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.
