And In Those Mountains It Is So Cold That You
Find Neither Man Or Woman, Nor Beast Nor Bird, Except One Kind Of Bird
Called Barguerlac, On Which The Falcons Feed.
They are as big as
partridges, and have feet like those of parrots and a tail like a
swallow's, and are very strong in flight.
And when the Grand Kaan wants
Peregrines from the nest, he sends thither to procure them.[NOTE 3] It is
also on islands in that sea that the Gerfalcons are bred. You must know
that the place is so far to the north that you leave the North Star
somewhat behind you towards the south! The gerfalcons are so abundant
there that the Emperor can have as many as he likes to send for. And you
must not suppose that those gerfalcons which the Christians carry into the
Tartar dominions go to the Great Kaan; they are carried only to the Prince
of the Levant.[NOTE 4]
Now I have told you all about the provinces northward as far as the Ocean
Sea, beyond which there is no more land at all; so I shall proceed to tell
you of the other provinces on the way to the Great Kaan. Let us, then,
return to that province of which I spoke before, called Campichu.
NOTE 1. - The readings differ as to the length of the journey. In
Pauthier's text we seem to have first a journey of forty days from near
Karakorum to the Plain of Bargu, and then a journey of forty days more
across the plain to the Northern Ocean.
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