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| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.2 |
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Citation Information
CHAP. XVII. THE HORSE TRADE
349
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neighbourhood, and the sum total of their value amounted to 2,200,000 dinars.
. . They bind them for 4o days in a stable with ropes and pegs, in order that they may get fat ; and afterwards, without taking measures for training, and without stirrups and other appurtenances of riding, the Indian soldiers ride upon them like demons. . . . In a short time, the most strong, swift, fresh, and active horses become weak, slow, useless, and stupid. In short, they all become wretched and good for nothing. . . . There is, therefore, a constant necessity of getting new horses annually." Amír hhusru mentions among Malik Kaffir's plunder in Ma'bar, 5000 Arab and Syrian horses. (Elliot, III. 34, 93.)
The price mentioned by Polo appears to be intended for 500 dinars, which in the then existing relations of the precious metals in Asia would be worth just about ioo marks of silver. Wassáf's price, 220 dinars of red gold, seems very inconsistent with this, but is not so materially, for it would appear that the dinar of red gold (so called) was worth two dinars.*
*
I noted an early use of the term Arab chargers in the famous Bodleian copy of the Alexander Romance (1338) :
" Alexand' descent du destrier Arrabis."
NOTE 8.—I have not found other mention of a condemned criminal being allowed thus to sacrifice himself ; but such suicides in performance of religious vows have occurred in almost all parts of India in all ages. Friar Jordanus, after giving a similar account to that in the text of the parade of the victim, represents him as cutting off his own head before the idol, with a peculiar two-handled knife " like those used in currying leather." And strange as this sounds it is undoubtedly true. Ibn Batuta witnessed the suicidal feat at the Court of the Pagan hing of Mul-Java (somewhere on the coast of the Gulf of Siam), and Mr. Ward, without any knowledge of these authorities, had heard that an instrument for this purpose was formerly preserved at Kshíra, a village of Bengal near Nadiya. The thing was called Karavat ; it was a crescent-shaped knife, with chains attached to it forming stirrups, so adjusted that when the fanatic placed the edge to the back of his neck and his feet in the stirrups, by giving the latter a violent jerk his head was cut off. Padre Tieffentaller mentions a like instrument at Prág (or Allahabad). Durgavati, a famous Queen on the Nerbada, who fell in battle with the troops of Akbar, is asserted in a family inscription to have " severed her own head with a scimitar she held in her hand." According to a wild legend told at Ujjain, the great king Vikramajit was in the habit of cutting off his own head daily, as an offering to Devi. On the last performance the head failed to re-attach itself as usual ; and it is now preserved, petrified, in the temple of Ilarsuddi at that place.
I never heard of anybody in Europe performing this extraordinary feat except Sir Jonah Barrington's Irish mower, who made a dig at a salmon with the butt of his scythe-handle and dropt his own head in the pool ! (ford. 33 ; I. B. IV. 246 ; Ward, Madras ed. 249-250 ; J. A. S. B. XVII. 833 ; Reis Mála, II. 387.)
NOTE 9.—Satis were very numerous in parts of S. India. In 1815 there were one hundred in Tanjore alone. (Ritter, VI. 303 ; J. Cathay, p. So.)
NOTE Io.—" The people in this part of the country (Southern Mysore) consider the ox as a living god, who gives them bread ; and in every village there are one or two bulls to whom weekly or monthly worship is performed." (F. Buchanan, II. 174.) " The low-caste Hindus, called Gavi by Marco Polo, were probably the caste now called Paraiyar (by the English, Pariahs). The people of this caste do not venture to kill the cow, but when they find the carcase of a cow which has died from disease, or
* See Journ. Asiat. sér. VI. tom. xi. pp. 505 and 512. May not the dinár of red gold have been the gold mohr of those days, popularly known as the red tanga, which Ibn Batuta repeatedly tells us was equal to 2i dinárs of the west. 220 red tangas would be equivalent to 550 western dinars, or saggi,
of Polo. (Elliot, II. 332, III. 582.)
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