Nor have there ever been such forces in the field in actual
fight, especially of horsemen, as were then engaged - for, taking both
sides, there were not fewer than 760,000 horsemen, a mighty force! and
that without reckoning the footmen, who were also very numerous. The
battle endured with various fortune on this side and on that from morning
till noon. But at the last, by God's pleasure and the right that was on
his side, the Great Khan had the victory, and Nayan lost the battle and
was utterly routed. For the army of the Great Kaan performed such feats of
arms that Nayan and his host could stand against them no longer, so they
turned and fled. But this availed nothing for Nayan; for he and all the
barons with him were taken prisoners, and had to surrender to the Kaan
with all their arms.
Now you must know that Nayan was a baptized Christian, and bore the cross
on his banner; but this nought availed him, seeing how grievously he had
done amiss in rebelling against his Lord. For he was the Great Kaan's
liegeman,[NOTE 5] and was bound to hold his lands of him like all his
ancestors before him.[NOTE 6]
NOTE 1. - "Une grande bretesche." Bretesche, Bertisca (whence old
English Brattice, and Bartizan), was a term applied to any boarded
structure of defence or attack, but especially to the timber parapets and
roofs often placed on the top of the flanking-towers in mediaeval
fortifications; and this use quite explains the sort of structure here
intended. The term and its derivative Bartizan came later to be applied
to projecting guerites or watch-towers of masonry. Brattice in English
is now applied to a fence round a pit or dangerous machinery. (See
Muratori, Dissert. I. 334; Wedgwood's Dict. 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. Bernier, indeed, tells of Nakkaras in use at
the Court of Delhi that were not less than a fathom across; and Tod speaks
of them in Rajputana as "about 8 or 10 feet in diameter." The Tartar
Nakkarahs were usually, I presume, carried on a camel; but as Kublai had
begun to use elephants, his may have been carried on an elephant, as is
sometimes the case in India. Thus, too, P. della Valle describes those of
an Indian Embassy at Ispahan: "The Indian Ambassador was also accompanied
by a variety of warlike instruments of music of strange kinds, and
particularly by certain Naccheras of such immense size that each pair had
an elephant to carry them, whilst an Indian astride upon the elephant
between the two Naccheras played upon them with both hands, dealing strong
blows on this one and on that; what a din was made by these vast drums, and
what a spectacle it was, I leave you to imagine."
Joinville also speaks of the Nakkara as the signal for action: "So he was
setting his host in array till noon, and then he made those drums of
theirs to sound that they call Nacaires, and then they set upon us horse
and foot." The Great Nakkara of the Tartars appears from several Oriental
histories to have been called Kurkah. I cannot find this word in any
dictionary accessible to me, but it is in the Ain Akbari (Kawargah) as
distinct from the Nakkarah. Abulfazl tells us that Akbar not only had a
rare knowledge of the science of music, but was likewise an excellent
performer - especially on the Nakkarah!
[Illustration: Nakkaras. (From a Chinese original.)]
The privilege of employing the Nakkara in personal state was one granted
by the sovereign as a high honour and reward.
The crusades naturalised the word in some form or other in most European
languages, but in our own apparently with a transfer of meaning. For
Wright defines Naker as "a cornet or horn of brass." And Chaucer's use
seems to countenance this: -
"Pipes, Trompes, Nakeres, and Clariounes,
That in the Bataille blowen blody sounes."
- The Knight's Tale.
On the other hand, Nacchera, in Italian, seems always to have retained the
meaning of kettle-drum, with the slight exception of a local application
at Siena to a metal circle or triangle struck with a rod. The fact seems
to be that there is a double origin, for the Arabic dictionaries not only
have Nakkarah, but Nakir and Nakur, "cornu, tuba." The orchestra of
Bibars Bundukdari, we are told, consisted of 40 pairs of kettle-drums, 4
drums, 4 hautbois, and 20 trumpets (Nakir). (Sir B. Frere; Della
Valle, II.
