(1.) “Edil, which is a great river.”—The large river here called “Edil”,
the Turkish for river, could have been no other than the Oxus or
Amu-Darya. Orden cannot in any manner be identified with “Origens”,
mentioned in chapter 25, where the author stayed when on his journey
from Derbent to Joulad. That city of “Origens”, however, was also at an
“Edil”, so that Schiltberger may possibly have confounded its name of
Ornas, Arnatch, or Andjaz, with Ourjenj, equally situated on an “Edil”
(in this instance not the Terek but the Oxus); the possessions of his
iron lord extending from the neighbourhood of one river to that of the
other.—BRUUN.
(2.) “A city called Haitzicherchen, which is a large
city.”—Hadjy-tarkhan was situated on the right bank of the Volga, a few
miles above the modern Astrahan, and near Itil, capital of the kingdom
of the Khozars, an ancient city that had already disappeared in the
time of Rubruquis, 1253, when Hadjy-tarkhan itself, it would appear,
had scarcely begun to exist. Ibn Batouta (1331) notes having sojourned
at the last-named place upon the occasion of his journey from Soudagh
to Saraï; and Pegolotti says that travellers tarried there when on
their way to China. The name appears as Azitarcan in the Catalan atlas,
1375, in which work, and in the splendid map of the brothers Pizzigani,
we also find “Civitat de ssara”, or “Civitas Regio d’Sara”, the city
of New Sarai, destroyed by Timour, and mentioned by Schiltberger. Its
ruins are still to be seen near the town of Tzaref on the Akhtouba,
an arm of the Volga. There was, however, the other Saraï, spoken of
by Aboulfeda, Ibn Batouta, and Pegolotti, the remains of which are
visible, also on the Akhtouba, but at a distance of two hundred miles
to the south of Tzaref, and near Seliterny-gorodok, where numerous
coins of the khan Uzbek have lately been found by a professor of the
University of Kazan. No such coins have ever been picked up at Tzaref,
which is not surprising, seeing that it was Janibek, the son of Uzbek,
who transferred his residence from Saraï to the new city of that name,
as Colonel Yule has already shown in one of his notes to Marco Polo
(i, 6), and as I have since sought to prove in an article that was
published at Kieff in 1876 (_Troudy 3go. Archeo. Syezda_).
Although old Saraï was depopulated by the plague in 1347–48, and
new Saraï was destroyed by Timour, both cities recovered from those
calamities, and in the later map of the world, by Fra Mauro, they
appear near a tributary on the left bank of the Volga, but at a
considerable distance from each other. The northernmost is known to the
Russians as Great Saraï.
Previously to selecting old Saraï for his residence, the khan Barka
was at Bolgar, the ancient capital of the kingdom of the Bolgars
on the Volga, which had been subdued in 1236 by his brother and
predecessor Batou, the “terrible Batou” of the Russians, surnamed
by the Tatars, Saïn—The Good. An indigent Russian village stands
on the site of the city, in the midst of ruins which impress the
traveller by their extent; an impression I received when engaged
in the Fourth Archæological Congress (1877), the members of which
started upon their excursion from Kazan, and descending the river to
Spassky-zaton, visited the locality distant seven miles in a direct
line from the river. Considering the importance of these ruins, the
large extent of ground they cover, the prodigious quantity of ancient
oriental coins and other antiquities that are being continually
recovered; considering, also, the testimony of Arabian authors and
travellers on the commercial relations of the ancient Bolgars of the
Volga, the question has frequently arisen—Why should that people
have preferred to establish themselves at so great a distance from
the river, after the manner of the inhabitants of the “city of the
blind”, instead of selecting a more advantageous site? The enigma has
been solved by Professor Golovkinsky (_Sur la formation permienne
du bassin Kama-Volgien_, etc., in the _Mém. de la Soc. Minér. de
St. Pétersbourg_, tom. i; and _Anciens débris de l’homme au Gouv^t.
de Cazan_, in the _Travaux de la réunion des Natur. de Russie_, St.
Pétersbourg, 1868), formerly of the University of Kazan, now Rector of
that at Odessa. The distinguished geologist shows, that the Volga and
the Kama have been subjected to great changes in their course above
their junction; that to a comparatively recent period, the eastern
bank of the bed where the two rivers united, was close to the height
upon which is the village of Bolgar, and that this ancient bed is to
be traced to an arm of the Kazanka called the Boulak, and to the lake
Kaban, both of which flow through the city of Kazan, and through a
partly dried up marsh near the said village.—BRUUN.
(3.) “a city called Bolar, in which are different kinds of
beasts.”—These were probably furred animals, furs having been
from all time the staple of commerce at Bolgar (whose locality is
now established), at Saraï and Astrahan. Schiltberger leads us to
the supposition that those cities had recovered from the state of
desolation in which they were left by Timour.—BRUUN.
(4.) “Ibissibur.”—In chapter 25, Schiltberger describes a country called
“Ibissibur”. That there was a city of the name is clearly established
by the Catalan atlas and Pizzigani map, in which we find Sebur, near
a chain of mountains called “los montes de Sebur”, evidently the South
Ural, styled Sibirsky kamian in a Russian work on ancient hydrography
(_Knyga bolshem. Tchertejou_, 151, St. P., 1838).
The Sibir of the Russians, known also as Isker, was situated on the
Irtysh, ten miles from Tobolsk; it was the residence of the Shaïbani
khans, and was taken in 1581 by a handful of Cossacks under their
ataman Yermak, who, in his turn, was besieged by the Tatars, and lost
his life in the river during a sortie (1584). His countrymen have
erected a monument at Tobolsk in honour of this Russian Cortez.—BRUUN.
(5.) “Alathena.”—Alla Tana for Tana, which stood where is now Azoff,
was a place of great importance in the 14th and 15th centuries. It was
completely destroyed by Timour in 1395, but the Venetians returned soon
afterwards, as would appear by the statement of Clavijo, that “six
Venetian galleys arrived at the great city of Constantinople to meet
the ships which were coming from Tana”. They maintained commercial
intercourse with Tana even after its destruction by the Tatars in 1410,
by the Turks in 1415, and later again by the Tatars; and there is
the evidence of De Lannoy (_Voy. et Ambass._, 43) that in 1421, four
Venetian vessels arrived at Caffa from that port. Schiltberger, who
visited Tana at this period or shortly afterwards, proves that it had
recovered its commercial prosperity, at all events so far as regards
the fisheries, a fact supported by Barbaro.—BRUUN.
(6.) “Vulchat.”—In saying that “Vulchat”, intended for Solkhat, was the
capital of “Ephepstzach” or Kiptchak, Schiltberger may not have been
aware that this latter name included the whole of South Russia and the
Crimea, of which, Solkhat, afterwards Esky Crim, actually became the
chief town. Neumann believes the author to have made a mistake, which
may have arisen from the fact that in his time there were many princes,
as has already been shown, who disputed the sovereignty; and a large
portion of Kiptchak may have recognised the authority of one or the
other of those princes who had taken up his residence at Solkhat, as
for instance, the “viel empereur” to whom De Lannoy (_Voy. et Ambass._,
42) was accredited as the ambassador of Vithold in 1421, and who died
at an unfortunate moment, because the knight leaves us in ignorance
of his name. I believe that ruler to have been Ydegou, in the absence
of any proof of Hammer’s statement (_Gesch. d. G. H._, 352), that
Vithold’s old ally was the chief of an independent state on the shores
of the Black Sea so late as the year 1423.—BRUUN.
(7.) “Four thousand houses are in the suburbs.”—The importance attached
to Caffa and the description of that city, is confirmed from other
sources, except with regard to the estimated number of houses within
the walls, and in the suburbs. That there were “two kinds of Jews”
(the Talmudists and the Karaïms) is a well-authenticated fact. The
four towns at the sea-side, dependant on Caffa, must have been Lusce,
Gorzuni, Partenice, and Ialita, now known as Aloushta, Gourzouff,
Partenite, and Yalta, all on the south coast of the peninsula, and the
only places, besides Caffa, at which Genoese consuls were
stationed.—BRUUN.
(8.) “Karckeri.”—Kyrkyer, now Tchyfout Kaleh—Jew’s Fortress—at one time
the residence of the Crimean khans, is at present occupied by three
or four Karaïm families only. It is situated in the hilly part of the
Crimea, which was called Gothia in the 15th century, a name carelessly
transcribed in the text as “Sudi”, where the people were derisively
called by the Tatars “That” or “Tatt”, a Turkish designation for a
conquered race.—BRUUN.
(9.) “That.”—Mourtadd is the Turkish for renegade. Pallas (_Voy. d.
les gouv. méridionaux de l’emp. de Russie_, ii, 150) found that the
Crimean Tatars applied the contemptuous term of Tadd to the Tatars on
the south coast, because they did not consider them of pure descent, in
consequence of the intercourse of their ancestors with the Greeks and
Genoese during the occupation by those Christian people of that part of
the peninsula.—ED.
(10.) “Serucherman.”—The author was well informed in saying that the
martyrdom of St. Clement took place here, the Saroukerman of Aboulfeda
who had never been in those parts; the “Kersona civitas Clementis” of
Rubruquis (_Recueil de Voy. et de Mém._, etc., iv) and which had been
constituted a bishop’s see in 1333.—BRUUN.
(10A.) Sary kerman—Yellow Castle—was the name by which Cherson, near
modern Sevastópol, was known to Eastern writers. Pope Clement I. was
exiled by the Emperor Trajan to that part of the Tauric Chersonesus,
and suffered martyrdom by being thrown into the sea. According to
the legend, the sea receded upon every anniversary of the saint’s
death, leaving the body exposed on the shore during the space of seven
days, until in the 9th century, Cyril and Methodius the Apostles of
the Slaves (the originators of the Slave alphabet), caused it to be
interred at Cherson, whence the remains were subsequently removed to
Kieff by the grand-prince Vladimir upon his conversion to Christianity.
The Church of Rome gives a different version of this legend, and
maintains that the relics of the pontiff are preserved in the church of
St. Clement on the Esquiline (_The Crimea and Transc._, i, 22, 98).—ED.
(11.) “they suppose that a man struck by lightning is a saint.”—The
“Starchas” or Tcherkess—Circassians—were known to Giovanni dal Piano
di Carpine, Aboulfeda, Barbaro and others, and were more generally
called Zikhes and Cossacks, two branches of that people. The proof of
the identity of the Zikhes with the Cossacks or Tcherkess is to be
found in Interiano (_Ramusio edition_, 196), who visited the country
in 1502: “Zychi in lingua vulgare, greca et latina cosi chiamati, et
da Tartari et Turchi dimandati Ciarcassi”. Their identity, however, is
established in the present work, and therefore before the Italian’s
travels; it being stated in chapter 56 that the Turks designate the
“Sygun”—Zikhes—by the name of “Ischerkas”—Tcherkess. In the days of
Constantine Porphyrogenitus (_De Adm. Imp._, c. 42), their territory
extended along the Black Sea shore over a distance of three hundred
miles, from the river Oukroukh (Kouban), which separated them from
Tamatarcha (Taman), to the river Nicopsis at the frontier of Abhase, a
country that reached to Soteriopolis situated in all probability where
is now Pytzounda the ancient Pityus, to the north west of Soukhoum
Kaleh, for it is stated by Codinus (_Hieroclis Synecdemus_, etc., 315)
that Pityus was at one time called Soteropolis.
The Abhases and the Tcherkess speak different dialects of the same
tongue (Güldenstädt, _Reisen durch Russl._, i, 463). The former
were converted to Christianity through the exertions of the emperor
Justinian, about A.D. 550; but Christianity was spread among the Zikhes
previously to this, and if many adopted the Mahomedan faith, proofs are
not wanting that they did so from political motives and to please the
Turks (Marigny, _Voy. dans le pays des Tcherkesses_, in Potocki, ii,
308). Their conversion to Christianity has never kept them from a love
of pillage and the sale of their own children, as is reported of them
by Schiltberger and confirmed by Marigny, who is unable to conceive
how a people to whom freedom is the greatest boon could think of thus
disposing of their own offspring.
Marigny also confirms the statement that thunder was held in great
veneration by the Tcherkess. “They have no god of lightning”, says
this author, “but we should deceive ourselves in supposing that they
never had one. They hold thunder in great veneration, for they say it
is an angel who strikes the elect of God. The remains of one killed by
lightning are buried with the greatest solemnity, and whilst mourning
his loss, relatives congratulate each other upon the distinction by
which their family has been visited. When the angel is on his aerial
flight, these people hurry out of their dwellings at the noise he
makes; and should he not be heard for any length of time, they pray
aloud entreating him to come to them.”—BRUUN.
(11A.) The Tcherkess, which include the Natouhaïtz, Shapsoughy,
Abadzehy, Abhase and other tribes, were known to Strabo and Procopius
as persistent slave dealers and pirates, occupations which, according
to the records of every age, they pursued unceasingly until the
complete subjugation and annexation of their country by Russia in
1863. Dubois de Montpéreux (_Voy. autour du Caucase_, etc., i, 258)
says, writing in 1839, that even under the suzerainty of Russia the
Abhases would not give up the nefarious traffic which embraced, under
certain circumstances, the sale of a son or daughter or sister; and so
lately as 1856, Oliphant (_Trans.-Cauc. Campaign_, 125) found that the
Abhases indulged chiefly in the plunder of human beings. “Seizing the
handsomest boys and the prettiest girls, they would tear them shrieking
from their agonised parents, and swinging them on their saddle-bow,
gallop away with them through the forest, followed by the cries and
execrations of the whole population.”
The custom of placing the dead upon trees is practised at the present
time in Abhase, where they are suspended in coffins to the branches,
which creak as they are swayed by the wind, and produce melancholy
noises (_The Crimea and Transc._, ii, 136).—ED.
(12.) “One is called Kayat, the other Inbu, the third
Mugal.”—Considering the little care taken by Schiltberger and his
transcribers to hand down to us proper and geographical names with
sufficient exactness to enable us to prove their identity, it is no
easy task to determine what were the “Kayat” and “Inbu” who, with the
Mongols, formed the population of Great Tatary. Whatever the correct
names, they were probably communicated to Schiltberger by the natives
or their Mongol chiefs. The latter were able to distinguish from their
own people, those who had retained for a longer period than others
their hereditary chiefs under the suzerainty of the descendants of
Jengiz Khan. The principal tribes were undoubtedly the Keraït and
Uïgour, whose rulers, named Edekout, a name reminding us of the
celebrated “Edigi” whom Schiltberger accompanied to Siberia, preserved
their independence until the year 1328 (Erdmann, _Temud. d. U. R._,
245). Neumann asserts that two of the tribes named were the Kajat or
Kerait, and the Uighur, a statement he leaves unsupported; we are
therefore justified in assuming that reference is made rather to the
Kaïtak and Jambolouk, two tribes the author must have had frequent
opportunities of meeting.
In Masoudi’s time, the Kaïtak or Kaïdak inhabited the northern slopes
of the Caucasus towards the Caspian Sea. There, also, Aboulfeda placed
them, and there they are to this day. We have seen how futile were
their endeavours to oppose Timour upon his last expedition against
Toktamish, and that Romanists and Christians of other denominations
soon afterwards introduced themselves amongst them; but that they
had not discontinued their evil practices is proved by the bitter
experience of the Russian merchant Nikitin, who was plundered when
shipwrecked on their coast in 1468. It was in vain that he sought
to recover his property, even though he appealed to Shirvan Shah,
brother-in-law to Ali Bek their prince (Dorn, _Versuch einer Gesch. der
Schirwan-Sch._, 582). The Kaïtak were a people of sufficient importance
to have attracted the notice of Schiltberger, when he passed through
their territory on his way from Persia to Great Tatary.
Whilst in those parts, the author must have spent some time amongst the
Nogaï of the tribes of Jambolouk or Yembolouk, as they are designated
by Thunmann (Büsching, _Gr. Erdbeschr._, iv, 387), and who were so
named because their earliest settlements were near the Jem or Yemba
which flows into the Caspian. It was only towards the close of the 18th
century that they moved to the western shores of the Sea of Azoff,
where they met with other Nogaï, at a time that the territory was being
annexed to the Russian empire. The wandering life of these Tatars,
and their frequent internecine divisions, justify us in assuming that
in Schiltberger’s time the greater number, if not the whole of the
Jambolouks, had moved their encampments in a westerly direction, and
this explains why the Tatar duke met by De Lannoy (_Voy. et Ambass._,
40) in 1421, who lived on the ground with all his people, was named
Jambo. It was in the power of the descendants of that duke to remove
to any other more convenient site; it is, therefore, very possible,
that the fortress and town of Yabou, ceded in 1517 by the Crimean Khan
to Sigismund of Poland, together with other places on the Dnieper,
may have belonged to him (_Sbornyk_ by Prince Obolensky, i, 88). I
feel that we are at liberty to infer from these several facts that the
“Inbu” were Tatars of the Jambolouk Horde.—BRUUN.
(13.) “and has daily twenty thousand men at his court.”—In writing after
his own fashion the native name of Fostat as “Missir”, erroneously
called Old Cairo by Europeans (Abd-Allatif, _S. de Sacy edition_, 424),
Schiltberger imagined that the name was equally applicable to Cairo,
because at that period the two towns had largely extended towards
each other, so as to form one city. De Lannoy (_Voy. et Ambass._, 80)
distinguishes Cairo from Fostat or Misr, which he calls Babylon, a name
it had received in consequence of the settlement there of a Babylonian
colony in the reign of Cambyses (Noroff, _Pout. po Yeghyptou_, i, 154).
Even now the Copts include a part of Cairo and of Fostat under the
name of Boblien—Little Babylon—the new Babylon of the writers of the
middle ages, who took it upon themselves to bestow on the sovereigns
of Egypt the title of Sultan of Babylon, and some of whom, Arnold of
Lubeck for instance (_Geschichtschr. der Deutsch. Vorzeit._, etc., xiii
_Jahrhund._ iii, 283), have even confounded the Euphrates with the
Nile. De Lannoy assists us in a measure to discern the error into which
Schiltberger has fallen ... “est à-sçavoir que le Kaire, Babillonne et
Boulacq furent jadis chascune ville à par lui, mais à présent s’est
tellement édiffiée, que ce n’est que une mesme chose, et y a aucune
manière de fossez entre deux plas sans eaue, combien qu’il y a moult
de maisons et chemins entre deux, et peut avoir du Kaire à Babillonne
trois milles et de Boulacq au Kaire trois mille.” Noroff considered
Boulak to be the Egyptian Manchester, because of the manufactories
established there by Mehemet Ali. The population of the three towns
was quite in proportion to their extent, and certainly so continued
until about twenty years before De Lannoy’s arrival, when it decreased;
indeed it is stated by Aboul-Mahazin, that Egypt and Syria had fallen
preys to every sort of calamity during the reign of Faradj, 1399–1412.
Apart from the Mongol invasion and incessant civil war, those countries
were assailed by the European maritime powers, and visited by plague
and famine, so that the population was reduced by one-third.
There was a time when it was generally believed that the people in
Cairo could not be numbered, because it was considered the most
populous city in the world, with more inhabitants than all Italy
contained, the vagabonds it sheltered sufficing to fill Venice! In
saying this, Breidenbach (Webb, _A Survey of Egypt and Syria_, etc.)
does not fail to observe: “Audita refero—neque enim ipse numeravi.”
Schiltberger may have thought the same, when he computed the streets in
“Missir” to be as numerous as were the houses in Caffa; and this he did
that his readers might be the better able to judge of the difference
between the two cities.
That the sultan’s suite consisted of twenty thousand men is most
probable, allusion being made to the dwellers in the citadel. Thus, De
Lanuoy:—“est ledit chastel moult grant comme une ville fermée, et y
habite dedens avecq le soudan grant quantité de gens, en espécial bien
le nombre de deux mille esclaves de cheval qu’il paye à ses souldées
comme ses meilleurs gens d’armes à garder son corps, femmes et enffans,
et autres gens grant nombre.”
In 1778, thirty thousand people lived in the citadel, one half of that
number being troops (Parsons, _Travels in Asia and Africa_, etc.,
382).—BRUUN.
(14.) “no person can be made king-sultan unless he has been sold.”—The
Mamelouk militia, formed, as the name indicates, of old slaves,
arrogated to themselves the right of elevating to the throne one
of their own number, upon the death of the sultan. See De Lannoy
(83).—BRUUN.