The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.2 / Page 542 (Color Image)

0542	The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.2

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MARCO POLO Boob IV.

multitudes of the Pharaoh's rat, on which the people live

all the summer time. Indeed they have plenty of all

sorts of wild creatures, for the country they inhabit is

very wild and trackless.'

And you must know that this King possesses one

tract of country which is quite impassable for horses, for

it abounds greatly in lakes and springs, and hence there

is so much ice as well as mud and mire, that horses

cannot travel over it. This difficult country is 13 days

in extent, and at the end of every day's journey there is

a post for the lodgment of the couriers who have to cross

this tract. At each of these post-houses they keep some

40 dogs of great size, in fact not much smaller than

donkeys, and these dogs draw the couriers over the day's

journey from post-house to post-house, and I will tell you

how. You see the ice and mire are so prevalent, that

over this tract, which lies for those 13 days' journey in a

great valley between two mountains, no horses (as I

told you) can travel, nor can any wheeled carriage either.

Wherefore they make sledges, which are carriages with-

out

wheels, and made so that they can run over the ice,

and also over mire and mud without sinking too deep in

it. Of these sledges indeed there are many in our own

country, for 'tis just such that are used in winter

for carrying hay and straw when there have been heavy

rains and the country is deep in mire. On such a

sledge then they lay a bear-skin on which the courier

sits, and the sledge is drawn by six of those big clogs that

I dogs spoke of. The dos have no driver, but go straight

P go straight

the next post-house, drawing the sledge famously

over ice and mire. The keeper of the post-house how-

ever also gets on a sledge drawn by dogs, and guides the

party by the best and shortest way. And when they

arrive at the next station they find a new relay of dogs

and sledges ready to take them on, whilst the old relay

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