Of Etym. sub. v.
Brattice; Viollet le Duc, by Macdermott, p. 40; La Curne de
Sainte-Palaye, Dict.; F. Godefroy, Dict.)
[John Ranking (Hist. Res. on the Wars and Sports of the Mongols and
Romans) in a note regarding this battle writes (p. 60): "It appears that
it is an old custom in Persia, to use four elephants a-breast." The Senate
decreed Gordian III. to represent him triumphing after the Persian mode,
with chariots drawn with four elephants. Augustan Hist. vol. ii. p. 65.
See plate, p. 52. - H. C.]
NOTE 2. - This circumstance is mentioned in the extract below from Gaubil.
He may have taken it from Polo, as it is not in Pauthier's Chinese
extracts; but Gaubil has other facts not noticed in these.
[Elephants came from the Indo-Chinese Kingdoms, Burma, Siam, Ciampa.
- H. C.]
NOTE 3. - The specification of the Tartar instrument of two strings is
peculiar to Pauthier's texts. It was no doubt what Dr. Clarke calls "the
balalaika or two-stringed lyre," the most common instrument among the
Kalmaks.
The sounding of the Nakkara as the signal of action is an old Pan-Asiatic
custom, but I cannot find that this very striking circumstance of the
whole host of Tartars playing and singing in chorus, when ordered for
battle and waiting the signal from the boom of the Big Drum, is mentioned
by any other author.
The Nakkarah or Nagarah was a great kettledrum, formed like a brazen
caldron, tapering to the bottom and covered with buffalo-hide - at least
3-1/2 or 4 feet in diameter.
