IIIF Color HighRes
National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
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| IIIF Color HighRes |
| Marco Polo : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
THE DESCRIPTION OF THE WORLD, THE ROBBER CARAUNAS .3
there are also sheep large as asses, and they have the tail so thick, long, and so broad' z LT that it weighs in my judgement quite thirty pounds and more. They are white and VB z TA very beautiful and fat, and are very good to eat. And in this plain are several FB V cities & villages and towns which have the ramparts of earth high and thick and TA vi_ high towers to defend them from their enemies the people called Caraunas who are there VL L FB in plenty; these are a most cruel &' wicked race and robbers who go scouring the land VB
doing great harm. And why are they called Caraunas, which means to say as much as VA VB guasmul or mongrels in our tongue? Because long ago their mothers were Indian and VB their fathers Tartars. And these people when they wish to scour the whole land and y to rob, they make the whole day become dark like a dark night by their enchant- L ments and by devilish work, so that one does not see far or hardly at all, and one VA FB
hardly sees his comrade at his side. And this darkness they make from distant places to LT last seven days journeys2 in length through that plain . so that men cannot protect themselves v LT from them. • And then they who know the country very well, they ride through that L L V
plain. silent & one very close beside the other when they have made the darkness; and VL FB they arc sometimes quite [16b] ten thousand in a company, and sometimes more, and v sometimes less, and are divided in many parts, so that they make so long a line that v VA they seize the whole plain from which they wish to rob, so that all those whom they find on the plains outside town or castle cannot escape them, neither men nor FB V FB women nor beasts nor things, without being taken. And it is true that when they L have taken the mien, they kill all the old without any pity, & the young & the women VB FB they take & sell them in other places for serfs & for slaves, so that they greatly destroy the FB FB land & have made it almost all desert. • These have a king, & their king is called Negodar, LT a man of very great spirit. And this Negodar once went to the court of Ciagatai, lord VB V VB of a noble province, who was own brother to the great Kaan with quite ten thousand horsemen of his people and stayed with him for some time because he was his uncle FB VB and a very great lord. And while he stayed with him then that Negodar thought to FB himself and did a very great crime, and I will tell you how. He seduced ten thousand VB armed men of the best brigade which Ciagatai had, arid. one day he left his uncle Ciagatai v who was in Great Armenie and fled away with quite ten thousand horsemen of his FB people who were very cruel and wicked, and with these twenty thousand valiant & vs brave men he passed thence through Badascian and through a second province which FB is called Pasciai and through another province which has for name Chescemir, and FB there' he lost many of his people and of his animals because the ways were narrow
6.
1 VB adds: come castronj de tartarja, "like Tartary wethers". 2 VA: sete di
3 Co' ellan FA: et illec FB: et illecques VB: qujuj V: prese molta ,,ente. R: doue B. prints
elluec, but suggests allan "as he went''.
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