souls.  It is pitched with its door to the south, and the Barons and Knights remain in waiting in it, whilst the Lord abides in another close to it on the west side.  When he wishes to speak with any one he causes the person to be summoned to that other tent.  Immediately behind the great tent there is a fine large chamber where the Lord sleeps; and there are also many other tents and chambers, but they are not in contact with the Great Tent as these are.  The two audience-tents and the sleeping-chamber are constructed in this way.  Each of the audience-tents has three poles, which are of spice-wood, and are most artfully covered with lions’ skins, striped with black and white and red, so that they do not suffer from any weather.  All three apartments are also covered outside with similar skins of striped lions, a substance that lasts for ever.[NOTE 7] And inside they are all lined with ermine and sable, these two being the finest and most costly furs in existence.  For a robe of sable, large enough to line a mantle, is worth 2000 bezants of gold, or 1000 at least, and this kind of skin is called by the Tartars “The King of Furs.”  The beast itself is about the size of a marten.[NOTE 8] These two furs of which I speak are applied and inlaid so exquisitely, that it is really something worth seeing.  All the tent-ropes are of silk.  And in short I may say that those tents, to wit the two audience-halls and the sleeping-chamber, are so costly that it is not every king could pay for them.

Round about these tents are others, also fine ones and beautifully pitched, in which are the Emperor’s ladies, and the ladies of the other princes and officers.  And then there are the tents for the hawks and their keepers, so that altogether the number of tents there on the plain is something wonderful.  To see the many people that are thronging to and fro on every side and every day there, you would take the camp for a good big city.  For you must reckon the Leeches, and the Astrologers, and the Falconers, and all the other attendants on so great a company; and add that everybody there has his whole family with him, for such is their custom.

The Lord remains encamped there until the spring, and all that time he does nothing but go hawking round about among the canebrakes along the lakes and rivers that abound in that region, and across fine plains on which are plenty of cranes and swans, and all sorts of other fowl.  The other gentry of the camp also are never done with hunting and hawking, and every day they bring home great store of venison and feathered game of all sorts.  Indeed, without having witnessed it, you would never believe what quantities of game are taken, and what marvellous sport and diversion they all have whilst they are in camp there.