IIIF Color HighRes
National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
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| IIIF Color HighRes |
| Cathay and the Way Thither : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES. Ccxvii
and Succuir on his way to Constantinople, if he were able to tell it me. He answered by Mambre our interpreter that he would tell me the whole gladly. So he began by saying that he had not returned by precisely the same way that he had taken with the caravan in going, for at the time that he wanted to start it happened that those Tartar chiefs of the Green caps, whom they call Iescilbas, were sending an ambassador of theirs with a great company by way of the Desert of Tartary to the north of the Caspian Sea to the Grand Turk at Constantinople in order to make a league with him for a joint attack on their common enemy the & #i.... And so he travelled with them as far as CAFFA. But he would willingly detail to me the route as it would have been had he returned by the same that he followed in going. And it would stand thus : Leaving the city of Campion you come to GAUTA,' which is a six days' journey. Every day's journey is reckoned at so many farsenc, and one Persian farsenc is three of our miles. And a day's journey may be taken at eight farsencs, but in case of deserts and mountains they will not do half as much, so days made in the desert must be reckoned at half ordinary journeys. From Gauta you come to Succuir in five days, and from Succuir to CA11uL2 in fifteen. Here the Musulmans begin ; all having been idolators hitherto. From Camul to TURFON thirteen ; and after Turfon you pass three cities, the first of which is CHIALIS, ten days, then CHUCHE ten more, and then AI SU twenty days.3 From Aksu to CASCAR is twenty days more of the wildest desert, the journey hitherto having been through inhabited country. From Cascar to SAMARCAND twenty-five days, from Samarcand to BOCHARA in CORASSAM, five ; from Bochara to ERI,4 twenty ; and thence you get to VEREMI in fifteen days ;5 then CASEIN in six, from Casbin to SOLTANIA in four, and from Soltania to the great city of TAURIS in six. Thus much I drew from that Persian merchant. And the detail of his route was all the more interesting to me because I recognised with great satisfaction the names of many cities and of several provinces which are written in the first book of the travels of 1M. Marco Polo. And on that account it seemed to me in a measure necessâry to give the statement here.
" It seems also expedient to add here a brief summary, which was drawn up for me by the said Chaggi Memet the Persian merchant before his departure from this city, giving some particulars regarding the city of Campion, and the people of those parts. And these I shall repeat for
' Kao-tai, between Kancheu and Suchen.
2 Supra, p. cc, infra, 390, 579.
3 On these places see Goës, infra, pp. 572, segq. 4 HERAT.
5 VERAMIN was a great town two marches east of Tehran, close to the site of ancient Rai, " to which it succeeded as Tehran has succeeded to Verainin" (Ritter, viii, 450). It is mentioned also by Clavijo, who on his return after passing Damghan, Perescote (Firuz-koh), and Conan (Semnan) " came to a great city called Vatami" (read VARAMI) " which was nearly depopulated and without any wall, and they call this land the Land of Rei" (Markham's Clavijo, p. 182) ; see also P. de la Croix, H. de Timur Bec, ii, 181, 401).
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