which is curious in more ways than one, tells how the citizens of Florence established races for their troops, and, among other prizes, was one which consisted of a Bucherame di bambagine (of cotton). Polo, near the end of the Book (Book III. ch. xxxiv.), speaking of Abyssinia, says, according to Pauthier's text: "Et si y fait on moult beaux bouquerans et autres draps de coton." The G. T. is, indeed, more ambiguous: "Il hi se font maint biaus dras banbacin e bocaran” (cotton and buckram). When, however, he uses the same expression with reference to the delicate stuffs woven on the coast of Telingana, there can be no doubt that a cotton texture is meant, and apparently a fine muslin (see Book III. chap. xviii.). Buckram is generally named as an article of price, chier bouquerant, rice boquerans, &c., but not always, for Polo in one passage (Book II. ch. xlv.) seems to speak of it as the clothing of the poor people of Eastern Tibet. Plano Carpini says the tunics of the Tartars were either of buckram (bukeranum), of purpura (a texture, perhaps velvet), or of baudekin, a cloth of gold (p. 614-15). When the envoys of the Old Man of the Mountain tried to bully Saint Lewis, one had a case of daggers to be offered in defiance, another a bouqueran for a winding sheet (Joinville, P. 136). In accounts of materials for the use of Anne Boleyn in the time of her prosperity, bokeram frequently appears for "lyning and taynting" (?) gowns, lining sleeves, cloaks, a bed, &c., but it can scarcely have been for stiffening, as the colour of the buckram is generally specified as the same as that of the dress. A number of passages seem to point to a quilted material. Boccaccio (Day viii. Nov. 10) speaks of a quilt (coltre) of the whitest buckram of Cyprus, and Uzzano enters Buckram Quilts (coltre di Bucherame) in a list of Linajuoli, or linen-draperies. Both his handbook and Pegolotti's state repeatedly that buckrams were sold by the piece or the half-score pieces-never by measure. In one of Michel's quotations (from Baudouin de Sebourg) we have: "Gaufer li fist premiers armer d'un auqueton Mr. Hewitt would appear to take the view that Buckram meant a quilted material; for, quoting from a roll of purchases made for the Court of Edward I., an entry for Ten Buckrams to make sleeves of, he remarks, "The sleeves appear to have been of pourpointerie," i.e. quilting (Ancient Armour, I. 240). This signification would embrace a large number of passages in which the term is used, though certainly not all. It would account for the mode of sale by the piece, and frequent use of the expression a buckram, for its habitual application to coltre or counterpanes, its use in the auqueton of Baudouin, and in the jackets of Falstaff's "men in buckram," as well as its employment in the frocks of the Mongols and Tibetans. 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. 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. (Della Decima, III. 18, 149, 65, 74, 212, &c. ; IV. 4, 5, 6, 212; Reiske's Notes to Const. Porphyrogen. II.; D'Avezac, p. 524; Vocab. Univ. Ital.; Franc.-Michel, Recherches, &c. II. 29 seqq.; Philobiblon Soc. Miscell. VI. ; Marsh's Wedgwood's Etym. Dict. sub voce.) NOTE 2.-Arziron is ERZRUM, which, even in Tournefort's time, the Franks called Erzeron (III. 126). Arzizi is ARJISH, on Lake Van, the ancient Arsissa, which gave the lake one of its names. It is now little more than a decayed castle, with a village inside. Notices of Kuniyah, Kaisariya, Siwas, 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 fortified by Justinian. It stands on a peninsular hill, encircled by the windings of the R. Charok. 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 m. 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, Armenie, 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, Sept., 1829; by Spasski Aotonomoff, Aug., 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. Geog. Paris, ser. 4. 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.) 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. 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. VOL. I. E They are Christians of the Greek Rite, and have a fashion of wearing their hair cropped, like Churchmen.' 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.' [In this province all the forests are of box-wood.+] 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] It has indeed no lack of anything, and the people live by trade and handicrafts. "Tis a very mountainous region, and full of strong defiles, 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 again; and so 'tis every year. "Tis really a passing great miracle!" That sea whereof I spoke as coming so near the mountains is called the Sea of GHEL or GHELAN, and extends about 700 miles. It is twelve days' journey distant from any other sea, and into it flows the great River Euphrates and many others, whilst it is surrounded by mountains. Of late the merchants of Genoa have begun to navigate this sea, carrying ships across and launching them thereon. It is from the country on this sea also that the silk called Ghelle is brought. [The said sea produces quantities. of fish, especially sturgeon, at the river-mouths salmon, and other big kinds of fish.] The NOTE 1.-The G. T. says the King was always called David. Georgian Kings of the family of Bagratidae claimed descent from King David through a prince Shampath, said to have been sent north by Nebuchadnezzar; a descent which was usually asserted in their public documents. Timur's Institutes mention a suit of armour given him by the King of Georgia as forged by the hand of the Psalmist King. David is a very frequent name in their royal lists. There were two of that name who shared Georgia between them under the decision of the Great Kaan in 1246, and one of them, who survived to 1269, is probably meant here. The name of David was borne by the last titular King of Georgia, who ceded his rights to Russia in 1801. (Khanikoff; Jour. As. IX. 370, XI. 291, &c.; Tim. Instit. p. 143.) NOTE 2. This fashion of tonsure is mentioned by Barbaro and Chardin. The latter speaks strongly of the beauty of both sexes, as does Deila Valle, and most modern travellers concur. NOTE 3.-This refers to the Pass of Derbend, still called in Turkish Demir-Kápi or the Iron Gate, and to the ancient Wall that runs from the castle of Derbend along the ridges of Caucasus, called in the East Sadd-i-Iskandar, the Rampart of Alexander. Bayer thinks the wall was probably built originally by one of the Antiochi, and renewed by the Sassanian Kobad or his son Naoshirwan. It is ascribed to the latter by Abulfeda; and according to Klaproth's extracts from the DerbendNámah, Naoshirwan completed the fortress of Derbend in A.d. 542, but he and his father together had erected 360 towers upon the Caucasian Wall which extended to the Gate of the Alans (i.e. the Pass of Dariel). The Russians must have gained some knowledge as to the actual existence and extent of the remains of this great work, but I have not been able to meet with any modern information of a very precise kind. According to a quotation from Reinegg's Kaukasus (I. 120, a |