V. Helm's Cultivated Plants, edited by J. S. Stallybrass, Lond., 1891, The Box Tree, pp. 176–179.—H. C.]
NOTE 5.—Jerome Cardan notices that "the best and biggest goshawks come from Armenia," a term often including Georgia and Caucasus. The name of the bird is perhaps the same as 'Afçi, "Falco montanus." (See Casiri, I. 320.) Major St. John tells me that the Terlán, or goshawk, much used in Persia, is still generally brought from Caucasus. (Cardan, de Rer. Varietate, VII. 35.)
NOTE 6.—A letter of Warren Hastings, written shortly before his death, and after reading Marsden's Marco Polo, tells how a fish-breeder of Banbury warned him against putting pike into his fish-pond, saying, "If you should leave them where they are till Shrove Tuesday they will be sure to spawn, and then you will never get any other fish to breed in it." (Romance of Travel, I. 255.) Edward Webbe in his Travels (1590, reprinted 1868) tells us that in the "Land of Siria there is a River having great store of fish like unto Salmon-trouts, but no Jew can catch them, though either Christian and Turk shall catch them in abundance with great ease." The circumstance of fish being got only for a limited time in spring is noticed with reference to Lake Van both by Tavernier and Mr. Brant.
But the exact legend here reported is related (as M. Pauthier has already noticed) by Wilibrand of Oldenburg of a stream under the Castle of Adamodana, belonging to the Hospitallers, near Naversa (the ancient Anazarbus), in Cilicia under Taurus. And Khanikoff was told the same story of a lake in the district of Akhaltziké in Western Georgia, in regard to which he explains the substance of the phenomenon as a result of the rise of the lake's level by the melting of the snows, which often coincides with Lent. I may add that Moorcroft was told respecting a sacred pond near Sir-i-Chashma, on the road from Kabul to Bamian, that the fish in the pond were not allowed to be touched, but that they were accustomed to desert it for the rivulet that ran through the valley regularly every year on the day of the vernal equinox, and it was then lawful to catch them.
Like circumstances would produce the same effect in a variety of lakes, and I have not been able to identify the convent of St. Leonard's. Indeed Leonard (Sant Lienard, G. T.) seems no likely name for an Armenian Saint; and the patroness of the convent (as she is of many others in that country) was perhaps Saint Nina, an eminent personage in the Armenian Church, whose tomb is still a place of pilgrimage; or possibly St. Helena, for I see that the Russian maps show a place called Elenovka on the shores of Lake Sevan, N.E. of Erivan. Ramusio's text, moreover, says that the lake was four days in compass, and this description will apply, I believe, to none but the lake just named. This is, according to Monteith, 47 miles in length and 21 miles in breadth, and as far as I can make out he travelled round it in three very long marches. Convents and churches on its shores are numerous, and a very ancient one occupies an island on the lake. The lake is noted for its fish, especially magnificent trout.
(Tavern. Bk. III. ch. iii.; J. R. G. S. X. 897; Pereg. Quat. p. 179; Khanikoff, 15; Moorcroft, II. 382; J. R. G. S. III. 40 seqq.)
Ramusio has: "In this province there is a fine city called TIFLIS, and round about it are many castles and walled villages. It is inhabited by Christians, Armenians, Georgians, and some Saracens and Jews, but not many."
NOTE 7.—The name assigned by Marco to the Caspian, "Mer de Gheluchelan" or "Ghelachelan," has puzzled commentators. I have no doubt that the interpretation adopted above is the correct one. I suppose that Marco said that the sea was called "La Mer de Ghel ou (de) Ghelan," a name taken from the districts of the ancient Gelae on its south-western shores, called indifferently Gíl or Gílán, just as many other regions of Asia have like duplicate titles (singular and plural), arising, I suppose, from the change of a gentile into a local name. Such are Lár, Lárán, Khutl, Khutlán, etc., a class to which Badakhshán, Wakhán, Shaghnán, Mungán, Chág-hanián, possibly Bámián, and many others have formerly belonged, as the adjectives in some cases surviving, Badakhshi, Shaghni, Wákhi, etc., show[2] The change exemplified in the induration of these gentile plurals into local singulars is everywhere traced in the passage from earlier to later geography. The old Indian geographical lists, such as are preserved in the Puránas, and in Pliny's extracts from Megasthenes, are, in the main, lists of peoples, not of provinces, and even where the real name seems to be local a gentile form is often given. So also Tochari and Sogdi are replaced by Tokháristán and Sughd; the Veneti and Taurini by Venice and Turin; the Remi and the Parisii, by Rheims and Paris; East-Saxons and South-Saxons by Essex and Sussex; not to mention the countless -ings that mark the tribal settlement of the Saxons in Britain.
Abulfeda, speaking of this territory, uses exactly Polo's phrase, saying that the districts in question are properly called Kíl-o-Kílán, but by the Arabs Jíl-o-Jílán. Teixeira gives the Persian name of the sea as Darya Ghiláni. (See Abulf. in Büsching, v. 329.)
[The province of Gíl (Gílán), which is situated between the mountains and the Caspian Sea, and between the provinces of Azerbaíján and Mazandéran (H. C.)], gave name to the silk for which it was and is still famous, mentioned as Ghelle (Gílí) at the end of this chapter. This Seta Ghella is mentioned also by Pegolotti (pp. 212, 238, 301), and by Uzzano, with an odd transposition, as Seta Leggi, along with Seta Masandroni, i.e. from the adjoining province of Mazanderán (p. 192). May not the Spanish Geliz, "a silk-dealer," which seems to have been a puzzle to etymologists, be connected with this? (See Dosy and Engelmann, 2nd ed. p. 275.) [Prof. F. de Filippi (Viaggo in Persia nel 1862, … Milan, 1865, 8vo) speaks of the silk industry of Ghílán (pp. 295–296) as the principal product of the entire province.—H. C]
The dimensions assigned to the Caspian in the text would be very correct if length were meant, but the Geog. Text with the same figure specifies circuit (zire). Ramusio again has "a circuit of 2800 miles." Possibly the original reading was 2700; but this would be in excess.
NOTE 8.—The Caspian is termed by Vincent of Beauvais Mare Seruanicum, the Sea of Shirwan, another of its numerous Oriental names, rendered by Marino Sanuto as Mare Salvanicum. (III. xi. ch. ix.) But it was generally known to the Franks in the Middle Ages as the SEA OF BACU. Thus Berni:—
"Fuor del deserto la diritta strada
Lungo il Mar di Bacu miglior pareva."
(Orl. Innam. xvii. 60.)
And in the Sfera of Lionardo Dati (circa 1390):—
"Da Tramontana di quest' Asia Grande
Tartari son sotto la fredda Zona,
Gente bestial di bestie e vivande,
Fin dove l'Onda di Baccù risuona," etc. (p. 10.)
This name is introduced in Ramusio, but probably by interpolation, as well as the correction of the statement regarding Euphrates, which is perhaps a branch of the notion alluded to in Prologue, ch. ii. note 5. In a later chapter Marco calls it the Sea of Sarai, a title also given in the Carta Catalana. [Odorico calls it Sea of Bacuc (Cathay) and Sea of Bascon (Cordier). The latter name is a corruption of Abeskun, a small town and island in the S.E. corner of the Caspian Sea, not far from Ashurada.—H. C.]
We have little information as to the Genoese navigation of the Caspian, but the great number of names exhibited along its shores in the map just named (1375) shows how familiar such navigation had become by that date. See also Cathay, p. 50, where an account is given of a remarkable enterprise by Genoese buccaneers on the Caspian about that time. Mas'údi relates an earlier history of how about the beginning of the 9th
