al at least to L. 15,000 of our modern money; a
most magnificent present to an itinerant beggar.--E.

SECTION XXXVI.

_Account of the Country under the Dominion of the Great Khan of the Manners
and Customs of his Subjects; of a Wonderful Piece of Mechanism, constructed
by a French Goldsmith; and of the Palace of the Khan at Caracarum_.

From the time of our arrival at the court of Mangu-khan, the leskar or camp
made only two days journey towards the south; and it then began its
progress northwards, in the direction of Caracarum. In the whole of my
journey I was convinced of the truth of what I had been informed by Baldwin
de Hainault at Constantinople, that the whole way eastwards was by a
continual ascent, as all the rivers run from the east towards the west,
sometimes deviating towards the north or south, more or less directly, but
never running east, but this was farther confirmed to me by the priests who
came from Kathay[1]. From the place where I found Mangukhan, it is twenty
days journey south-east to Kathay, and ten days journey right east to Oman
Kerule, the original country of the Moal and of Zingis[2]. In those parts
there are no cities, but the country is inhabited by a people called
Su-Moall, or Mongols of the waters, who live upon fish and hunting, and
have neither flocks nor herds. Farther north, likewise, there is no city,
but a poor people of herdsmen, who are called Kerkis. The Orangin are there
also, who bind smooth bones under their feet, and thrust themselves with
such velocity over the ice and snow, as to overtake beasts in the chase.
There are many other poor nations in those parts, inhabiting as far to the
north as the cold will permit, who join on the west with the country of
Pascatir, or the Greater Hungary, of which I have made mention before[3].
In the north the mountains are perpetually covered with snow, and the
bounds are unknown by reason of the extreme cold. All these nations are
poor; yet they must all betake themselves to some employment, as Zingis
established a law that none was to be free from service till so old as to
be unable for work.

I was inquisitive about the monstrous men of whom Isidore and Solinus make
mention; but no one had ever seen any such, and I therefore doubt whether
it be true. Once a priest of Kathay sat by me, clothed in red, of whom I
asked how that colour was procured. He told me that on certain high; craggy
rocks in the east of Kathay there dwelt cer