_Dahl_, u.s.;
_Wood_, 311.)

[It is the _ch'ura_ of the Tibetans. "In the Kokonor country and Tibet,
this _krut_ or _chura_ is put in tea to soften, and then eaten either
alone or mixed with parched barley meal (_tsamba_)." (_Rockhill, Rubruck_,
p. 68, note.)--H. C.]

NOTE 6.--Compare with Marco's account the report of the Mongols, which was
brought by the spies of Mahomed, Sultan of Khwarizm, when invasion was
first menaced by Chinghiz: "The army of Chinghiz is countless, as a swarm
of ants or locusts. Their warriors are matchless in lion-like valour, in
obedience, and endurance. They take no rest, and flight or retreat is
unknown to them. On their expeditions they are accompanied by oxen, sheep,
camels, and horses, and sweet or sour milk suffices them for food. Their
horses scratch the earth with their hoofs and feed on the roots and
grasses they dig up, so that they need neither straw nor oats. They
themselves reck nothing of the clean or the unclean in food, and eat the
flesh of all animals, even of dogs, swine, and bears. They will open a
horse's vein, draw blood, and drink it.... In victory they leave neither
small nor great alive; they cut up women great with child and cleave the
fruit of the womb. If they come to a great river, as they know nothing of
boats, they sew skins together, stitch up all their goods therein, tie the
bundle to their horses' tails, mount with a hard grip of the mane, and so
swim over." This passage is an absolute abridgment of many chapters of
Carpini. Still more terse was the sketch of Mongol proceedings drawn by a
fugitive from Bokhara after Chinghiz's devastations there. It was set
forth in one unconscious hexameter:

"_Amdand u khandand u sokhtand u kushtand u burdand u raftand!_"
"They came and they sapped, they fired and they slew, trussed up their
loot and were gone!"

Juwaini, the historian, after telling the story, adds: "The cream and
essence of whatever is written in this volume might be represented in
these few words."

A Musulman author quoted by Hammer, Najmuddin of Rei, gives an awful
picture of the Tartar devastations, "Such as had never been heard of,
whether in the lands of unbelief or of Islam, and can only be likened to
those which the Prophet announced as signs of the Last Day, when he said:
'The Hour of Judgment shall not come until ye shall have fought with the
Turks, men small of eye and ruddy of countenance, whose noses are flat,
and their faces like h