tuals with fires of horse and cow dung. The climate is very intemperate,
as in the middle of summer there are terrible storms of thunder and
lightning, by which many people are killed, and even then there are great
falls of snow, and there blow such tempests of cold winds, that sometimes
people can hardly sit on horseback. In one of these, when near the Syra
Horde, by which name they signify the station of the emperor, or of any of
their princes, we had to throw ourselves prostrate on the ground, and could
not see by reason of the prodigious dust. It never rains in winter, but
frequently in summer, yet so gently as scarcely to lay the dust, or to
moisten the roots of the grass. But there are often prodigious showers of
hail; insomuch, that by the sudden melting of one of these, at the time
when the emperor elect was about to be placed on his throne, at which time
we were at the imperial court, above an hundred and sixty persons were
drowned, and many habitations and much valuable things were swept away. In
summer there are often sudden and intolerable heats, quickly followed by
extreme cold.

[1] This strange personification of the East and North, as if they were
stationary geographical terms, not merely, relative, only means that
Mongalia lay in the most north-easterly part of the then known world.
--E.

[2] Called likewise Karakum, or Caracorum, and said to signify the _Black
Sand_.--E

SECTION IV.

_Of the Appearance, Dress, and Manner of Living of the Tartars_.

The appearance of the Mongols or Tartars is quite different from all other
nations, being much wider between the eyes and cheeks, and their cheeks are
very prominent, with small flat noses, and small eyes, having the upper
lids opened up to the eyebrows, and their crowns are shaven like priests on
each side, leaving some long hair in the middle, the remainder being
allowed to grow long like women, which they twist into two tails or locks,
and bind behind their ears. The garments of the men and women are alike,
using neither cloaks, hats, nor caps, but they wear strange tunics made of
bucram, purple, or baldequin. Their gowns are made of skins, dressed in the
hair, and open behind. They never wash their clothes, neither do they allow
others to wash, especially in time of thunder, till that be over. Their
houses are round, and artificially made like tents, of rods and twigs
interwoven, having a round hole in the middle of the roof fo