THE SCENE: Marco Polo, who spent the better part of his life in service of Kubla Khan, describes the nuts-and-bolts of what made the Mongol horsemen so effective.
THE TEXT: As to their costume, the rich wear cloth of gold and silk and rich furs – sable and ermine and miniver and fox. And all their trappings are very fine and very costly. Their weapons are bows and sword and clubs; but they rely mainly on their bows, for they are excellent archers. On their back they wear an armour of buffalo hide or some other leather which is very tough.
They are stout fighters, excelling in courage and hardihood. Let me explain how it is that they can endure more than any other men. Often enough, if need be, they will go or stay for a whole month without provisions, drinking only the milk of a mare and eating wild game of their own taking. Their horses, meanwhile, support themselves by grazing, so that there is no need to carry barley or straw. They are very obedient to their masters. In case of need they will stay all night on horseback under arms, while their mount goes on steadily cropping the grass. They are of all men in the world the best able to endure exertion and hardship and the least costly to maintain and therefore the best adapted for conquering territory and overthrowing kingdoms.
When they are going on a long expedition, they carry no baggage with them. They each carry two leather flasks to hold the milk they drink and a small pot for cooking meat. They also carry a small tent to shelter them from the rain. In case of need, they will ride a good ten days’ journey without provision and without making a fire, living only on the blood of their horses; for every rider pierces a vein of his horse and drinks the blood. They also have their dried milk, which is solid like paste, and this is how they dry it. First they brink the milk to the boil. At the appropriate moment they skim off the cream that floats on the surface and out it in another vessel to be made into butter, because so long as it remained the milk could not be dried. Then they stand the milk in the sun and leave it to dry. When they are going on an expedition, they take about ten pounds of this milk; and every morning they take out about half a pound of it and put it in a small leather flask, shaped like a gourd with as much water as they please. Then, while they ride, the milk in this flask dissolves into a fluid, which they drink. And this is their breakfast.
– The Travels, Marco Polo, 14th Century AD
