Felt houses on wheels, drawn by thirty oxen
Editorial contextDescribing the great assembly Genghis held on the plain of Toncat, Pétis explains that most lords brought their 'moveable houses' on wheels. They had wooden floors, lattice walls, a dome with a smoke hole, and felt covers rubbed with sheep's milk, or among the rich plastered with tallow, to shed the rain. Some were so heavy with furniture that thirty oxen pulled one, and every door faced south.
Some were cover'd with Felt rubbed with Sheep's Milk, so that the Rain might run off without penetrating it. … they are sometimes so heavy, by reason of the Furniture they contain, that they are obliged to put to one of them thirty Oxen to draw it along.
About Mongols (Genghis Khan's nobles)
Keep in mind
The details closely follow Rubruck's eyewitness description of 1253 and Carpini's; Pétis applies them to Genghis's assembly.
