NOTE 4.—­There is a little doubt about the reading of this last paragraph.  The G. T. has—­“Mes desormes volun retorner a nostre conte en la grant plaingne ou nos estion quant nos comechames des fais des Tartars,” whilst Pauthier’s text has “Mais desormais vueil retourner a mon conte que 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 Sea, beyond which there is no more land at all; so I shall proceed to tell you of the other provinces on the way to the Great Kaan.  Let us, then, return to that province of which I spoke before, called Campichu.