e Je lessai_ d'or plain _quant nous commencames des faiz des Tatars."_
The former reading looks very like a misunderstanding of one similar to
the latter, where _d'or plain_ seems to be an adverbial expression, with
some such meaning as "just now," "a while ago." I have not, however, been
able to trace the expression elsewhere. Cotgrave has _or primes_, "but
even now," etc.; and has also _de plain_, "presently, immediately, out of
hand." It seems quite possible that _d'or plain_ should have had the
meaning suggested.

CHAPTER LVI.

SUNDRY PARTICULARS OF THE PLAIN BEYOND CARACORON.

And when you leave Caracoron and the Altay, in which they bury the bodies
of the Tartar Sovereigns, as I told you, you go north for forty days till
you reach a country called the PLAIN OF BARGU.[NOTE 1] The people there
are called MESCRIPT; they are a very wild race, and live by their cattle,
the most of which are stags, and these stags, I assure you, they used to
ride upon. Their customs are like those of the Tartars, and they are
subject to the Great Kaan. They have neither corn nor wine.[They get birds
for food, for the country is full of lakes and pools and marshes, which
are much frequented by the birds when they are moulting, and when they
have quite cast their feathers and can't fly, those people catch them.
They also live partly on fish.[NOTE 2]]

And when you have travelled forty days over this great plain you come to
the ocean, at the place where the mountains are in which the Peregrine
falcons have their nests. And in those mountains it is so cold that you
find neither man or woman, nor beast nor bird, except one kind of bird
called _Barguerlac_, on which the falcons feed. They are as big as
partridges, and have feet like those of parrots and a tail like a
swallow's, and are very strong in flight. And when the Grand Kaan wants
Peregrines from the nest, he sends thither to procure them.[NOTE 3] It is
also on islands in that sea that the Gerfalcons are bred. You must know
that the place is so far to the north that you leave the North Star
somewhat behind you towards the south! The gerfalcons are so abundant
there that the Emperor can have as many as he likes to send for. And you
must not suppose that those gerfalcons which the Christians carry into the
Tartar dominions go to the Great Kaan; they are carried only to the Prince
of the Levant.[NOTE 4]

Now I have told you all about the provinces northward as far as the Ocean