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Marco Polo, Rustichello of Pisa - The Travels of Marco Polo, 1
procured at Khotan. The felt manufactured in this town not having enough consistency or solidity, we
took Aksu felt, which is better than this of Khotan, though inferior to the felt of Russian Turkestan.
These felt tents are extremely heavy, and, once damp, are dried with difficulty. These drawbacks are not
compensated by any important advantage; it would be an illusion to believe that they preserve from the
cold any better than other tents. In fact, I prefer the Manchu tent in use in the Chinese army, which is,
perhaps, of all military tents the most practical and comfortable. It is made of a single piece of double
cloth of cotton, very strong, waterproof for a long time, white inside, blue outside, and weighs with its
three tipped sticks and its wooden poles, 25 kilog. Set up, it forms a ridge roof 7 feet high and shelters
fully ten men. It suits servants perfectly well. For the master who wants to work, to write, to draw,
occasionally to receive officials, the ideal tent would be one of the same material, but of larger
proportions, and comprising two parallel vertical partitions and surmounted by a ridge roof. The round
form of Kirghiz and Mongol tents is also very comfortable, but it requires a complicated and
inconvenient wooden frame-work, owing to which it takes some considerable time to raise up the tent." -
H. C.]
NOTE 8. - The expressions about the sable run in the G. T., "et l'apellent les Tartarz les roi des
pelaines," etc. This has been curiously misunderstood both in versions based on Pipino, and in the Geog.
Latin and Crusca Italian. The Geog. Latin gives us "vocant eas Tartari Lenoidae Pellonae"; the
Crusca, "chiamanle li Tartari Leroide Pelame"; Ramusio in a very odd way combines both the
genuine and the blundered interpretation: "E li Tartari la chiamano Regina delle Pelli; e gli
animali si chiamano Rondes." Fraehn ingeniously suggested that this Rondes (which proves
to be merely a misunderstanding of the French words Roi des) was a mistake for Kunduz,
usually meaning a "beaver," but also a "sable." (See Ibn Foszlan, p. 57.) Condux, no
doubt with this meaning, appears coupled with vair, in a Venetian Treaty with Egypt (1344),
quoted by Heyd. (II. 208.)
Ibn Batuta puts the ermine above the sable. An ermine pelisse, he says, was worth in India 1000 dinars of
that country, whilst a sable one was worth only 400 dinars. As Ibn Batuta's Indian dinars are
Rupees, the estimate of price is greatly lower than Polo's. Some years ago I find the price of a
Sack, as it is technically called by the Russian traders, or robe of fine sables, stated to be in the
Siberian market about 7000 banco rubels, i.e. I believe about 350_l. The same authority mentions that in
1591 the Tzar Theodore Ivanovich made a present of a pelisse valued at the equivalent of 5000
silver rubels of modern Russian money, or upwards of 750_l. Atkinson speaks of a single
sable skin of the highest quality, for which the trapper demanded 18_l. The great mart for fine sables is at
Olekma on the Lena. (See I. B. II. 401-402; Baer's Beitraege, VII. 215 seqq.; Upper
and Lower Amoor, 390.)
NOTE 9. - Hawking is still common in North China. Petis de la Croix the elder, in his account of the
Yasa, or institutes of Chinghiz, quotes one which lays down that between March and October "no
one should take stags, deer, roebucks, hares, wild asses, nor some certain birds," in order that there might
be ample sport in winter for the court. This would be just the reverse of Polo's statement, but I suspect it
is merely a careless adoption of the latter. There are many such traps in Petis de la Croix. (Engl. Vers.
1722, p. 82.)
CHAPTER XXI. REHEARSAL OF THE WAY THE YEAR OF THE GREAT KAAN IS
DISTRIBUTED.
On arriving at his capital of Cambaluc,[NOTE 1] he stays in his palace there three days and no more;
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