There is also in the same country another mountain, in which azure is found; ’tis the finest in the world, and is got in a vein like silver.  There are also other mountains which contain a great amount of silver ore, so that the country is a very rich one; but it is also (it must be said) a very cold one.[NOTE 3] It produces numbers of excellent horses, remarkable for their speed.  They are not shod at all, although constantly used in mountainous country, and on very bad roads. [They go at a great pace even down steep descents, where other horses neither would nor could do the like.  And Messer Marco was told that not long ago they possessed in that province a breed of horses from the strain of Alexander’s horse Bucephalus, all of which had from their birth a particular mark on the forehead.  This breed was entirely in the hands of an uncle of the king’s; and in consequence of his refusing to let the king have any of them, the latter put him to death.  The widow then, in despite, destroyed the whole breed, and it is now extinct.[NOTE 4]]

The mountains of this country also supply Saker falcons of excellent flight, and plenty of Lanners likewise.  Beasts and birds for the chase there are in great abundance.  Good wheat is grown, and also barley without husk.  They have no olive oil, but make oil from sesame, and also from walnuts.[NOTE 5]

[In the mountains there are vast numbers of sheep—­400, 500, or 600 in a single flock, and all of them wild; and though many of them are taken, they never seem to get aught the scarcer.[NOTE 6]

Those mountains are so lofty that ’tis a hard day’s work, from morning till evening, to get to the top of them.  On getting up, you find an extensive plain, with great abundance of grass and trees, and copious springs of pure water running down through rocks and ravines.  In those brooks are found trout and many other fish of dainty kinds; and the air in those regions is so pure, and residence there so healthful, that when the men who dwell below in the towns, and in the valleys and plains, find themselves attacked by any kind of fever or other ailment that may hap, they lose no time in going to the hills; and after abiding there two or three days, they quite recover their health through the excellence of that air.  And Messer Marco said he had proved this by experience:  for when in those parts he had been ill for about a year, but as soon as he was advised to visit that mountain, he did so and got well at once.[NOTE 7]]

[Illustration:  Ancient Silver Patera of debased Greek art, formerly in the possession of the Princes of Badakhshan, now in the India Museum.  (Four-ninths of the diameter of the Original.)]