File:The story of Marco Polo (1899) (14577313408).jpg

Identifier: storyofmarcopolo00polo (find matches)
Title: The story of Marco Polo
Year: 1899 (1890s)
Authors: Polo, Marco, 1254-1323? Brooks, Noah, 1830-1903, (from old catalog) ed
Subjects: Voyages and travels
Publisher: New York, The Century co.
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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rder and with loud cries; and in a very shorttime the enemy are routed. In truth, they are stout andvaliant soldiers, and inured to war. And you perceivethat it is just when the enemy sees them run, and imaginesthat he has gained the battle, that he has in reality lostit; for the Tartars wheel round in a moment when theyjudge the right time has come. And after this fashionthey have won many a fight. All this that I have been telling you is true of themanners and customs of the genuine Tartars. But I mustadd also that in these days they are greatly degenerated;for those who are settled in Cathay have taken up thepractices of the Idolaters of the country, and have aban-doned their own institutions; whilst those who have settledin the Levant have adopted the customs of the Saracens. The huts in which the Tatars lived in Marco Polostime were just like those used to-day by the wander-ing tribes of Central Asia. These slight houses werebuilt of a light frame-work of osiers, or willow wands,
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IX.) THE JERBOA. 91 bent to form a rounded, dome-like hut; and thiswas covered with felt, or cloth, made waterproof bybeing soaked in tallow or milk. Some of the largerhuts were built on wheels, and when the tribe wastravelling, the chiefs and their families would ridewithin one of these big vehicles very comfortably,if not luxuriously. One traveller, Friar Rubruquis,who saw some of the Tatars on their march, measuredthe space between the wheels of one of the greatwaggons, and found it to be twenty feet. Theaxle, he says, was like a ships mast, and twenty-two oxen were yoked to the waggon, eleven abreastOne of the huts which Rubruquis saw was thirtyfeet in diameter and projected ten feet beyond thewheels. The animals to which Marco refers as Pharaohsrats were probably a species of marmot, verycommon in Egypt, Asia Minor, and Central Asia,and sometimes called the jerboa. Behind, it is formedlike a long-legged little beast, and is a famous jumper,as is the kangaroo rat, which it closely

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