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『東洋文庫所蔵』貴重書デジタルアーカイブ

desperately corrupt (cf. Le Strange, The geographical parts of the Nuzhat-al-Qulub, transl.,
231, 249).

Without questioning the identification of the Wisū with the Ves', it must be admitted that
many points remain open to doubt. Frähn showed some hesitation in identifying the people
practising the dumb trade according to Abū-'l-Fida and Ibn Baṭṭūṭah with the Wisū of Ibn Faḍlān,
and this hesitation is reflected in Yule's note. The distances cannot easily be reconciled, being
forty days in one case, and three months in the other. But Qazwīnī expressly speaks of the dumb
trade in connection with the Wisū, and it is hard to believe that people who would not show them-
selves to traders should have answered a letter sent to them by the king of Bulyār; still more that
they should have had any knowledge of Gog and Magog. Herberstein (Notes upon Russia,
Major's transl., Hakluyt Society, I, 40) speaks of the dumb trade, but in connection with the
people of Luksmore, in the region of the Obi (cf. also Baddeley, Russia, Mongolia, China, I, lxix-
lxx). Even the connection of the Ves' with the Béloe Ozero rests only on the passage in Nestor's
Chronicle. Yule has echoed (Y, II, 486) the opinion of « a Russian author » according to whom
the Béloe Ozero was anciently called Wiisu (not « Wūsu » as in Yule), which, « misunderstood
into Weissensee », was rendered Béloe Ozero into Russian. The « Russian author » is Tatiščev,
who stated (Istoriya Rossitskaya, II, 362) that the name « Béloe Ozero » was translated from the
«Sarmatian» Wiisu, altered into Ves' by Nestor. Frähn (pp. 221-222), while admitting that Tatiščev
generally used « Sarmatian » in the sense of « Finnish », could not find any Finnish term giving
the alleged sense, and then thought of a dialectal German *Wiis-su equivalent to « Weisser
See » (not « Weissensee »). But there is no authority for Tatiščev's statement beyond his own
word, a German *Wiis-su is quite arbitrary, and there is no visible reason why the Russians should
have resorted to a German intermediary to name a lake in Finnish territory. This etymology is
the weakest part in Frähn's otherwise very scholarly argument. I may add that the « White Lake »
may have been conceived as much more extensive than the present Béloe Ozero. On Fra Mauro's
map, there is a « Mar Biancho », from which several rivers flow to the west unto the Volga; twice
we are told that the « Tartar » name was « Hactenis », == Aq-tängiz, which actually means « White
Sea » in Turkish (cf. Zu, 25, 31; Hallberg, 76; « Tactenis » is a misreading of Zurla). This « sea »
is identified by Zurla (Zu, 114-115) with the Baikal, and it is true that its location on the map is
quite eastern. But, at the same time, Fra Mauro, explaining the three Russias, « White Russia »,
« Black Russia », and « Red Russia », says that White Russia was the part of Russia which
was in the region of the White Sea, and this excludes the Baikal. But the names of places in Russia
or adjacent to Russia on Fra Mauro's map would require a long discussion which cannot be under-
taken in the present note (for the importance retained by the « White Lake » in the cartography
of the first part of the 16th cent., cf. Baddeley, op. cit., I, cxvi).

Fra Mauro also mentions a « region de tenebre », and in it a notice occurs : « Questi populi
de Boler e Mallamata al tempo de inverno habitano soto terra » (cf. Zu, 31, not quite correct, and
Hallberg, 328, 529). I do not know what « Mallamata » is. As to « Boler », Hallberg (p. 74)
was mistaken in identifying it with Polo's « Bolor » (q. v.) on the borders of Afghanistan and India :
it is the « Bular » or « Bolar » of the Secret History, Abū-'l-Fida, and Schiltberger, the « Bileri »
of Plan-Carpine, i. e. Bulyār (see « Bolgara »). But this shows an undue extension of the Land of