The beasts also are peculiar; and first I will tell you of their oxen.  These are very large, and all over white as snow; the hair is very short and smooth, which is owing to the heat of the country.  The horns are short and thick, not sharp in the point; and between the shoulders they have a round hump some two palms high.  There are no handsomer creatures in the world.  And when they have to be loaded, they kneel like the camel; once the load is adjusted, they rise.  Their load is a heavy one, for they are very strong animals.  Then there are sheep here as big as asses; and their tails are so large and fat, that one tail shall weigh some 30 lbs.  They are fine fat beasts, and afford capital mutton.[NOTE 2]

In this plain there are a number of villages and towns which have lofty walls of mud, made as a defence against the banditti,[NOTE 3] who are very numerous, and are called CARAONAS.  This name is given them because they are the sons of Indian mothers by Tartar fathers.  And you must know that when these Caraonas wish to make a plundering incursion, they have certain devilish enchantments whereby they do bring darkness over the face of day, insomuch that you can scarcely discern your comrade riding beside you; and this darkness they will cause to extend over a space of seven days’ journey.  They know the country thoroughly, and ride abreast, keeping near one another, sometimes to the number of 10,000, at other times more or fewer.  In this way they extend across the whole plain that they are going to harry, and catch every living thing that is found outside of the towns and villages; man, woman, or beast, nothing can escape them!  The old men whom they take in this way they butcher; the young men and the women they sell for slaves in other countries; thus the whole land is ruined, and has become well-nigh a desert.

The King of these scoundrels is called NOGODAR.  This Nogodar had gone to the Court of Chagatai, who was own brother to the Great Kaan, with some 10,000 horsemen of his, and abode with him; for Chagatai was his uncle.  And whilst there this Nogodar devised a most audacious enterprise, and I will tell you what it was.  He left his uncle who was then in Greater Armenia, and fled with a great body of horsemen, cruel unscrupulous fellows, first through BADASHAN, and then through another province called PASHAI-DIR, and then through another called ARIORA-KESHEMUR.  There he lost a great number of his people and of his horses, for the roads were very narrow and perilous.  And when he had conquered all those provinces, he entered India at the extremity of a province called DALIVAR.  He established himself in that city and government, which he took from the King of the country, ASEDIN SOLDAN by name, a man of great power and wealth.  And there abideth Nogodar with his army, afraid of nobody, and waging war with all the Tartars in his neighbourhood.[NOTE 4]

Now that I have told you of those scoundrels and their history, I must add the fact that Messer Marco himself was all but caught by their bands in such a darkness as that I have told you of; but, as it pleased God, he got off and threw himself into a village that was hard by, called CONOSALMI.  Howbeit he lost his whole company except seven persons who escaped along with him.  The rest were caught, and some of them sold, some put to death.[NOTE 5]