our only drink melted snow.  Passing eastwards through Comania, we travelled continually with great expedition, changing our horses five times a day, and sometimes oftener; except when we had to pass through deserts, on which occasions we had stronger horses allowed, that were able to undergo the whole labour.  In this manner we travelled, almost without ceasing, from the beginning of Lent, until eight days after Easter, including our journey to the court of Baatu.

On the north of Comania, immediately beyond Russia, lie the people called Morduyni-Byleri[1] in great Bulgaria, and the Bastarci in great Hungary; beyond the Bastarci are the Parositae and Samogetae; and beyond these, on the desert shores of the ocean, a people who are said to have dogs faces.  On the south, Comania has the Alani, Circassians, Gazarians, Greece, and Constantinople, the land of the Iberians, the Cattes, the Brutaches, who are said to be Jews, who shave the whole of their heads, and the lands of the Scythians, Georgians, Armenians, and Turks.  On the west are Hungary and Russia.  Comania is a country of great length and breadth, the inhabitants of which were mostly extirpated by the Tartars, though many of them were reduced to bondage and some fled, but the fugitives have in general returned, and now serve the Tartars.  We next entered the land of the Kangittae, which has few inhabitants, owing to a great scarcity of water.  From this circumstance, several of the servants of Jeroslaus, duke of Russia, perished in the desert, when travelling to join him in the land of the Tartars.  Both here and in Comania, we found many human bones and skulls in large heaps[2].  The Comanians and Kangittae, were pagans who dwelt in tents, and lived entirely on the produce of their flocks and herds, without practising any tillage whatever.  On their conquest, a great part of the Kangittae were rooted out by the Tartars, and the remnant reduced to bondage.

[1] The Morduyni, Morduas, or Merdas, were probably the same
    people with those now called Tscheremisses, who call themselves
    Mari-murt, or the people of Mari.—­E.

[2] Probably Tartar trophies of victory.  Even Timour, the great
    Mongol conqueror after Zingis, so much vaunted by many writers for his
    virtues and humanity, used to order the erection of immense pyramids
    of recent human heads, in memory of victory.—­E.

SECTION XXIV.

The arrival of Carpini at the first Station of the new Emperor.

From the land of the Kangittae we entered the country of the Bisermini, who speak the Comanian language and observe the law of Mahomet.  In this country we saw innumerable ruined cities and castles, and many towns left desolate.  The former sovereign of this country, which is full of high mountains, was called Alti Soldan, who, with all his lineage, was destroyed by the Tartars.  On the south side lie