NOTE 4.—­On the Erculin and Ercolin of the G.T., written Arculin in next chapter, Arcolino of Ramusio, Herculini of Pipino, no light is thrown by the Italian or other editors.  One supposes of course some animal of the ermine or squirrel kinds affording valuable fur, but I can find no similar name of any such animal.  It may be the Argali or Siberian Wild Sheep, which Rubruquis mentions:  “I saw another kind of beast which is called Arcali; its body is just like a ram’s, and its horns spiral like a ram’s also, only they are so big that I could scarcely lift a pair of them with one hand.  They make huge drinking-vessels out of these” (p. 230). [See I. p. 177.]

Vair, so often mentioned in mediaeval works, appears to have been a name appropriate to the fur as prepared rather than to the animal.  This appears to have been the Siberian squirrel called in French petit-gris, the back of which is of a fine grey and the belly of a brilliant white.  In the Vair (which is perhaps only varius or variegated) the backs and bellies were joined in a kind of checquer; whence the heraldic checquer called by the same name.  There were two kinds, menu-vair corrupted into minever, and gros-vair, but I cannot learn clearly on what the distinction rested. (See Douet d’Arcq, p. xxxv.) Upwards of 2000 ventres de menuvair were sometimes consumed in one complete suit of robes (Ib. xxxii.).

The traps used by the Siberian tribes to take these valuable animals are described by Erman (I. 452), only in the English translation the description is totally incomprehensible; also in Wrangell, I. 151.

NOTE 5.—­The country chiefly described in this chapter is probably that which the Russians, and also the Arabian Geographers, used to term Yugria, apparently the country of the Ostyaks on the Obi.  The winter-dwellings of the people are not, strictly speaking, underground, but they are flanked with earth piled up against the walls.  The same is the case with those of the Yakuts in Eastern Siberia, and these often have the floors also sunk 3 feet in the earth.  Habitations really subterranean, of some previous race, have been found in the Samoyed country. (Klaproth’s Mag.  Asiatique, II. 66.)

CHAPTER XXI.

CONCERNING THE LAND OF DARKNESS.

Still further north, and a long way beyond that kingdom of which I have spoken, there is a region which bears the name of DARKNESS, because neither sun nor moon nor stars appear, but it is always as dark as with us in the twilight.  The people have no king of their own, nor are they subject to any foreigner, and live like beasts. [They are dull of understanding, like half-witted persons.[NOTE 1]]

The Tartars however sometimes visit the country, and they do it in this way.  They enter the region riding mares that have foals, and these foals they leave behind.  After taking all the plunder that they can get they find their way back by help of the mares, which are all eager to get back to their foals, and find the way much better than their riders could do. [NOTE 2]