Marco Polo

by Robin Brown

  Finally, he decided he was strong enough to take on Prester John. Ambassadors were sent from Genghis to the court of Prester John demanding his daughter’s hand in marriage, even though he knew that the demand would be indignantly refused. In fact the King replied: ‘Whence arises this presumptuous Genghis Khan, who, knowing himself to be my servant, dares to ask for the hand of my child? Let him know from me that if he repeats such a demand, I shall put him to an ignominious death.’

  This did not go down very well. Genghis led a vast army into Prester John’s kingdom and encamped in strength on the plain of Tenouk and had the message conveyed: ‘Prepare to defend yourself’. In response, John advanced at the head of a huge force and took up a position about 10 miles from the Tartars.

  Genghis called in astrologers and magicians to predict the outcome of the forthcoming battle. They took a Greek reed and split it in two, writing on one half the name Unc-Khan and on the other, Genghis. They placed them on the ground some distance apart and gave notice to the King that he would hear incantations during which time the reeds would move together, with victory going to the reed that successfully mounted the other.

  And so it came to pass, watched by both armies! The shamans chanted from their books of necromancy and in the course of time Genghis Khan’s reed came out on top. Upon witnessing this, Genghis, at the head of his Tartar army, marched through his opponent’s ranks and entirely routed them. Unc-Khan himself was killed, his entire kingdom was taken over and Genghis got his daughter after all. He ruled for another six years, expanding his empire all the time until at the battle of Thaigun he suffered an arrow-shot in the knee and died of the wound. He is buried in the mountains of Altai.

  Here is the accession after that: Cyhn-Khan, Bathyn-Khan, Esu-Khan, Mangu Khan and finally the most powerful of all, Kublai Khan (for whom I worked). He inherited all his predecessors’ possessions and during his long reign of almost sixty years acquired quite literally almost all of the rest of the world.

  It has invariably been the custom that all the Grand Khans and chiefs of the race of Genghis Khan are interred near him in the lofty mountains of Altai. Here the chosen few are brought even if it involves a journey of a hundred days or more. During these extended funerary processions to the deceased’s grave site his escort kill (or rather sacrifice) such persons as they may chance to meet along the way. ‘Depart for the next world and there attend your deceased master,’ the unfortunates are told. (The escorts actually believe they are doing these poor souls a favour and that they will be so employed!) They do the same with horses, killing the prime stud animals for the Khan’s use in the afterlife.

  When the corpse of Mangu was transported to the mountain the horsemen who accompanied it killed, in this horrible fashion, upwards of twenty thousand innocent people whom they just happened to come upon.

  You might like to know some of the social patterns of the Tartars. They are of no fixed abode and, as soon as winter approaches, migrate with their cattle to warmer regions in search of better pasture. In summer they retrace their steps, often to cold parts of the mountains where it is green and there is plentiful water and their cattle can be free of horseflies and other biting insects. They tend huge herds and flocks and need to keep moving them ever higher in search of adequate pasture.

  Their huts or tents are made up of poles covered with a felt of coarse wool and hair. They are round and nicely constructed and they can be quickly disassembled into one bundle which, when packaged up, can be easily transported in a four-wheeled cart. There is also a rather better two-wheeled cart covered with black felt which I know from experience can keep out the rain for a whole day.

  Drawn by camels or oxen these carts carry the Tartars’ wives and children, utensils and essential provisions. It is the women who also attend to all the trade. Busily buying and selling, they provide everything necessary for the family, leaving the husbands free to devote themselves to their military obligations (and a good bit of hunting and hawking).

  They have the best falcons and hunting dogs in the world and the spoils of hunting make a useful contribution to a diet otherwise exclusively meat and milk. Marmots (we call them Pharaohs’ mice) provide ready meat as they are found in great abundance on the steppes. The favourite drink is fermented mares’ milk called ‘Kemurs’ which when properly prepared has the quality and flavour of white wine.

  The women? Well what can I say? They are exemplary when it comes to chastity and decency and in the love they extend to their husbands. It is true to say that they regard infidelity as a vice. I mean it; they regard it as infamously dishonourable. And you cannot help but admire the loyalty of the husbands to their wives. Even though there may be ten or twenty of them, they maintain a quiet union among themselves that is admirable. No offensive language is ever heard and they are kept busy caring for their families. The modesty and chastity which can exist in these marriages result I am sure from the husband being able to choose as many wives as he likes.

  The wives do not cost him much either, in fact they make a valuable contribution via crafts and trading to the family finances. In recognition of this, when a man takes a wife he pays a marriage settlement to her parents.

  The first wife, as I have said, is considered superior, and is held to be the most legitimate and commands the most attention. This extends to her children. It is inevitable that this unlimited number of wives results in more children being born than elsewhere in the world. And, if the father dies, the son may take his wives, although not his own mother. They can also take their sisters-inlaw, but not their sisters. All these marriages are solemnised with great ceremony.

  The doctrines and faiths of the Tartars are as follows.

  They believe in a sublime, heavenly deity. They burn incense in censors and pray for spiritual and physical wellbeing. They worship a second deity, Notigay, whose image, usually covered with felt or cloth, everyone keeps in their houses. They accord this deity a wife and a child, placing the wife on his left side and the child before him. He is the deity responsible for their day-to-day concerns such as their children, their cattle and their grain. At meal times they take a fatty morsel of meat and grease the lips of the idol and those of the wife and the child. They then throw out of the door some of the gravy as an offering to the other spirits. Once Notigay and his family are considered to have had their proper due, everyone else may eat and drink.

  The wealthy dress in cloth of gold, silks, sable, ermine and other rich animal skins. They have expensive accoutrements: bows, iron maces and, occasionally, spears. The bow is far and away their most effective weapon since they have practised with it since childhood. They wear armour of buffalo hide and other skins dried in fires to render them extremely hard and strong.

  These people are valiant in battle – almost fanatical – setting little value on their own lives and exposing themselves without hesitation to all manner of danger.

  It has to be said that the Tartars have cruel dispositions. They are used to extreme privation and if called upon to do so, can live for a month on the milk of their mares and any wild game that might come their way. Their horses graze where they can and do not require supplementary food such as barley or other grains.

  The men can stay in the saddle for forty-eight hours, sleeping while their horses graze! The truth is that no people on earth can surpass them in terms of stoicism or fortitude under duress and as an army they are obedient to command and maintained at little expense. Small wonder that they have subdued so considerable a portion of the world.

  Let me describe now how a Tartar army works. We are talking now of a force of perhaps a hundred thousand men with its leader at the head. Officers command every ten, every hundred, every thousand and every ten thousand men. The command structure goes up the line and by this means each officer is responsible for his unit and each can be progressively called upon to commit their troops to the line. The system makes for excellent control of all the elements, large or small, of the available army.


  The drafting of troops is done expeditiously, based on the explicit obedience of each man to this squad. Squads of ten are called ‘tuc’ and ten of these constitute a ‘toman’. When the campaign begins a body of men is sent out two days in advance to guard the main army’s flanks and rear against surprise attack. This advance guard travels very lightly carrying light rainproof felt tents and their cooking utensils. They subsist, as I have said, upon mares’ milk. Each man has a big group of horses, at least eighteen horses and mares which they ride in relays. Should circumstances demand, I have seen these troops go for ten days without a cooked meal surviving on blood drunk directly from a vein opened in a horse!

  These field rations are supplemented with a dried milk curd which is prepared as follows. The rich creamy part is skimmed off the boiling milk and set aside as butter. The curds are sun-dried and each serviceman carries about 10lb of it. Half a pound of this is placed every morning in a leather flask of water and violently shaken (by dint of hard riding), a procedure that turns it into a thick porridge which constitutes their dinner.

  The Tartar method of doing battle is entirely different to ours. When they engage the enemy they never enter the throng but weave about, aiming arrows first from one flank then the other. Now and then they pretend to flee, shooting arrows backwards, so killing as many men and horses as if they were fighting face to face! Their adversary thinks he is winning but, having already inflicted considerable mischief, the Tartars wheel about, overpowering the pursuing troops and, even though they have fought steadily, taking them prisoner.

  Tartar horses are marvellously well trained. They are used to quick changes of course and turn on command instantly and in every direction. Many victories have been achieved through the agility of the horses.

  I have to say, though, that all the above is a description of old classic Tartar traditions. Nowadays the tribes are much corrupted. Those dwelling at Ukalka, for example, have become idolaters and over the eastern provinces they have adopted all the mannerisms of the Saracens.

  Tartar justice is also quite specific to their society. When a person is convicted of robbery not meriting the death sentence, the criminal is caned. The number of strokes depends upon the seriousness of the crime and can run to over a hundred. A great many die! Stealing a horse earns capital punishment, the guilty party being cut into two parts with a sword. You can buy your way out of these punishments by paying nine times the value of the stolen goods.

  Horses, mares, camels, oxen or cows, all bearing their owners’ mark, graze at large anywhere in the plains and mountains without herdsmen to look after them. If they get mixed up they are restored to the owner by identifying his mark. Sheep and goats are tended. Tartar cattle are of a good size, fat and very handsome.

  They have this strange custom of arranged marriages between the dead. Boys and girls who have passed away are contracted in marriage and there is a ceremony at which human figures representing attendants with horses and other animals, dresses of all kinds, money, and every item of furniture are drawn on pieces of paper, then burnt. The marriage contract also goes up in smoke. It is the belief that all these items pass to the couple in the Other World through the smoke. After such a ceremony, which fully formalises the marriage between the dead couple, their fathers and mothers consider themselves duly related.

  In this description of the Tartars I have not mentioned their lord, the Grand Khan, his brilliant acts and enterprises, as I intend to save these for later. Meantime, let us return to our journey, heading north for forty days through the plain of Bargu in the direction of Siberia.

  The people here, called the Mekriti, are a cruel lot, living on the flesh of large deer, some the size of stags, which also provide them with transport. Another rich source of food is the fish and fowl of the numerous lakes and marches. The birds come here in the summer when they have moulted and their lack of feathers makes them easy prey for hunters.

  This huge plain has a frozen ocean at its northern extremity and in winter the cold is so severe neither bird nor beast can survive here. The people resemble the Tartars I have just described and are subjects of the Grand Khan.

  At the end of forty days I am told you reach mountains from which this ocean can be seen. Here vultures and peregrine falcons have their nests but of people and cattle there are none. The falcons are about the size of a partridge with a swallow-like tail, claws resembling those of parrots and are swift in flight. They feed largely on the only species of bird in the area, called ‘bargelak’.

  This is where the Grand Khan gets his hunting falcons from; broods of peregrines from the mountains and plenty of gerfalcons from an island lying off the coast. The suggestion that the Grand Khan gets his gerfalcons from Europe is untrue, although some Western Tartars and other chiefs of the Levant acquire their birds in this way. The gerfalcon island is so far north the Polar star appears to the south, or behind you.

  We are at last approaching the provinces near to residences of the Grand Khan. Leaving Kanrion (of which I shall have more to say later), a journey of five days eastwards brings you to the Kingdom of Erginul subject to the Grand Khan in the province of Tangut. This can be a somewhat terrifying journey because at night one is troubled by the voices of spirits.

  There are several principalities in the kingdom and it is a land of idolaters, Mahometans and a few Nestorian Christians. The principal city is also called Erginul and the road that leads east from here via the city of Singui is the road to China. This is the territory of the musk ox and large numbers of them are eaten. The flesh is said to be very good. (I was able to take back to Venice the dried head and feet of one of them.) It is a journey of twenty-five days across this province.

  The people are mostly traders and manufacturers. They have grain in abundance and you find pheasant here that are twice the size of ours, and a great variety of other birds some of which have beautiful plumage.

  The people are generally rather fat, have small noses, black hair and in place of beards sprout a few scattered hairs on their chins. Upper-class women are likewise free of superfluous body hair, are fair skinned and shapely, but they have rather dissolute natures.

  The men are very fond of women and have as many wives as they please (in practice as many as they can afford). They will marry a poor woman if she is attractive and hand over rich presents to her parents and relatives. Beauty is everything!

  Let us head east. Eight days from Erginul brings the traveller to Egrigaia, still part of the huge province of Tangut and still subject to the Grand Khan. This is a place of many cities and castles, the principal one being Kalacha. It is the same religious mix as before; while primarily the home of idolaters, the Nestorian Christians have three churches in Kalacha.

  They make the finest shawls in the world here, called ‘camelots’ from the hair of camels and also a beautiful white wool. Merchants snap them up and ship them abroad, especially to China.

  A small deviation to the north will take you to Tenduk, the territory of Prester John. All the princes of Tenduk have been subject to the rule of the Grand Khan since Genghis subdued the country. The king, who rules from a city also named Tenduk, is a direct descendant of Prester John, indeed is known as King George. He is both a Christian and a priest. George rules territories somewhat smaller than those of Prester John and he has a privileged arrangement with the Grand Khan whereby he and the other princes of Tenduk may marry his daughters and other women of the Grand Khan’s family.

  The colour azure, made from a stone, is found here in great abundance and is of fine quality. Camelhair cloth is also manufactured and there is extensive agriculture, trade and mechanical work.

  Both the King and the government, as I have said, are Christians. There is also, apart from idolaters and Mahometans, a race known as ‘Argons’ who are a mixture of idolaters and Mahometans. I must say that King George’s people are fairer complexioned and better looking than those of the other countries through which we have passed; better educated, too, and more skilfu
l traders.

  Originally the sovereigns who bore the title ‘Prester John’ ruled over all the neighbouring countries including those of the Tartars. The current ‘George’ is the fourth in descent from Prester John and is head of the family of the patriarch. The family controls two large regions, Gog and Magog (known locally as Ung and Mongul) and each had its own distinctive people; in Ung they were known as Gogs and in Mongul they were Tartars. Subsequently the Monguls and the Tartars became indistinguishable.

  The people of Tenduk are fine manufacturers and traders of woven goods, especially wools, fine gold tissue ornamented with mother-of-pearl known as nasici and silks of different textures and colours as good as those of Europe.

  One of the towns, Sindichin, is famous for the manufacture of all manner of arms and military accoutrements and ordnance. Up in the mountains the village of Idifa produces large quantities of silver from a rich mine. The whole area teems with birds and beasts.

  China at last! First you come to the important city of Changa-nor or ‘White Lake’. Here the Grand Khan has a grand palace that he is very fond of visiting. It is quite beautiful, surrounded by lakes and streams that are home to many swans. In the surrounding plain, cranes, pheasant, partridge and other birds abound. The Grand Khan much enjoys hunting from here (thanks to the abundance of the game) with gerfalcons and other hawks.

  There are five species of cranes, some black as night with long wings. Then there is a magnificent bird that is white with even longer wings marked with golden eye shapes like those of peacocks; the head is red and black and it has a formed neck of black and white. You also see many birds that look like the cranes we have in Italy. Then there is a small crane with pretty red-and azure-streaked feathers and, finally, a very large bird of grey colour with a head of red and black.

  One of the nearby valleys is famous for its large number of partridge and quail. The Grand Khan has the sides of the valley sown with millet and panicium which are both grains the birds like. Strict orders are in place that no one should harvest these seeds lest the birds go hungry, and numerous keepers are posted here to make sure the birds get the seed in winter and to protect the game in general. Hence they have become completely used to being fed. The gamekeepers have only to whistle to find themselves surrounded by birds flocking from every direction!