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| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
N
MARCO POLO BooK I.
74
missionary of the 16th century does the same. The mountain, he says, is between Tauris and Nakhshiwan, and is called Manhuc. (Gravina, Christianita nell' Armenia, etc., Roma, 1605, p. 91.)
The moving of a mountain is one of the miracles ascribed to Gregory Thaumaturgus. Such stories are rife among the Mahomedans themselves. " I know," says Khanikoff, " at least half a score of mountains which the Musulmans allege to have come from the vicinity of Mecca."
Ramusio's text adds here : " All the Nestorian and Jacobite Christians from that time forward have maintained a solemn celebration of the day on which the miracle occurred, keeping a fast also on the eve thereof."
F. Göring, a writer who contributes three articles on Marco Polo to the Neue Züricher-Zeitung, 5th, 6th, 8th April, 1878, says : " I heard related in Egypt a report which Marco Polo had transmitted to Baghdad. I will give it here in connection with another which I also came across in Egypt.
" ` Many years ago there reigned in Babylon, on the Nile, a haughty Khalif who vexed the Christians with taxes and corvées. He was confirmed in his hate of
the Christians by the Khakam Chacham Bashi or Chief Rabbi of the Jews, who one
day said to him : " The Christians allege in their books that it shall not hurt them to drink or eat any deadly thing. So I have prepared a potion that one of them shall
taste at my hand : if he does not die on the spot then call me no more Chacham
Bashi ! " The Khalif immediately sent for His Holiness the Patriarch of Babylon, and ordered him to drink up the potion. The Patriarch just blew a little over the
cup and then emptied it at a draught, and took no harm. His Holiness then on his side demanded that the Chacham Bashi should quaff a cup to the health of the Khalif, which he (the Patriarch) should first taste, and this the Khalif found only fair and right. But hardly had the Chacham Bashi put the cup to his lips than he fell down and expired.' Still the Musulmans and Jews thirsted for Christian blood. It happened at that time that a mass of the hill Mokattani became loose and threatened to come down upon Babylon. This was laid to the door of the Christians,
and they were ordered to stop it. The Patriarch in great distress has a vision that tells him summon the saintly cobbler (of whom the same story is told as here)—the cobbler
bids the rock to stand still and it does so to this day. ` These two stories may still be heard in Cairo '—from whom is not said. The hill that threatened to fall on the Egyptian Babylon is called in Turkish Dur Dagh, ` Stay, or halt-hill.' (L.c. April, T878.")—LS. Note, H. Y.
CHAPTER XI.
OF THE NOBLE CITY OF TAURIS.
TAURIS is a great and noble city, situated in a great
province called YRAC, in which are many other towns and
villages. But as Tauris is the most noble I will tell you
about it.'
The men of Tauris get their living by trade and handi-
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