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| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
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CHAP. IV. MIRACULOUS FISH SUPPLY
57
The theory that the Tartars were Gog and Magog led to the Rampart of Alexander being confounded with the Wall of China (see infra, Bk. I. ch. 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.
Ricold of Montecroce allows two arguments to connect the Tartars with the Jews who were shut up by Alexander ; one that the Tartars hated the very name of Alexander, and could not bear to hear it ; the other, that their manner of writing was very like the Chaldean, meaning apparently the Syriac (ante', p. 29). But he points out that they had no resemblance to Jews, and no knowledge of the law.
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.
In 1857, Dr. Bellew seems to have found the ancient belief in the legend still held by Afghan gentlemen at Kandahar.
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 (1089-113o). 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 lZüller, p. 138 ; Gott. Viterb. in Pistorii Nilani Script. Germ. II. 228 ; Alexandriade, pp. 310-31I ; Peru IV. p. I 18 ; Acad. des Insc. Divers Savans, II. 483 ; Edrisi, II. 416-420, etc.)
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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', where the traffic was carried on. (See Elie de Laprim. 243.) Abulfeda also speaks of the Forest of Box (Shard' ul-buks) on the shores of the Black Sea, from which box-wood was exported to all parts of the world; but his indication of the exact locality is confused. (Reinaud's Abulf. I. 289.)
At the present time " Boxwood abounds on the southern coast of the Caspian, and large quantities are exported from near Resht to England and Russia. It is sent up the Volga to Tsaritzin, from thence by rail to the Don, and down that river to the Black Sea, from whence it is shipped to England." (MS. Note, H. Y.)
[Cf. V. Helm's Cultivated Plants, edited by J. S. Stallybrass, Lond., 1891, The Box Tree, pp. I76-179.—H. C.]
op 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 'Affi, " Falco montanus." (See Casiri, I. 32o.) Major St. John tells me that the Terldn, 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 (1599, reprinted 1865) 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.
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