Chapter XXIV: Section III

_Of the Situation and Quality of the Land of the Tartars, from Carpini_.

The land of Mongolia or Tartary is in the east part of the world, where the east and north are believed to unite[1]; haying the country of Kathay, and the people called Solangi on the east; on the south the country of the Saracens; the land of the Huini on the south-east; on the west the province of Naimani, and the ocean on the north. In some parts it is full of mountains, in other parts quite plain; but everywhere interspersed with sandy barrens, not an hundredth part of the whole being fertile, as it cannot be cultivated except where it is watered with rivers, which are very rare. Hence there are no towns or cities, except one named Cracurim[2], which is said to be tolerably good. We did not see that place, although within half a day's journey, when we were at the horde of Syra, the court of their great emperor. Although otherwise infertile, this land is well adapted for the pasture of cattle. In some places there are woods of small extent, but the land is mostly destitute of trees; insomuch, that even the emperor and princes, and all others, warm themselves and cook their victuals with fires of horse and cow dung. The climate is very intemperate, as in the middle of summer there are terrible storms of thunder and lightning, by which many people are killed, and even then there are great falls of snow, and there blow such tempests of cold winds, that sometimes people can hardly sit on horseback. In one of these, when near the Syra Horde, by which name they signify the station of the emperor, or of any of their princes, we had to throw ourselves prostrate on the ground, and could not see by reason of the prodigious dust. It never rains in winter, but frequently in summer, yet so gently as scarcely to lay the dust, or to moisten the roots of the grass. But there are often prodigious showers of hail; insomuch, that by the sudden melting of one of these, at the time when the emperor elect was about to be placed on his throne, at which time we were at the imperial court, above an hundred and sixty persons were drowned, and many habitations and much valuable things were swept away. In summer there are often sudden and intolerable heats, quickly followed by extreme cold.

[1] This strange personification of the East and North, as if they were
stationary geographical terms, not merely, relative, only means that
Mongalia lay in the most north-easterly part of the then known world.
--E.

[2] Called likewise Karakum, or Caracorum, and said to signify the _Black
Sand_.--E