In The Whole Of My
Journey I Was Convinced Of The Truth Of What I Had Been Informed By Baldwin
De Hainault at Constantinople, that the whole way eastwards was by a
continual ascent, as all the rivers run from
The east towards the west,
sometimes deviating towards the north or south, more or less directly, but
never running east, but this was farther confirmed to me by the priests who
came from Kathay[1]. From the place where I found Mangukhan, it is twenty
days journey south-east to Kathay, and ten days journey right east to Oman
Kerule, the original country of the Moal and of Zingis[2]. In those parts
there are no cities, but the country is inhabited by a people called
Su-Moall, or Mongols of the waters, who live upon fish and hunting, and
have neither flocks nor herds. Farther north, likewise, there is no city,
but a poor people of herdsmen, who are called Kerkis. The Orangin are there
also, who bind smooth bones under their feet, and thrust themselves with
such velocity over the ice and snow, as to overtake beasts in the chase.
There are many other poor nations in those parts, inhabiting as far to the
north as the cold will permit, who join on the west with the country of
Pascatir, or the Greater Hungary, of which I have made mention before[3].
In the north the mountains are perpetually covered with snow, and the
bounds are unknown by reason of the extreme cold. All these nations are
poor; yet they must all betake themselves to some employment, as Zingis
established a law that none was to be free from service till so old as to
be unable for work.
I was inquisitive about the monstrous men of whom Isidore and Solinus make
mention; but no one had ever seen any such, and I therefore doubt whether
it be true. Once a priest of Kathay sat by me, clothed in red, of whom I
asked how that colour was procured. He told me that on certain high; craggy
rocks in the east of Kathay there dwelt certain creatures like men, not
above a cubit long, and all hairy, who leapt rather than walked, and dwelt
in inaccessible caves. That those who go to hunt them carry strong drink,
which they leave in holes of the rocks, and then hide themselves. These
little creatures come out from their holes, and having tasted the drink,
call out chin-chin, on which multitudes gather together, and drink till
they are drunk, and fall asleep. Then the hunters come and bind them, after
which they draw a few drops of blood from the veins of the neck of each of
these creatures, and let them go free; and this blood is the most precious
purple dye. He told me, likewise, that there is a province beyond Kathay,
into which, if a man enters, he always continues of the same age at which
he entered; but this I do not believe[4].
Kathay is on the ocean, and I was told by the French goldsmith at
Caracarum, that there is a people or nation called Tante and Manse,
inhabiting certain islands, the sea around which is frozen in winter, so
that the Tartars might invade them; but they sent messengers to the great
khan, offering a tribute of 2000 tuemen or jascots yearly, to permit them
to live in peace[5]. A tuemen, toman, or jascot, is a piece of money equal
to ten marks.
The ordinary money of Kathay is of paper made like pasteboard, the breadth
and length of a hand, on which lines are printed, like the seal of Mangu.
They write with a pencil like that used by our painters, and in one figure
they comprehend many letters, forming one word[6]. The people of Thibet
write as we do, and their characters are very like our own. Those of Tangut
write from right to left, like the Arabs, and multiply their lines
ascending; while the Jugurs write in descending columns. The common money
of the Rutenians or Russians, consists in spotted or grizzled furs.
When our Quinquagesima came, which is the Lent time of all the people of
the east, the lady Cota fasted all that week, and came every day to our
oratory, giving meat to the priests and other Christians, of whom a great
company came daily to attend the service. But the porters of the court,
seeing such multitudes come daily to our chapel, which was within the
precincts of the court, sent one to tell the monk, that they would not
allow such multitudes to come within their bounds; to this the monk made a
sharp reply, and threatened to accuse them to the khan; but they prevented
him, and lodged a complaint before Mangu, that the monk was too full of
words, and gathered too great a multitude to hear him speak. On this he was
called before the khan, who reproved him severely, saying, that as a holy
man, he should employ himself in prayers to God, and not in speeches to
men. But he was afterwards reconciled, by promising to go to the Pope, and
to induce all the nations of the west to yield obedience to the khan. On
his return to the oratory, the monk asked me if I thought he might gain
admission to the Pope as the messenger of Mangu; and whether the Pope would
supply him with horses to go to St James in Galicia; and whether your
majesty would send your son to the court of Mangu. But I counselled him, to
beware of making false promises to Mangu, and that God needed not the
service of lies or deceitful speaking. About this time a dispute arose
between the monk and one of the Nestorian priests, more learned than the
rest, as the monk asserted that man was created before paradise, which the
other denied; on reference to me, I said that paradise was created on the
second day, when the other trees were made, whereas man was made on the
sixth.
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