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 from the better grounded conviction that they should thus, at all events, become the undoubted heirs of their wealth.

Journeying westward for five days our traveller arrived at the province of Kardandan, where the current money were cowries brought from India, and gold in ingots. Gold was here so plentiful that it was exchanged for five times its weight in silver; and the inhabitants, who had probably been subject to the toothache, were in the habit of covering their teeth with thin plates of this precious metal, which, according to Marco, were so nicely fitted that the teeth appeared to be of solid gold. The practice of tattooing, which seems to have prevailed at one time or other over the whole world, was in vogue here, men being esteemed in proportion as their skins were more disfigured. Riding, hunting, and martial exercises occupied the whole time of the men, while the women, aided by the slaves who were purchased or taken in war, performed all the domestic labours. Another strange custom, the cause and origin of which, though it has prevailed in several parts of the world, is hidden in obscurity, obtained here; when a woman had been delivered of a child, she immediately quitted her bed, and having washed the infant, placed it in the hands of her husband, who, lying down in her stead, personated the sick person, nursed the child, and remained in bed six weeks, receiving the visits and condolences of his friends and neighbours. Meanwhile the woman bestirred herself, and performed her usual duties as if nothing had happened. Marco Polo could discover nothing more of the religious opinions of this people than that they worshipped the oldest man in their family, probably as the representative of the generative principle of nature. Broken, rugged, and stupendous mountains, no doubt the Himmalaya, rendered this wild country nearly inaccessible to strangers, who were further deterred