THE DESCRIPTION OF THE WORLD, THE LAND OF DARKNESS away. The people have no king nor any ruler to whom they are subject, and they are LT Lr uncultured men and unmannered and they live like animals. Nor are they under the z dominion of any other rulers; though it is true that the Tartars who are their neighbours LT and live very near them, come in there sometimes in this way that I shall tell you, and seize and rob their animals and other goods &' do them much harm.' The Tartars indeed, • LT L because owing to the darkness and dimness of the air they would not know how to go back to LT their countries afterwards, come in there on mares which have foals, & they leave the foals outside, and have them watched by keepers whom they set at the entry of that LT LT region, because the mares when they have made their journey go back to their children z & by the perception & scent of the foals know the way better than the men know. And z in this way the Tartars come in on the mares of which I have told you & leave the foals outside, & rob them of all that they find with them ; & when the Tartars have robbed them in the land of shadows, when they wish to return to the region of light, LT they loose the reins of their mares, & let them go free where they wish. And the mares go whinneying back to their foals to the place where they left them, & know the way very LT LT well; & so in this way they take their riders back from the place from which they could not LT have returned by themselves. And these people have very great [io5d] quantities of skins and very dear; for they have sables which are of so great value as I have told you, c they have ermines, they have ercolins & squirrels and black foxes and of many y y other dear skins. And they are all very good hunters' who collect so many of these y L furs in the summer, when they have day and light continually, that it is a wonder, & of R R greater value than are those of the Tartars, who for this reason go to rob them. Moreover I tell you that people who border on them, who are in the light, buy them from them, all those skins. For these people who remain in darkness carry them to them in the z R summer to the light and sell them to them.' Moreover I tell you that these merchants who buy of these skins from them make too great profit of them and great gain. Moreover I tell you that these people are handsome, very large, and well made in all their LT z parts, but they are always very pale and have no colour, and this happens because of L LT the want of sun light. Moreover I tell you that the great Rosie borders at one end on this province, and by what I was told some of the said skins come into the province of R Rosie. Now there is nothing else which does to mention and so we will leave it
1 R adds, "And they go in the months when they have this darkness, so as not to be seen."
2 V ends here in the middle of a word, et sono tuti cha
3 que sunt a la carte les achatent del. tot celz qe pellarnes car cestes fens les portent elZ a la cartes elz
uendent el. For carte, cartes read clarte, clartes with YULE, following Z,LT,P, etc.; omit qe;
for elz uendent read e lez uendent
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