JOHN DE PLANO CARPINI ad. \ 



1 246. j 



i 



How being repelled by monstrous men shapen . 



like dogs, they overcame the people of Buri- i 



thabeth. Chap. 11. \ 



! 



BUt returning through the deserts, they came into a ] 



certaine countrey, wherin (as it was reported unto us : 



in the Emperours court, by certaine clergie men of Russia, ! 



and others, who were long time among them, and that by ^ strange \ 



strong: and stedfast affirmation) they found certaine report of cer- 



^ IT .''..•' 1J1 tain monstrous \ 



monsters resembhng women : who being asked by many „^.^^^^^ ^^^ ; 



interpreters, where the men of that land were, they dogs. ] 



answered, that whatsoever women were borne there, were I 



indued with the shape of mankinde, but the males were - 



like unto dogges. And delaying the time, in that countrey \ 



they met with the said dogges on the other side of the river. 



And in the midst of sharpe winter, they cast themselves , 



into the water : Afterward they wallowed in the dust upon j 



the maine land, and so the dust being mingled with water, 



was frozen to their backes, and having often times so 



done, the ice being strongly frozen upon them, with great 



fiiry they came to fight against the Tartars. And when 



the Tartars threwe their dartes, or shot their arrowes 



among them, they rebounded backe againe, as if they had [I. 59.] 



lighted upon stones. And the rest of their weapons coulde 



by no meanes hurt them. Howbeit, the Dogges made an 



assault upon the Tartars, and wounding some of them 



with their teeth, and slaying others, at length they drave 



them out of their countries. And thereupon they have a 



Proverbe of the same matter, as yet rife among them, 



which they speake in jesting sorte one to another ; My 



father or my brother was slaine of Dogges. The women 



which they tooke, they brought into their owne countrey, 



who remayned there till their dying day. And in traveil- 



ing homewardes, the sayd armie of the Mongals came unto ^"^ r^&^'' °J 



the lande of Burithabeth (the inhabitants whereof are B^^^'^^^"^^'^^- 



Pagans) and conquered the people in battell. These 



people have a strange or rather a miserable kinde of 



147 



