our composed of many
small plates of iron, a hand-breadth long and an inch broad, perforated
with eight small holes, by which they are tied with small leather thongs to
strong thongs of leather underneath, so that the plates overlap each other
in regular series, and are firmly knit together. The armour both of men and
horses is often made in this fashion, and is kept finely burnished. Some
carry lances having hooks, to pull their enemies from horseback. Their
arrow-heads are exceedingly sharp on both edges, and every man carries a
file to sharpen them. Their targets are made of wicker, but they are hardly
ever carried, except by the night guards, especially those in attendance
upon the emperor and the princes.

The Tartars are exceedingly crafty in war, in which they have been
continually engaged for the last forty-two years against all the
surrounding nations. When they have to pass rivers, the principal people
secure their garments in bags of thin leather, drawn together like purses,
and closely tied. They fix these to their saddles, along with their other
baggage, and tie the whole to their horse's tail, sitting upon the whole
bundle as a kind of boat or float; and the man who guides the horse is made
to swim in a similar manner, sometimes having two oars to assist in rowing,
as it were, across the river. The horse is then forced into the river, and
all the other horses follow, and in this manner they pass across deep and
rapid rivers[1]. The poorer people have each a purse or bag of leather well
sewed, into which they pack up all their things, well tied up at the mouth,
which they hang to the tails of their horses, and thus swim across.

[1] This mode of passing over rivers, though carefully translated, is by no
means obviously described. I am apt to suppose that the leathern bags,
besides holding the apparel and other valuables, were large enough to
be blown up with air so as to serve as floats, like those used by the
ancient Macedonians; a practice which they may have learnt from the
Scythians. The Latin of Vincentius Beluacensis appears to have been
translated from the French original of Carpini, from the following
circumstance: What is here translated their _other baggage_ is, in the
Latin, _alias res duriores_; almost with certainty mistakenly rendered
from the French _leurs autres hardes_.--E.

SECTION XVIII.

_How the Tartars ought to be resisted._

No single king