D'Avezac
Thinks That The Kerait, And Not The Merkit, Are Intended By All Three
Travellers.
As regards Polo, I see no reason for this view.
The name he
uses is Mekrit, and the position which he assigns to them agrees fairly
with that assigned on good authority to the Merkit or Mekrit. Only, as in
other cases, where he is rehearsing hearsay information, it does not
follow that the identification of the name involves the correctness of all
the circumstances that he connects with that name. We saw in ch. xxx. that
under Pashai he seemed to lump circumstances belonging to various parts
of the region from Badakhshan to the Indus; so here under Mekrit he
embraces characteristics belonging to tribes extending far beyond the
Mekrit, and which in fact are appropriate to the Tunguses. Rashiduddin
seems to describe the latter under the name of Uriangkut of the Woods, a
people dwelling beyond the frontier of Barguchin, and in connection with
whom he speaks of their Reindeer obscurely, as well as of their tents of
birch bark, and their hunting on snow-shoes.
The mention of the Reindeer by Polo in this passage is one of the
interesting points which Pauthier's text omits. Marsden objects to the
statement that the stags are ridden upon, and from this motive mis-renders
"li qual' anche cavalcano," as, "which they make use of for the purpose
of travelling." Yet he might have found in Witsen that the Reindeer are
ridden by various Siberian Tribes, but especially by the Tunguses. Erman
is very full on the reindeer-riding of the latter people, having himself
travelled far in that way in going to Okhotsk, and gives a very detailed
description of the saddle, etc., employed. The reindeer of the Tunguses
are stated by the same traveller to be much larger and finer animals than
those of Lapland. They are also used for pack-carriage and draught. Old
Richard Eden says that the "olde wryters" relate that "certayne Scythians
doe ryde on Hartes." I have not traced to what he refers, but if the
statement be in any ancient author it is very remarkable. Some old
editions of Olaus Magnus have curious cuts of Laplanders and others riding
on reindeer, but I find nothing in the text appropriate. We hear from
travellers of the Lapland deer being occasionally mounted, but only it
would seem in sport, not as a practice. (Erdmann, 189, 191; D'Ohsson,
I. 103; D'Avezac, 534 seqq.; J. As. ser. II. tom. xi.; ser. IV. tom.
xvii. 107; N. et E. XIII. i. 274-276; Witsen, II. 670, 671, 680;
Erman, II. 321, 374, 429, 449 seqq., and original German, II. 347 seqq.;
Notes on Russia, Hac. Soc. II. 224; J. A. S. B. XXIX. 379.)
The numerous lakes and marshes swarming with water-fowl are very
characteristic of the country between Yakutsk and the Kolyma. It is
evident that Marco had his information from an eye-witness, though the
whole picture is compressed. Wrangell, speaking of Nijni Kolyma, says: "It
is at the moulting season that the great bird-hunts take place. The
sportsmen surround the nests, and slip their dogs, which drive the birds
to the water, on which they are easily knocked over with a gun or arrow,
or even with a stick.... This chase is divided into several periods. They
begin with the ducks, which moult first; then come the geese; then the
swans.... In each case the people take care to choose the time when the
birds have lost their feathers." The whole calendar with the Yakuts and
Russian settlers on the Kolyma is a succession of fishing and hunting
seasons which the same author details. (I. 149, 150; 119-121.)
NOTE 3. - What little is said of the Barguerlac points to some bird of
the genus Pterocles, or Sand Grouse (to which belong the so-called Rock
Pigeons of India), or to the allied Tetrao paradoxus of Pallas, now
known as Syrrhaptes Pallasii. Indeed, we find in Zenker's Dictionary
that Boghurtlak (or Baghirtlak, as it is in Pavet de Courteille's) in
Oriental Turkish is the Kata, i.e. I presume, the Pterocles alchata of
Linnaeus, or Large Pin-tailed Sand Grouse. Mr. Gould, to whom I referred
the point, is clear that the Syrrhaptes is Marco's bird, and I believe
there can be no question of it.
[Passing through Ch'ang-k'ou, Mr. Rockhill found the people praying for
rain. "The people told me," he says, in his Journey (p. 9), "that they
knew long ago the year would be disastrous, for the sand grouse had been
more numerous of late than for years, and the saying goes Sha-ch'i kuo,
mai lao-po, 'when the sand grouse fly by, wives will be for sale.'" - H.
C.]
The chief difficulty in identification with the Syrrhaptes or any known
bird, would be "the feet like a parrot's." The feet of the Syrrhaptes are
not indeed like a parrot's, though its awkward, slow, and waddling gait on
the ground, may have suggested the comparison; and though it has very odd
and anomalous feet, a circumstance which the Chinese indicate in another
way by calling the bird (according to Hue) Lung Kio, or "Dragon-foot."
[Mr. Rockhill (Journey) writes in a note (p. 9): "I, for my part, never
heard any other name than sha-ch'i, 'sand-fowl,' given them. This name
is used, however, for a variety of birds, among others the partridge." - H.
C.] The hind-toe is absent, the toes are unseparated, recognisable only by
the broad flat nails, and fitted below with a callous couch, whilst the
whole foot is covered with short dense feathers like hair, and is more
like a quadruped's paw than a bird's foot.
The home of the Syrrhaptes is in the Altai, the Kirghiz Steppes, and the
country round Lake Baikal, though it also visits the North of China in
great flights. "On plains of grass and sandy deserts," says Gould (Birds
of Great Britain, Part IV.), "at one season covered with snow, and at
another sun-burnt and parched by drought, it finds a congenial home; in
these inhospitable and little-known regions it breeds, and when necessity
compels it to do so, wings its way ... over incredible distances to obtain
water or food." Hue says, speaking of the bird on the northern frontier of
China:
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