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| IIIF Color HighRes |
| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
266 MARCO POLO BooK I.
give them chase, for as they flee they shoot back over their heads, and do great
execution among their pursuers. They keep very close rank, so that you would not guess them for half their real strength." Carpini speaks to the same effect. Baber, himself of Mongol descent, but heartily hating his kindred, gives this account of their military usage in his day : " Such is the uniform practice of these wretches the
Moghuls ; if they defeat the enemy they instantly seize the booty ; if they are defeated, they plunder and dismount their own allies, and, betide what may, carry off the spoil." (Erdmann, 364, 383, 620 ; Gold. Horde, 77, 8o ; Elliot, II. 388 ; Hayton
in Ram. eh. xlviii. ; Baber, 93 ; Carpini, p. 694. )
NOTE 7.—" The Scythians " (i.e. in the absurd Byzantine pedantry, Tartars), says Nicephorus Gregoras, "from converse with the Assyrians, Persians, and Chaldxans, in time acquired their manners and adopted their religion, casting off their ancestral
atheism And to such a degree were they changed, that though in former
days they had been wont to cover the head with nothing better than a loose felt cap, and for other clothing had thought themselves well off with the skins of wild beasts or ill-dressed leather, and had for weapons only clubs and slings, or spears, arrows, and bows extemporised from the oaks and other trees of their mountains and forests, now, forsooth, they will have no meaner clothing than brocades of silk and gold ! And their luxury and delicate living came to such a pitch that they stood far as the poles asunder from their original habits " (II. v. 6).
CHAPTER LV.
CONCERNING THE ADMINISTERING OF JUSTICE AMONG THE TARTARS.
THE way they administer justice is this. When any
one has committed a petty theft, they give him, under
the orders of authority, seven blows of a stick, or
seventeen, or twenty-seven, or thirty-seven, or forty-
seven, and so forth, always increasing by tens in propor-
tion to the injury done, and running up to one hundred
and seven. Of these beatings sometimes they die.'
But if the offence be horse-stealing, or some other
great matter, they cut the thief in two with a sword.
Howbeit, if he be able to ransom himself by paying
nine times the value of the thing stolen, he is let off.
Every Lord or other person who possesses beasts has
them marked with his peculiar brand, be they horses,
mares, camels, oxen, cows, or other great cattle, and
then they are sent abroad to graze over thep lains
bol
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