There Are Likewise A Kind Of Rabbits, With
Long Tails Like Cats, Having Black And White Hairs At The Extremity Of
Their Tails.
They have many other small animals fit for eating, with which
they are well acquainted.
I have seen no deer, and very few hares, but many
antelopes. I saw vast numbers of wild asses, which resemble mules. Likewise
an animal resembling a ram, called artak, with crooked horns of such
amazing size, that I was hardly able to lift a pair of them with one hand.
Of these horns they make large drinking-cups. They have falcons,
gyrfalcons, and other hawks in great abundance, all of which they carry on
their right hands. Every hawk has a small thong of leather fastened round
his neck, the ends of which hang down to the middle of his breast; and
before casting off after game, they bow down the hawk's head towards his
breast, by means of this thong, with their left hand, lest he be tossed by
the wind, or should soar too high [3]. The Tartars are most expert hunters,
and procure a great part of their sustenance by the chase.
When the Tartars intend to hunt wild beasts, a vast multitude of people is
collected together, by whom the country is surrounded to a large extent in
a great circle; and by gradually contracting this circle towards its
centre, they at length collect all the included game into a small space,
into which the sportsmen enter and dispatch the game with their arrows.
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