In Summer There Are Often Sudden And Intolerable Heats, Quickly Followed By Extreme Cold.

[1] This strange personification of the East and North, as if they were stationary geographical terms, not merely, relative, only means that Mongalia lay in the most north-easterly part of the then known world. - E.

[2] Called likewise Karakum, or Caracorum, and said to signify the Black Sand. - E

SECTION IV.

Of the Appearance, Dress, and Manner of Living of the Tartars.

The appearance of the Mongols or Tartars is quite different from all other nations, being much wider between the eyes and cheeks, and their cheeks are very prominent, with small flat noses, and small eyes, having the upper lids opened up to the eyebrows, and their crowns are shaven like priests on each side, leaving some long hair in the middle, the remainder being allowed to grow long like women, which they twist into two tails or locks, and bind behind their ears. The garments of the men and women are alike, using neither cloaks, hats, nor caps, but they wear strange tunics made of bucram, purple, or baldequin. Their gowns are made of skins, dressed in the hair, and open behind. They never wash their clothes, neither do they allow others to wash, especially in time of thunder, till that be over. Their houses are round, and artificially made like tents, of rods and twigs interwoven, having a round hole in the middle of the roof for the admission of light and the passage of smoke, the whole being covered with felt, of which likewise the doors are made.

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