The Travels of Marco Polo — Volume 1 by Marco Polo and da Pisa Rusticiano
CHAPTER LVI.
2472 words | Chapter 317
SUNDRY PARTICULARS OF THE PLAIN BEYOND CARACORON.
And when you leave Caracoron and the Altay, in which they bury the
bodies of the Tartar Sovereigns, as I told you, you go north for forty
days till you reach a country called the PLAIN OF BARGU.{1} The people
there are called MESCRIPT; they are a very wild race, and live by their
cattle, the most of which are stags, and these stags, I assure you,
they used to ride upon. Their customs are like those of the Tartars,
and they are subject to the Great Kaan. They have neither corn nor
wine.[They get birds for food, for the country is full of lakes and
pools and marshes, which are much frequented by the birds when they are
moulting, and when they have quite cast their feathers and can’t fly,
those people catch them. They also live partly on fish.{2}]
And when you have travelled forty days over this great plain you
come to the ocean, at the place where the mountains are in which the
Peregrine falcons have their nests. And in those mountains it is so
cold that you find neither man or woman, nor beast nor bird, except
one kind of bird called _Barguerlac_, on which the falcons feed. They
are as big as partridges, and have feet like those of parrots and
a tail like a swallow’s, and are very strong in flight. And when
the Grand Kaan wants Peregrines from the nest, he sends thither to
procure them.{3} It is also on islands in that sea that the Gerfalcons
are bred. You must know that the place is so far to the north that
you leave the North Star somewhat behind you towards the south! The
gerfalcons are so abundant there that the Emperor can have as many as
he likes to send for. And you must not suppose that those gerfalcons
which the Christians carry into the Tartar dominions go to the Great
Kaan; they are carried only to the Prince of the Levant.{4}
Now I have told you all about the provinces northward as far as the
Ocean Sea, beyond which there is no more land at all; so I shall
proceed to tell you of the other provinces on the way to the Great
Kaan. Let us, then, return to that province of which I spoke before,
called Campichu.
NOTE 1.—The readings differ as to the length of the journey. In
Pauthier’s text we seem to have first a journey of forty days from
near Karakorúm to the Plain of Bargu, and then a journey of forty
days more across the plain to the Northern Ocean. The G. T. seems
to present only _one_ journey of forty days (Ramusio, of sixty
days), but leaves the interval from Karakorúm undefined. I have
followed the former, though with some doubt.
NOTE 2.—This paragraph from Ramusio replaces the following in
Pauthier’s text: “In the summer they got abundance of game, both
beasts and birds, but in winter, there is none to be had because of
the great cold.”
Marco is here dealing, I apprehend, with hearsay geography,
and, as is common in like cases, there is great compression
of circumstances and characteristics, analogous to the like
compression of little-known regions in mediæval maps.
The name _Bargu_ appears to be the same with that often mentioned
in Mongol history as BARGUCHIN TUGRUM or BARGUTI, and which
Rashiduddin calls the northern limit of the inhabited earth. This
commenced about Lake Baikal, where the name still survives in that
of a river (_Barguzin_) falling into the Lake on the east side, and
of a town on its banks (_Barguzinsk_). Indeed, according to Rashid
himself, BARGU was the name of one of the tribes occupying the
plain; and a quotation from Father Hyacinth would seem to show that
the country is still called _Barakhu_.
[The Archimandrite Palladius (_Elucidations_, 16–17) writes:—“In
the Mongol text of Chingis Khan’s biography, this country is called
Barhu and Barhuchin; it is to be supposed, according to Colonel
Yule’s identification of this name with the modern Barguzin, that
this country was near Lake Baikal. The fact that Merkits were in
Bargu is confirmed by the following statement in Chingis Khan’s
biography: ‘When Chingis Khan defeated his enemies, the Merkits,
they fled to Barhuchin tokum.’ _Tokum_ signifies ‘a hollow, a low
place,’ according to the Chinese translation of the above-mentioned
biography, made in 1381; thus Barhuchin tokum undoubtedly
corresponds to M. Polo’s Plain of Bargu. As to M. Polo’s statement
that the inhabitants of Bargu were Merkits, it cannot be accepted
unconditionally. The Merkits were not indigenous to the country
near Baikal, but belonged originally,—according to a division
set forth in the Mongol text of the _Yuan ch’ao pi shi_,—to the
category of tribes _living in yurts_, _i.e._ nomad tribes, or tribes
of the desert. Meanwhile we find in the same biography of Chingis
Khan, mention of a people called Barhun, which belonged to the
category of tribes _living in the forests_; and we have therefore
reason to suppose that the Barhuns were the aborigines of Barhu.
After the time of Chingis Khan, this ethnographic name disappears
from Chinese history; it appears again in the middle of the 16th
century. The author of the _Yyu_ (1543–1544), in enumerating the
tribes inhabiting Mongolia and the adjacent countries, mentions
the Barhu, as a strong tribe, able to supply up to several tens of
thousands (?) of warriors, armed with steel swords; but the country
inhabited by them is not indicated. The Mongols, it is added, call
them Black Ta-tze (Khara Mongols, _i.e._ ‘Lower Mongols’).
“At the close of the 17th century, the Barhus are found inhabiting
the western slopes of the interior Hing’an, as well as between
Lake Kulon and River Khalkha, and dependent on a prince of eastern
Khalkhas, Doro beile. (Manchu title.)
“At the time of Galdan Khan’s invasion, a part of them fled to
Siberia with the eastern Khalkhas, but afterwards they returned.
[_Mung ku yew mu ki_ and _Lung sha ki lio_.] After their rebellion
in 1696, quelled by a Manchu General, they were included with
other petty tribes (regarding which few researches have been made)
in the category _butkha_, or hunters, and received a military
organisation. They are divided into Old and New Barhu, according
to the time when they were brought under Manchu rule. The Barhus
belong to the Mongolian, not to the Tungusian race; they are
sometimes considered even to have been in relationship with the
Khalkhas. (_He lung kiang wai ki_ and _Lung sha ki lio_.)
“This is all the substantial information we possess on the Barhu.
Is there an affinity to be found between the modern Barhus and the
Barhuns of Chingis Khan’s biography?—and is it to be supposed, that
in the course of time, they spread from Lake Baikal to the Hing’an
range? Or is it more correct to consider them a branch of the
Mongol race indigenous to the Hing’an Mountains, and which received
the general archaic name of Bargu, which might have pointed out the
physical character of the country they inhabited [_Kin Shi_], just
as we find in history the Urianhai of Altai and the Urianhai of
Western Manchuria? It is difficult to solve this question for want
of historical data.”—H. C.]
_Mescript_, or _Mecri_, as in G. T. The _Merkit_, a great tribe
to the south-east of the Baikal, were also called _Mekrit_, and
sometimes _Megrin_. The Mekrit are spoken of also by Carpini and
Rubruquis. D’Avezac thinks that the _Kerait_, and not the _Merkit_,
are intended by all three travellers. As regards Polo, I see
no reason for this view. The name he uses is _Mekrit_, and the
position which he assigns to them agrees fairly with that assigned
on good authority to the Merkit or Mekrit. Only, as in other cases,
where he is rehearsing hearsay information, it does not follow that
the identification of the name involves the correctness of all the
circumstances that he connects with that name. We saw in ch. xxx.
that under _Pashai_ he seemed to lump circumstances belonging to
various parts of the region from Badakhshan to the Indus; so here
under _Mekrit_ he embraces characteristics belonging to tribes
extending far beyond the Mekrit, and which in fact are appropriate
to the Tunguses. Rashiduddin seems to describe the latter under
the name of _Uriangkut_ of the Woods, a people dwelling beyond the
frontier of Barguchin, and in connection with whom he speaks of
their Reindeer obscurely, as well as of their tents of birch bark,
and their hunting on snow-shoes.
The mention of the Reindeer by Polo in this passage is one of the
interesting points which Pauthier’s text omits. Marsden objects
to the statement that the stags are ridden upon, and from this
motive mis-renders “_li qual’anche_ cavalcano,” as, “which
they make use of for the purpose of travelling.” Yet he might
have found in Witsen that the Reindeer are _ridden_ by various
Siberian Tribes, but especially by the Tunguses. Erman is very
full on the reindeer-riding of the latter people, having himself
travelled far in that way in going to Okhotsk, and gives a very
detailed description of the saddle, etc., employed. The reindeer
of the Tunguses are stated by the same traveller to be much larger
and finer animals than those of Lapland. They are also used for
pack-carriage and draught. Old Richard Eden says that the “olde
wryters” relate that “certayne Scythians doe ryde on Hartes.” I
have not traced to what he refers, but if the statement be in
any ancient author it is very remarkable. Some old editions of
Olaus Magnus have curious cuts of Laplanders and others riding on
reindeer, but I find nothing in the text appropriate. We hear from
travellers of the Lapland deer being occasionally mounted, but only
it would seem in sport, not as a practice. (_Erdmann_, 189, 191;
_D’Ohsson_, I. 103; _D’Avezac_, 534 _seqq._; _J. As._ sér. II.
tom. xi.; sér. IV. tom. xvii. 107; _N. et E._ XIII. i. 274–276;
_Witsen_, II. 670, 671, 680; _Erman_, II. 321, 374, 429, 449
_seqq._, and original German, II. 347 _seqq._; _Notes on Russia_,
Hac. Soc. II. 224; _J. A. S. B._ XXIX. 379.)
The numerous lakes and marshes swarming with water-fowl are very
characteristic of the country between Yakutsk and the Kolyma. It
is evident that Marco had his information from an eye-witness,
though the whole picture is compressed. Wrangell, speaking of
Nijni Kolyma, says: “It is at the moulting season that the great
bird-hunts take place. The sportsmen surround the nests, and slip
their dogs, which drive the birds to the water, on which they are
easily knocked over with a gun or arrow, or even with a stick....
This chase is divided into several periods. They begin with the
ducks, which moult first; then come the geese; then the swans....
In each case the people take care to choose the time when the birds
have lost their feathers.” The whole calendar with the Yakuts
and Russian settlers on the Kolyma is a succession of fishing
and hunting seasons which the same author details. (I. 149, 150;
119–121.)
NOTE 3.—What little is said of the _Barguerlac_ points to some
bird of the genus _Pterocles_, or Sand Grouse (to which belong
the so-called Rock Pigeons of India), or to the allied _Tetrao
paradoxus_ of Pallas, now known as _Syrrhaptes Pallasii_. Indeed,
we find in Zenker’s Dictionary that _Boghurtláḳ_ (or _Baghírtláḳ_,
as it is in Pavet de Courteille’s) in Oriental Turkish is the
_Kata_, _i.e._ I presume, the _Pterocles alchata_ of Linnæus, or
Large Pin-tailed Sand Grouse. Mr. Gould, to whom I referred the
point, is clear that the _Syrrhaptes_ is Marco’s bird, and I
believe there can be no question of it.
[Passing through Ch’ang-k’ou, Mr. Rockhill found the people praying
for rain. “The people told me,” he says, in his _Journey_ (p. 9),
“that they knew long ago the year would be disastrous, for the
sand grouse had been more numerous of late than for years, and the
saying goes _Sha-ch’i kuo, mai lao-po_, ‘when the sand grouse fly
by, wives will be for sale.’”—H. C.]
The chief difficulty in identification with the Syrrhaptes or any
known bird, would be “the feet like a parrot’s.” The feet of the
Syrrhaptes are not indeed like a parrot’s, though its awkward,
slow, and waddling gait on the ground, may have suggested the
comparison; and though it has very odd and anomalous feet, a
circumstance which the Chinese indicate in another way by calling
the bird (according to Huc) _Lung Kio_, or “Dragon-foot.” [Mr.
Rockhill (_Journey_) writes in a note (p. 9): “I, for my part,
never heard any other name than _sha-ch’i_, ‘sand-fowl,’ given
them. This name is used, however, for a variety of birds, among
others the partridge.”—H. C.] The hind-toe is absent, the toes are
unseparated, recognisable only by the broad flat nails, and fitted
below with a callous couch, whilst the whole foot is covered with
short dense feathers like hair, and is more like a quadruped’s paw
than a bird’s foot.
The home of the Syrrhaptes is in the Altai, the Kirghiz Steppes,
and the country round Lake Baikal, though it also visits the North
of China in great flights. “On plains of grass and sandy deserts,”
says Gould (_Birds of Great Britain_, Part IV.), “at one season
covered with snow, and at another sun-burnt and parched by drought,
it finds a congenial home; in these inhospitable and little-known
regions it breeds, and when necessity compels it to do so, wings
its way ... over incredible distances to obtain water or food.” Huc
says, speaking of the bird on the northern frontier of China: “They
generally arrive in great flights from the north, especially when
much snow has fallen, flying with astonishing rapidity, so that the
movement of their wings produces a noise like hail.” It is said to
be very delicate eating. The bird owes its place in Gould’s _Birds
of Great Britain_ to the fact—strongly illustrative of its being
_moult volant_, as Polo says it is—that it appeared in England in
1859, and since then, at least up to 1863, continued to arrive
annually in pairs or companies in nearly all parts of our island,
from Penzance to Caithness. And Gould states that it was breeding
in the Danish islands. A full account by Mr. A. Newton of this
remarkable immigration is contained in the _Ibis_ for April, 1864,
and many details in _Stevenson’s Birds of Norfolk_, I. 376 _seqq._
There are plates of _Syrrhaptes_ in _Radde’s Reisen im Süden
von Ost-Sibirien_, Bd. II.; in vol. v. of _Temminck_, Planches
Coloriées, Pl. 95; in _Gould_, as above; in _Gray, Genera of
Birds_, vol. iii. p. 517 (life size); and in the _Ibis_ for April,
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