The winter chapkan, or long tunic, of Upper India, a form of dress which, I believe, correctly represents that of the Mongol hosts, and is probably derived from them, is almost universally of quilted cotton.[1] This signification would also facilitate the transfer of meaning to the substance now called buckram, for that is used as a kind of quilting.
The derivation of the word is very uncertain. Reiske says it is Arabic, Abu-Kairám, "Pannus cum intextis figuris"; Wedgwood, attaching the modern meaning, that it is from It., bucherare, to pierce full of holes, which might be if bucherare could be used in the sense of puntare, or the French piquer; Marsh connects it with the bucking of linen; and D'Avezac thinks it was a stuff that took its name from Bokhara. If the name be local, as so many names of stuffs are, the French form rather suggests Bulgaria. [Heyd, II. 703, says that Buckram (Bucherame) was principally manufactured at Erzinjan (Armenia), Mush, and Mardin (Kurdistan), Ispahan (Persia), and in India, etc. It was shipped to the west at Constantinople, Satalia, Acre, and Famagusta; the name is derived from Bokhara.—H. C.]
(Della Decima, III. 18, 149, 65, 74, 212, etc.; IV. 4, 5, 6, 212; Reiske's Notes to Const. Porphyrogen. II.; D'Avezac, p. 524; Vocab. Univ. Ital.; Franc.-Michel, Recherches, etc. II. 29 seqq.; Philobiblon Soc. Miscell. VI.; Marsh's Wedgwood's Etym. Dict. sub voce.)
[Illustration: Castle of Baiburt.]
NOTE 2.—Arziron is ERZRUM, which, even in Tournefort's time, the Franks called Erzeron (III. 126); [it was named Garine, then Theodosiopolis, in honour of Theodosius the Great; the present name was given by the Seljukid Turks, and it means "Roman Country"; it was taken by Chinghiz Khan and Timur, but neither kept it long. Odorico (Cathay, I. p. 46), speaking of this city, says it "is mighty cold." (See also on the low temperature of the place, Tournefort, Voyage du Levant, II. pp. 258–259.) Arzizi, ARJISH, in the vilayet of Van, was destroyed in the middle of the 19th century; it was situated on the road from Van to Erzrum. Arjish Kalá was one of the ancient capitals of the Kingdom of Armenia; it was conquered by Toghrul I., who made it his residence. (Cf. Vital Cuinet, Turquie d'Asie, II. p. 710).—H. C.]
Arjish is the ancient Arsissa, which gave the Lake Van one of its names. It is now little more than a decayed castle, with a village inside.
Notices of Kuniyah, Kaisariya, Sivas, Arzan-ar-Rumi, Arzangan, and Arjish, will be found in Polo's contemporary Abulfeda. (See Büsching, IV. 303–311.)
NOTE 3.—Paipurth, or Baiburt, on the high road between Trebizond and Erzrum, was, according to Neumann, an Armenian fortress in the first century, and, according to Ritter, the castle Baiberdon was fortified by Justinian. It stands on a peninsular hill, encircled by the windings of the R. Charok. [According to Ramusio's version Baiburt was the third relay from Trebizund to Tauris, and travellers on their way from one of these cities to the other passed under this stronghold.—H. C.] The Russians, in retiring from it in 1829, blew up the greater part of the defences. The nearest silver mines of which we find modern notice, are those of Gumish-Khánah ("Silverhouse"), about 35 miles N.W. of Baiburt; they are more correctly mines of lead rich in silver, and were once largely worked. But the Masálak-al-absár (14th century), besides these, speaks of two others in the same province, one of which was near Bajert. This Quatremère reasonably would read Babert or Baiburt. (Not. et Extraits, XIII. i. 337; Texier, Arménie, I. 59.)
NOTE 4.—Josephus alludes to the belief that Noah's Ark still existed, and that pieces of the pitch were used as amulets. (Ant. I. 3. 6.)
Ararat (16,953 feet) was ascended, first by Prof. Parrot, September 1829; by Spasski Aotonomoff, August 1834; by Behrens, 1835; by Abich, 1845; by Seymour in 1848; by Khodzko, Khanikoff, and others, for trigonometrical and other scientific purposes, in August 1850. It is characteristic of the account from which I take these notes (Longrimoff, in Bull. Soc. Géog. Paris, sér. IV. tom. i. p. 54), that whilst the writer's countrymen, Spasski and Behrens, were "moved by a noble curiosity," the Englishman is only admitted to have "gratified a tourist's whim"!
NOTE 5.—Though Mr. Khanikoff points out that springs of naphtha are abundant in the vicinity of Tiflis, the mention of ship-loads (in Ramusio indeed altered, but probably by the Editor, to camel-loads), and the vast quantities spoken of, point to the naphtha-wells of the Baku Peninsula on the Caspian. Ricold speaks of their supplying the whole country as far as Baghdad, and Barbaro alludes to the practice of anointing camels with the oil. The quantity collected from the springs about Baku was in 1819 estimated at 241,000 poods (nearly 4000 tons), the greater part of which went to Persia. (Pereg. Quat. p. 122; Ramusio, II. 109; El. de Laprim. 276; V. du Chev. Gamba, I. 298.)
[The phenomenal rise in the production of the Baku oil-fields between 1890–1900, may be seen at a glance from the Official Statistics where the total output for 1900 is given as 601,000,000 poods, about 9,500,000 tons. (Cf. Petroleum, No. 42, vol. ii. p. 13.)]
[1] Polo's contemporary, the Indian Poet Amír Khusrú, puts in the mouth of his king Kaikobád a contemptuous gibe at the Mongols with their cotton-quilted dresses. (Elliot, III. p. 526.)
CHAPTER IV.
OF GEORGIANIA AND THE KINGS THEREOF.
In GEORGIANIA there is a King called David Melic, which is as much as to say "David King"; he is subject to the Tartar.[NOTE 1] In old times all the kings were born with the figure of an eagle upon the right shoulder. The people are very handsome, capital archers, and most valiant soldiers. They are Christians of the Greek Rite, and have a fashion of wearing their hair cropped, like Churchmen.[NOTE 2]
This is the country beyond which Alexander could not pass when he wished to penetrate to the region of the Ponent, because that the defile was so narrow and perilous, the sea lying on the one hand, and on the other lofty mountains impassable to horsemen. The strait extends like this for four leagues, and a handful of people might hold it against all the world. Alexander caused a very strong tower to be built there, to prevent the people beyond from passing to attack him, and this got the name of the IRON GATE. This is the place that the Book of Alexander speaks of, when it tells us how he shut up the Tartars between two mountains; not that they were really Tartars, however, for there were no Tartars in those days, but they consisted of a race of people called COMANIANS and many besides.[NOTE 3]
[Illustration: Mediaeval Georgian Fortress, from a drawing dated 1634. "La provence est tonte plene de grant montagne et d'estroit pas et de fort"]
[In this province all the forests are of box-wood.[NOTE 4]] There are numerous towns and villages, and silk is produced in great abundance. They also weave cloths of gold, and all kinds of very fine silk stuffs. The country produces the best goshawks in the world [which are called Avigi].[NOTE 5] It has indeed no lack of anything, and the people live by trade and handicrafts. 'Tis a very mountainous region, and full of strait defiles and of fortresses, insomuch that the Tartars have never been able to subdue it out and out.
There is in this country a certain Convent of Nuns called St. Leonard's, about which I have to tell you a very wonderful circumstance. Near the church in question there is a great lake at the foot of a mountain, and in this lake are found no fish, great or small, throughout the year till Lent come. On the first day of Lent they find in it the finest fish in the world, and great store too thereof; and these continue to be found till Easter Eve. After that they are found no more till Lent come round
