These people of Tebet are an ill-conditioned race. They have mastiff dogs as bigs as donkeys, which are capital at seizing wild beasts [and in particular the wild oxen which are called _Beyamini_, very great and fierce animals]. They have also sundry other kinds of sporting dogs, and excellent lanner falcons [and sakers], swift in flight and well-trained, which are got in the mountains of the country.{5} Now I have told you in brief all that is to be said about Tebet, and so we will leave it, and tell you about another province that is called Caindu. [Illustration: Village of Eastern Tibet on Sze-ch’wan Frontier. (From Cooper.)] As regards Tebet, however, you should understand that it is subject to the Great Kaan. So, likewise, all the other kingdoms, regions, and provinces which are described in this book are subject to the Great Kaan, nay, even those other kingdoms, regions, and provinces of which I had occasion to speak at the beginning of the book as belonging to the son of Argon, the Lord of the Levant, are also subject to the Emperor; for the former holds his dominion of the Kaan, and is his liegeman and kinsman of the blood Imperial. So you must know that from this province forward all the provinces mentioned in our book are subject to the Great Kaan; and even if this be not specially mentioned, you must understand that it is so. Now let us have done with this matter, and I will tell you about the Province of Caindu. [Illustration: Roads in Eastern Tibet. (Gorge of the Lan t’sang Kiang, from Cooper.)] NOTE 1.—Here Marco at least shows that he knew Tibet to be much more extensive than the small part of it that he had seen. But beyond this his information amounts to little. NOTE 2.—“_Or de paliolle._” “_Oro di pagliuola_” (_pagliuola_, “a spangle”) must have been the technical phrase for what we call gold-dust, and the French now call _or en paillettes_, a phrase used by a French missionary in speaking of this very region. (_Ann. de la Foi_, XXXVII. 427.) Yet the only example of this use of the word cited in the _Voc. Ital. Universale_ is from this passage of the Crusca MS.; and Pipino seems not to have understood it, translating “_aurum quod dicitur_ Deplaglola”; whilst Zurla says erroneously that _pajola_ is an old Italian word for _gold_. Pegolotti uses _argento in pagliuola_ (p. 219). A Barcelona tariff of 1271 sets so much on every mark of _Pallola_. And the old Portuguese navigators seem always to have used the same expression for the gold-dust of Africa, _ouro de pajola_. (See _Major’s Prince Henry_, pp. 111, 112, 116; _Capmany Memorias_, etc., II. App. p. 73; also “_Aurum_ de Pajola,” in Usodimare of Genoa, see _Gräberg, Annali_, II. 290, quoted by Peschel, p. 178.)