SECTION II.
Description of Armenia the Lesser, of the country of the Turks of Greater Armenia, Zorzania, the kingdom of Mosul, of the cities of Bagdat and Tauris, and account of a strange Miracle[1].
[1] Marco Polo having spent much the largest portion of his life among the Tartars, necessarily used their names for the countries, places, and people which he described, and these names have been subsequently much disfigured in transcription. This has occasioned great perplexity to commentators in endeavouring to explain his geography conformably with modern maps, and which even is often impossible to be done with any tolerable certainty. The arrangement, likewise, of his descriptions is altogether arbitrary, so that the sequence does not serve to remove the difficulty; and the sections appear to have been drawn up in a desultory manner just as they occurred to his recollection, or as circumstances in the conversation or inquiry of others occasioned him to commit his knowledge to paper.--E.
There are two Armenias, the Greater and the Lesser. In the Lesser Armenia the king resides in a city called Sebaste; and in all this country justice and good government are strictly enforced. This kingdom has many cities, fortresses, and castles; the soil is fertile, and the country abounds with game and wildfowl, and every necessary article of provisions, but the air is not very good. Formerly the Armenian gentlemen were brave men and good soldiers, but are now become effeminate, and addicted to drinking and debauchery. The city of Giazza, on the Black Sea, has an excellent harbour, to which merchants resort from divers countries, even from Venice and Genoa, for several sorts of merchandize, especially for the different kinds of spices, and various other valuable goods, which are brought here from India, as this place is the settled market for the commodities of the east.
Turcomania is inhabited by three different nations, Turcomans, Greeks, and Armenians. The Turcomans, who are Mahometans, are a rude, illiterate, and savage people, inhabiting the mountains and inaccessible places, where they can procure pasture, as they subsist only on the produce of their flocks and herds. In their country there are excellent horses, called Turkish horses, and their mules are in great estimation. The Greeks and Armenians possess the cities and towns, and employ themselves in manufactures and merchandize, making, especially, the best carpets in the world. Their chief cities are Cogno or Iconium, Caesarea, and Sebaste, where St. Basil suffered martyrdom. This country is under subjection to one of the khans of the Tartars.
The Greater Armenia is a large province, subject to the Tartars, which has many cities and towns, the principal of which is Arsugia, in which the best buckram in the world is made. In this neighbourhood there are excellent hot springs, which are celebrated as salutary baths in many diseases. The cities next in consequence are Argiron and Darziz. In the summer season many Tartars resort to this country on account of the richness of the pastures, and retire again in winter, because of the abundance of snow. The ark of Noah rested on Arrarat, one of the mountains of Armenia.
This country has the province of Mosul and Meridin on the east, or Diarbekir; and on the north is Zorzania[2], where there is a fountain that discharges a liquid resembling oil; which, though it cannot be used as a seasoning for meat, is yet useful for burning in lamps, and for many other purposes; and it is found in sufficient quantities to load camels, and to form a material object of commerce. In Zorzania is a prince named David Melic or King David; one part of the province being subject to him, while the other part pays tribute to a Tartar khan. The woods are mostly of box-trees. Zorzania extends between the Euxine and Caspian seas; which latter is likewise called the sea of Baccu, and is 2800 miles in circumference: but is like a lake, as it has no communication with any other sea. In it there are many islands, cities, and castles, some of which are inhabited by the people who fled from the Tartars out of Persia.
[2] Gurgistan, usually called Georgia.--E.
The people of Zorzania are Christians, observing the same rites with others, and wear their hair short like the western clergy. There are many cities, and the country abounds in silk, of which they make many fine manufactures. Moxul or Mosul, is a province containing many sorts of people; some are called Arahi, who are Mahometans; others are Christians of various sects, as Nestorians, Jacobites, and Armenians; and they have a patriarch stiled Jacolet, who ordains archbishops, bishops, and abbots, whom he sends all over India, and to Cairo, and Bagdat, and wherever there are Christians, in the same manner as is done by the pope of Rome. All the stuffs of gold and silk, called musleims, are wrought in Moxul[3]. In the mountains of this country of Diarbekir, dwelt the people called Curds, some off whom are Nestorians or Jacobites, and other Mahometans. They are a lawless people, who rob the merchants that travel through their country. Near to them is another province called Mus, Meridin, or Mardin, higher up the Tigris than Mosul, wherein grows great quantities of cotton, of which they make buckrams[4] and other manufactures. This province is likewise subject to the Tartars. Baldach, or Bagdat, is a great city in which the supreme caliph formerly resided, who was pope of all the Saracens. From this city it is counted seventeen days journey to the sea; but the river Tigris runs past, on which people sail to Balsora, where the best dates in the world grow, but in the passage between these; two cities there lies another named Chisi. In Bagdat are many manufactures of gold and silk, and damasks and velvets with figures of various creatures; in that city there is a university, where the law of Mahoment, physic, astronomy, and geomancy are taught; and from it come all the pearls in Christendom.
[3] This manufacture from Mosul or Moxul, on the Tigris, must be carefully distinguished from the muslins of India, which need not be described.--E.
[4] These buckrams seem to have been some coarse species of cotton cloth, in ordinary wear among the eastern nations. The word occurs frequently, in these early travels in Tartary, but its proper meaning is unknown--E.
When the Tartars began to extend their conquests, there were four brothers who possessed the chief rule; of whom Mangu, the eldest, reigned in Sedia[5]. These brethren proposed to themselves to subdue the whole world, for which purpose one went to the east, another to the north, a third to the west, and Ulau or Houlagu went to the south in 1250, with an army of an hundred thousand horse, besides foot. Employing stratagem, he hid a great part of his force in ambush, and advancing with an inconsiderable number, enticed the caliph to follow him by a pretended flight; by this means he took the caliph prisoner, and made himself master of the city, in which he found such infinite store of treasure, that he was quite amazed. Sending for the caliph into his presence, he sharply reproved him, that, possessing such riches, he had not employed them in providing soldiers to defend his dominions; and commanded him to be shut up in the tower where his treasure was placed, without any sustenance.
[5] This word is inexplicable, unless by supposing it some corruption of Syra Horda, the golden court or imperial residence, which was usually in Tangut or Mongalia, on the Orchen or Onguin. But in the days of Marco, the khans had betaken themselves to the luxurious ease of fixed residences and he might have misunderstood the information he received of the residence of Mangu.--E.