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| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
58
MARCO POLO Booz I.
é
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 coin-
cides 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 clay 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 miles in length and 21 miles 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. eh. iii. ; j. R. G, S. X. 897 ; Pereg. Qual. p. 179 ; Khanikoff, 15 ; liloorcroft, II. 382 ; J. R. G. S. III. 40 segq. )
Ramusio has : " In this province there is a fine city called TI F Lis, and round about it are many castles and walled villages. It is inhabited by Christians, Armenians, Georgians, and some Saracens and Jews, but not many."
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 Gál or Gálcín, 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, etc., a class to which Badakhshán, Wakhán, Shaghnán, Mungán, Chaghánián, possibly Bámián, and many others have formerly belonged, as the adjectives in some cases surviving, Badakhshi, Shag Imi, Wcfkhi, etc., 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 ,. entile form is often given. So also Tochari and Sogdi are replaced by Tokhdristdn and Suglzd ; 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 -in;s that mark the tribal settlement of the Saxons in Britain.
Abulfeda, speaking of this territory, uses exactly Polo's phrase, saying that the districts in question are properly called h íl-o-Krlcín, but by the Arabs _Al-oil/dn. Teixeira gives the Persian name of the sea as Darya GhLl(íl11. (See Abu f: in Biisclzzng, v. 329.)
Fq
When the first edition was published, I was not aware of remarks to like effect regarding naines of this character by Sir H. Rawlinson in the!. R. As. Soc. vol. xi. pp. 64 and 103.
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