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| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
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CHAP. IV.
NAKKARAS OR KETTLEDRUMS
339
lost the battle and was utterly routed. For the army y
of the Great Kaan
performed such feats of arms that
Nayan and bis host could stand against them no longer,
so they turned and fled. But this availed nothing for
Nayan ayan ; for he and all the barons with him were taken
prisoners, and had to surrender to the Kaan with all
their arms.
Now you must know that Nayan was a baptized
Christian, and bore the cross on his banner ; but this
nought availed him, seeing how grievously he had done
amiss in rebelling against his Lord. For he was the
Great Kaan's liegeman,5 and was bound to hold his
lands of him like all his ancestors before him.6
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NOTE I. Une grande bretesche." Bretesche, Bertisca (whence old English
Brattice, and Bartizan), was a term applied to any boarded structure of defence or attack, but especially to the timber parapets and roofs often placed on the top of the flanking-towers in medieval fortifications ; and this use quite explains the sort of structure here intended. The term and its derivative Bartizan came later to be applied to projecting guérites or watch-towers of masonry. Brattice in English is now applied to a fence round a pit or dangerous machinery. (See Muratori, Dissert. I. 334 ; [Vedgwood's Dict. of Etym. sub. v. Brattice; Viollet le Dzzc, by Macdernzott, p. 4o ; La Curne de Sainte—Palaye, Did.; F. Godefroy, Dict. )
[John Ranking (Hist. Res. on the Wars and Sports of the Mongols and Romans) in a note regarding this battle writes (p. 6o) : " It appears that it is an old custom in Persia, to use four elephants a-breast." The Senate decreed Gordian III. to represent him triumphing after the Persian mode, with chariots drawn with four elephants. Augustan Hist. vol. ii. p. 65. See plate, p. 52.—H. C.]
f
NOTE 2.—This circumstance is mentioned in the extract below from Gaubil. He may have taken it from Polo, as it is not in Pauthier's Chinese extracts ; but Gaubil
has other facts not noticed in these.
[Elephants came from the Indo-Chinese Kingdoms, Burma, Siam, Ciampa.—II. C.]
NOTE 3.—The specification of the Tartar instrument of two strings is peculiar to Pauthier's texts. It was no doubt what Dr. Clarke calls " the balalaika or two-
stringed lyre," the most common instrument among the Kalmaks.
The sounding of the Nakkára as the signal of action is an old Pan-Asiatic custom, but I cannot find that this very striking circumstance of the whole host of Tartars playing and singing in chorus, when ordered for battle and waiting the signal from
the boom of the Big Drum, is mentioned by any other author.
The Nakkárah or Nagzíralz was a great kettledrum, formed like a brazen caldron, tapering to the bottom and covered with buffalo-hide—at least 31- or 4 feet in diameter. Bernier, indeed, tells of Nakkdras in use at the Court of Delhi that were
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not less than a fathom across ; and Tod speaks of them in Rájpútána as " about 8 or .1 1
.. io feet in diameter." The Tartar Nakkárahs were usually, I presume, carried on a if ..
camel ; but as Kúblái had begun to use elephants, his may have been carried on an •.. 111 ,i .,i
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