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 Gil 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, &c., a class to which Badakhshan, Wakhán, Shaghnán, Mungán, Chaghánián, possibly Bámián, and many others have formerly belonged, as the adjectives in some cases surviving, Badakhshi, Shaghni, Wákhi, &c., show.* 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 Tochári 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 terrritory, uses exactly Polo's phrase, saying that the districts in question are properly called Kil-o-Kilán, but by the Arabs Jil-o-Jilán. Teixeira gives the Persian name of the sea as Darya Ghiláni (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 Ghellé (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:

When the first edition was published, I was not aware of remarks to like effect regarding names of this character by Sir H. Rawlinson in the 7. R. As. Soc. vol. xi. pp. 64 and 103.

"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 Sárai, 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. Mas'údi relates an earlier history of how about the beginning of the 9th century a fleet of 500 Russian vessels came out of the Volga, and ravaged all the populous southern and western shores of the Caspian. The unhappy population was struck with astonishment and horror at this unlooked for visitation from a sea that had hitherto been only frequented by peaceful traders or fishermen (II. 18-24).

CHAPTER V.

OF THE KINGDOM OF MAUSUL.

ON the frontier of Armenia towards the south-east is the kingdom of MAUSUL. It is a very great kingdom, and inhabited by several different kinds of people whom we shall now describe.

First there is a kind of people called ARABI, and these worship Mahommet. Then there is another description of people who are NESTORIAN and JACOBITE Christians. These have a Patriarch, whom they call the JATOLIC, and this Patriarch creates Archbishops, and Abbots, and Prelates of all other degrees, and sends them into every quarter, as

to India, to Baudas, or to Cathay, just as the Pope of Rome does in the Latin countries. For you must know that though there is a very great number of Christians in those countries, they are all Jacobites and Nestorians; Christians indeed, but not in the fashion enjoined by the Pope of Rome, for they come short in several points of the Faith.2

All the cloths of gold and silk that are called Mosolins are made in this country; and those great Merchants called Mosolins, who carry for sale such quantities of spicery and pearls and cloths of silk and gold, are also from this kingdom.3

There is yet another race of people who inhabit the mountains in that quarter, and are called CURDS. Some of them are Christians, and some of them are Saracens ; but they are an evil generation, whose delight it is to plunder merchants.*

[Near this province is another called Mus and MERDIN, producing an immense quantity of cotton, from which they make a great deal of buckram' and other cloth. The people are craftsmen and traders, and all are subject to the Tartar King.]

NOTE 1.-Polo could scarcely have been justified in calling MOSUL a very great kingdom. This is a bad habit of his, as we shall have to notice again. Badruddín Lúlú, the Atabeg of Mosul, had at the age of 96 taken sides with Hulaku, and stood high in his favour. His son Malik Sálih, having revolted, surrendered to the Mongols in 1261 on promise of life; which promise they kept in Mongol fashion by torturing him to death. Since then the kingdom had ceased to exist as such. Coins of Badruddin remain with the name and titles of Mangku Kaan on their reverse, and some of his and of other atabegs exhibit curious imitations of Greek art. (Quat Rash. p. 389; Jour. As. IV. VI. 141.)

NOTE 2.-The Nestorian Church was at this time and in the preceding centuries diffused over Asia to an extent of which little con

ception is generally entertained, having a chain of Bishops and Metropolitans from Jerusalem to Peking. The Church derived its name from Nestorius, Patriarch of Constantinople, who was deposed by the Council of Ephesus in 431. The chief "point of the Faith" wherein it came short, was (at least in its most tangible form) the doctrine that in Our Lord there were two Persons, one of the Divine Word, the other of the Man Jesus; the former dwelling in the latter as in a Temple, or uniting with the latter "as fire with iron." Nestorin, the term used by Polo, is almost a literal transcript of the Arab form Nastúri. A notice of the Metropolitan sees, with a map, will be found in Cathay, p. ccxliv.

Játhalik, written in our text (from G. T.) Jatolic, by Fr. Burchard and Ricold Jaselic, stands for Kałoλikós. No doubt it was originally Gáthalík, but altered in pronunciation by the Arabs. The term was applied by Nestorians to their patriarch; among the Jacobites to the Mafrián or Metropolitan. The Nestorian Patriarch at this time resided at Baghdad. (Assemani, vol. iii. pt. 2; Per Quat. 91, 127.)

The Jacobites, or Jacobins as they are called by writers of that age (Ar. Ya'kúbiy), received their name from Jacob Baradaeus, Bishop of Edessa (so called, Mas'udi says, because he was a maker of barda'at or saddle-cloths), who gave a great impulse to their doctrine in the 6th century. They formed a Church, which at one time spread over the East at least as far as Sístán, where they had a see under the Sassanian Kings. Their distinguishing tenet was Monophysitism, viz., that Our Lord had but one Nature, the Divine. It was in fact a rebound from Nestorian doctrine, but, as might be expected in such a case, there was a vast number of shades of opinion among both bodies. The chief locality of the Jacobites was in the districts of Mosul, Tekrit, and Jazírah, and their Patriarch was at this time settled at the Monastery of St. Matthew, near Mosul, but afterwards, and to the present day, at or near Mardin. The Armenian, Coptic, Abyssinian, and Malabar Churches all hold some shade of the Jacobite doctrine, though the first two at least have Patriarchs apart.

(Assemani, vol. ii.; Le Quien, II. 1596; Mas'údi, II. 329-30; Per. Quat. 124-9.)

NOTE 3.-We see here that mosolin or muslin had a very different meaning from what it has now. A quotation from Ives by Marsden shows it to have been applied in the middle of last century to a strong cotton cloth made at Mosul. Dozy says the Arabs use Mauçili in the sense of muslin, and refers to passages in 'The Arabian Nights.' But do they indicate more than some texture? (p. 323). I have found no elucidation of Polo's application of mosolini to a class of merchants. But in a letter of Pope Innocent IV. (1244) to the Dominicans in Palestine, we find classed as different bodies of Oriental Christians, "Jacobitae, Nestoritae, Georgiani, Graeci, Armeni, Maronitae, et Mosolini." (Le Quien, III. 1342.)

exceed in malignant ferocity They are called Curti,

NOTE 4.-"The Curds," says Ricold, all the barbarous nations that I have seen. not because they are curt in stature, but from the Persian word for Wolves. . . . They have three principal vices, viz., Murder, Robbery, and Treachery." Some say they have not mended since, but his etymology is doubtful. Kúrt is Turkish for a wolf, not Persian, which is Gurg; but the name (Karduchi, Kordiaei, &c.) is older, I imagine, than the Turkish language in that part of Asia. Quatremère refers it to the Persian gurd, strong, valiant, hero." As regards the statement that some of the Kurds were Christians, Mas'údi states that the Jacobites and certain other Christians in the territory of Mosul and Mount Judi were reckoned among the Kurds. (Not. et Ext XIII. i. 304.)

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NOTE 5.-Ramusio here, as in all passages where other texts have Bucherami and the like, puts Boccassini, a word which has become obsolete in its turn. I see both Bochayrani and Bochasini coupled, in a Genoese fiscal statute of 1339, quoted by Pardessus. (Lois Maritimes, IV. 456.)

MUSH and MARDIN are in very different regions, but as their actual interval is only about 120 miles, they may have been under one provincial government. Mush is essentially Armenian, and, though the seat of a Pashalik, is now a wretched place. Mardin, on the verge of the Mesopotamian Plain, rises in terraces on a lofty hill, and there, says Hammer, Sunnis and Shias, Catholic and Schismatic Armenians, Jacobites, Nestorians, Chaldaeans, Sun-, Fire-, Calf-, and Devil-worshippers dwell one over the head of the other." (Ilchan. I. 191.)

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CHAPTER VI.

OF THE GREAT CITY OF BAUDAS, AND HOW IT WAS TAKEN.

BAUDAS is a great city, which used to be the seat of the Calif of all the Saracens in the world, just as Rome is the seat of the Pope of all the Christians." A very great river flows through the city, and by this you can descend to the Sea of India. There is a great traffic of merchants with their goods this way; they descend some eighteen days from Baudas, and then come to a certain city called KISI, where they enter the Sea of India. There is also on the river, as you go from Baudas to Kisi, a great city called BASTRA, surrounded by woods, in which grow the best dates in the world.3