeth they haue euer, or long time bene of that minde to value things no
further, then by the vse and necessitie for which they serue.
For person and complexion they haue broade and flatte visages, of a tanned
colour into yellowe and blacke, fierce and cruell lookes, thinne haired
vpon the upper lippe, and pitte of the chinne, light and nimble bodied,
with short legges, as if they were made naturally for horsemen: whereto
they practise themselues from their childhood, seldome going afoot about
anie businesse. Their speech is verie sudden and loude, speaking as it were
out of a deepe hollowe throate. When they sing you would thinke a kowe
lowed, or some great bandogge howled. Their greatest exercise is shooting,
wherein they traine vp their children from their verie infancie, not
suffering them to eate till they haue shot neere the marke within a
certaine scantling. They are the very same that sometimes were called
Scythae Nomades, or the Scythian shepheards, by the Greekes and Latines.
Some thinke that the Turks took their beginning from the nation of the Crim
Tartars. [Sidenote: Laonicus Calcocondylas.] Of which opinion is Laonicus
Calcocondylas the Greek Historiographer, in his first booke of his Turkish
storie. Wherein hee followeth diuers verie probable coniectures. [Sidenote:
1.] The first taken from the verie name it selfe, for that the worde Turke
signifieth a Shepheard or one that followeth a vagrant and wilde kinde of
life. By which name these Scythian Tartars haue euer beene noted, being
called by the Greekes [Greek: skythai nomades] or the Scythian shepheards.
[Sidenote: 2.] His second reason because the Turkes (in his time) that
dwelt in Asia the lesse, to wit, in Lydia, Caria, Phrygia and Cappadocia,
spake the very same language that these Tartars did, that dwelt betwixt the
riuer Tanais or Don, and the countrey of Sarmatia, which (as is knowen) are
these Tartars called Crims.
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