If Any Tartar Steals A Thing Of Small Value, He Is Not Put To Death, But
Receives A Certain Number
Of blows with a cudgel, according to the measure
of the offence; either seven, or seventeen, or twenty-seven, thirty-
Seven,
or forty-seven; though some die through the severity of this cudgelling.
But if any one steal a horse or other thing of great value, for which he
deserves to die according to their laws, he is cut asunder with a sword,
unless he redeem his life by restoring the theft nine fold. Such as have
horses, oxen, or camels, brand them with their particular marks, and send
them to feed in the pastures without a keeper.
Leaving the city of Caracarum, and the mountain Altai, we enter the
champaign country of Bargu[6], which extends northwards for about fifty
days journey. The inhabitants of this country are called Medites[7], and
are subject to the great, khan, and resemble the Tartars in their manners.
They have no corn or wine, and employ themselves chiefly, during summer, in
the chase of wild beasts, and in catching birds, on the flesh of which they
subsist in winter; and they have great abundance of a kind of stags, which
they render so tame that they allow themselves to be ridden. In the winter
this country is so excessively cold, that fowls, and all other living
things, remove to warmer regions. After forty days journey we arrive at the
ocean, near which is a mountain frequented by storks, and fine falcons, as
a breeding place, and from whence falcons are brought for the amusement of
the great khan.
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