On His Return, The Bishop Was Made Prisoner By The Sultan
Of Aden, And Circumcised By Force.
On this affront, the Abyssinian monarch
raised an army, with which he defeated the sultan and two other Saracen
kings, and took and destroyed the city of Aden.
Abyssinia is, rich in gold.
Escier, subject to Aden, is forty miles distant to the south-east, and
produces abundance of fine white frankincense, which is procured by making
incisions in the bark of certain small trees, and is a valuable
merchandize. Some of the people on that coast, from want of corn, use fish,
which they have in great abundance, instead of bread, and also feed their
beasts on fish. They are most abundantly taken in the months of March,
April, and May.
I now return to some provinces more to the north, where many Tartars dwell,
who have a king called Caidu, of the race of Zingis, but who is entirely
independent. These Tartars, observant of the customs of their ancestors,
dwell not in cities, castles, or fortresses, but continually roam about,
along with their king, in the plains and forests, and are esteemed true
Tartars. They have no corn of any kind, but have multitudes of horses,
cattle, sheep, and other beasts, and live on flesh and milk, in great
peace. In their country there are white bears of large size, twenty palms
in length; very large wild asses, little beasts called rondes, from which
we have the valuable fur called sables, and various other animals producing
fine furs, which the Tartars are very skilful in taking. This country
abounds in great lakes, which are frozen over, except for a few months in
every year, and in summer it is hardly possible to travel, on account of
marshes and waters; for which reason, the merchants who go to buy furs, and
who have to travel for fourteen days through the desert, have wooden houses
at the end of each days journey, where they barter with the inhabitants,
and in winter they travel in sledges without wheels, quite flat at the
bottom, and rising semicircularly at the top, and these are drawn by great
dogs, yoked in couples, the sledgeman only with his merchant and furs,
sitting within[7].
Beyond these Tartars is a country reaching to the extremest north, called
the Obscure land, because the sun never appears during the greatest part
of the winter months, and the air is perpetually thick and darkish, as is
the case with us sometimes in hazy mornings. The inhabitants are pale and
squat, and live like beasts, without law, religion, or king. The Tartars
often rob them of their cattle during the dark months; and lest they might
lose their way in these expeditions they ride on mares which have sucking
foals, leaving these at the entrance of the country, under a guard; and
when they have got possession of any booty, they give the reins to the
mares, which make the best of their way to rejoin their foals.
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