THE SCENE: Medieval travelogues tended to combine insight and idiocy in fairly quick succession, as can be demonstrated in the passage below, which describes early dogsleds and skis, but also recounts some fairly uncharitable cultural commentary.
THE TEXT: At a distance of twenty days from the Bulgars is a land called Isu, and beyond this is a people called Yura; these are savage people, living in forests and not mixing with other men, for they fear that they may be harmed by them. The people of Bulghar journey to them, taking wares, such as clothes, salt and other things, in contrivances drawn by dogs over the heaped snows, which never clear away.
It is impossible for a man to go over these snows, unless he binds on to his feet the thigh bones of oxen, and takes in his hands a pair of javelins which he thrusts backwards into the snow, so that his feet slide forwards over the surface of the ice; with a favourable win he will travel a great distance by the day. The people of Yura trade by means of signs and dumb show, for they are wild and afraid of other men. From them are imported excellent sable and other fine furs; they hunt these animals, feeding on their flesh and wearing their skins.
Beyond these are a coast-dwelling people who travel far over the sea, without any definite purpose and intention; they merely do this in order to boast of reaching such and such a remote locality. They are a most ignorant and stupid tribe, and their ignorance is shown by the following. They sail in ships, and whenever two of their boats meet, the sailors lash the two together, and then they draw their swords and fight. This is their form of greeting. They come from the same town, perhaps from the same quarter, and there is no kind of enmity or rivalry between them; it is merely that this is their custom.
– The Nature of Animals, Sharaf al-Zaman Tahir Marwazi, 12th Century AD
