Botero had "heard
from a trustworthy source that a Tartar of Perekop, travelling on the
steppes, lived for some days on the blood of his horse, and then, not
daring to bleed it more, cut off and ate its ears!" (Relazione
Univers.
P. 93.) The Turkmans speak of such practices, but Conolly says
he came to regard them as hyperbolical talk (I. 45).
[Abul-Ghazi Khan, in his History of Mongols, describing a raid of Russian
(Ourous) Cossacks, who were hemmed in by the Uzbeks, says: "The Russians
had in continued fighting exhausted all their water. They began to drink
blood; the fifth day they had not even blood remaining to drink."
(Transl. by Baron Des Maisons, St. Petersburg, II. 295.)]
NOTE 5. - Rubruquis thus describes this preparation, which is called
Kurut: "The milk that remains after the butter has been made, they allow
to get as sour as sour can be, and then boil it. In boiling, it curdles,
and that curd they dry in the sun; and in this way it becomes as hard as
iron-slag. And so it is stored in bags against the winter. In the winter
time, when they have no milk, they put that sour curd, which they call
Griut, into a skin, and pour warm water on it, and they shake it
violently till the curd dissolves in the water, to which it gives an acid
flavour; that water they drink in place of milk. But above all things they
eschew drinking plain water." From Pallas's account of the modern
practice, which is substantially the same, these cakes are also made from
the leavings of distillation in making milk-arrack. The Kurut is
frequently made of ewe-milk. Wood speaks of it as an indispensable article
in the food of the people of Badakhshan, and under the same name it is a
staple food of the Afghans. (Rubr. 229; Samml. I. 136; Dahl, u.s.;
Wood, 311.)
[It is the ch'ura of the Tibetans. "In the Kokonor country and Tibet,
this krut or chura is put in tea to soften, and then eaten either
alone or mixed with parched barley meal (tsamba)." (Rockhill, Rubruck,
p. 68, note.) - H. C.]
NOTE 6. - Compare with Marco's account the report of the Mongols, which was
brought by the spies of Mahomed, Sultan of Khwarizm, when invasion was
first menaced by Chinghiz: "The army of Chinghiz is countless, as a swarm
of ants or locusts. Their warriors are matchless in lion-like valour, in
obedience, and endurance. They take no rest, and flight or retreat is
unknown to them. On their expeditions they are accompanied by oxen, sheep,
camels, and horses, and sweet or sour milk suffices them for food. Their
horses scratch the earth with their hoofs and feed on the roots and
grasses they dig up, so that they need neither straw nor oats. They
themselves reck nothing of the clean or the unclean in food, and eat the
flesh of all animals, even of dogs, swine, and bears.
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