work which I have not been able to consult) the remains of defences can be traced for many miles, and are in some places as much as 120 feet high. M. Moynet indeed, in the Tour du Monde (I. 122), states that he traced the wall to a distance of 27 versts (18 miles) from Derbend, but unfortunately, instead of describing remains of such high interest from his own observation, he cites a description written by Alex. Dumas, which he says is quite accurate.

There is another wall claiming the title of Sadd-i-Iskandar at the S.E. angle of the Caspian. This has been particularly spoken of by Vámbéry, who followed its traces from S. W. to N.E. for upwards of 40 miles (see his Travels in C. Asia, 54 seqq., and Julius Braun in the Ausland, No. 22, of 1869).

The story alluded to by Polo is found in the medieval romances of Alexander, and in the Pseudo-Callisthenes on which they are founded. The hero chases a number of impure cannibal nations within a mountain barrier, and prays that they may be shut up therein. The mountains draw together within a few cubits, and Alexander then builds up the gorge and closes it with gates of brass or iron. There were in all 22 nations with their kings, and the names of the nations were Gōth, Magōth, Anugi, Egés, Exenach, &c. &c. Godfrey of Viterbo speaks of them in his rhyming verses :

"Finibus Indorum species fuit una virorum ; Goth erat atque Magoth dictum cognomen eorum

*

Narrat Esaias, Isidorus et Apocalypsis,

Tangit et in titulis Magna Sibylla suis.

Patribus ipsorum tumulus fuit venter eorun," &c.

Among the questions that the Jews are said to have put, in order to test Mahommed's prophetic character, was one series: "Who are Gog and Magog? Where do they dwell? What sort of rampart did Zu'lkarnain build between them and men?" And in the Koran we find (chap. xviii." The Cavern"): "They will question thee, O Mohammed, regarding Zulkarnain. Reply: I will tell you his history"—and then follows the story of the erection of the Rampart of Yajuj and Majuj. In chapter xxi. again there is an allusion to their expected issue at the latter day. This last expectation was one of very old date. Thus the Cosmography of Aethicus, a work believed to have been abridged by St. Jerome, and therefore to be as old at least as the 4th century, says that the Turks of the race of Gog and Magog, a polluted nation, eating human flesh and feeding on all abominations, never washing and never using wine, salt, nor wheat, shall come forth in the Day of Antichrist from where they lie shut up behind the Caspian Gates, and make horrid devastation. No wonder that the eruption of the Tartars was connected with this prophetic legend! The Emperor Frederic II., writing to Henry III. of England, says of the Tartars: 'Tis said they are descended from he Ten Tribes who abandoned the Law of Moses and worshipped the

Golden Calf. They are the people whom Alexander Magnus shut up in the Caspian Mountains."

According to some chroniclers, the Emperor Heraclius had already let loose the Shut-up Nations to aid him against the Persians, but it brought him no good, for he was beaten in spite of their aid, and died of grief.

The theory that the Tartars were Gog and Magog led to the Rampart of Alexander being confounded with the Wall of China (see infrà, Book I. chap. lix.), or being relegated to the extreme N.E. of Asia, as we find it in the Carta Catalana.

These legends are referred to by Rabbi Benjamin, Hayton, Rubruquis, Ricold, Matthew Paris, and many more. Josephus indeed speaks of the Pass which Alexander fortified with gates of steel. But his saying that the King of Hyrcania was Lord of this pass points to the Hyrcanian Gates of Northern Persia, or perhaps to the Wall of Gomushtapah, described by Vámbéry.

Edrisi relates how the Khalif Wathek sent one Salem the Dragoman to explore the Rampart of Gog and Magog. His route lay by Tiflis, the Alan country, and that of the Bashkirds to the far north or north-east, and back by Samarkand. But the report of what he saw is pure fable.

At Gelath in Imeretia there still exists one valve of a large iron gate, traditionally said to be the relic of a pair brought as a trophy from Derbend by David King of Georgia, called the Restorer (1089-1130). M. Brosset however has shown it to be the gate of Ganja, carried off in 1139.

(Bayer in Comment. Petropol. I. 401 seqq.; Pseudo-Callisth. by Müller, p. 138; Gott. Viterb. in Pistorii Nidani Scriptt. Germ. II. 228; Alexandriade, p. 310-11; Zotenberg's Tabari, quoted in Athenæum, Jan. 18th, 1868; Acad. des Insc. Divers Savans, II. 483; Edrisi, II. 416420, &c.)

NOTE 4.-The box-wood of the Abkhasian forests was so abundant, and formed so important an article of Genoese trade, as to give the name of Chao de Bux (Cavo di Bussi) to the bay of Bambor, N.W. of Sukum Kala'a, where the traffic was carried on (see Elie de Laprim. 243).

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). Haxthausen in our own day speaks of the admirably-trained hawks of the Georgian princes. (Cardan, de Rer. Varietate, VII. 35; Transcaucasia, 25.)

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 Samon-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 m. in length and 21 m. 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.)

"Mer de

NOTE 7.—The name assigned by Marco to the Caspian, 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 Gil or Gilán, 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, &c., a class to which Badakhshan, Wakhan,

Shaghnan, and others have formerly belonged, as the adjectives Badakhshi, &c. show. Abulfeda, speaking of this territory, uses exactly Polo's phrase, saying that the districts in question are properly called Kilo-Kilán, but by the Arabs Jil-o-Jilán. Teixeira gives the Persian name of the sea as Darya Ghilani (see Abulf. in Büsching, v. 329).

The province of Gil gave name to the silk for which it was and is still famous, mentioned as Ghelle (Gili) 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 Dozy and Engelmann, 2nd ed. p. 275).

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," &c. (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.

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 (1374) 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.)