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
Vambery.
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 (1089-1130). 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
Mueller, p. 138; Gott. Viterb. in Pistorii Nidani Script. Germ. II.
228; Alexandriade, pp. 310-311; Pereg. IV. p. 118; Acad. des Insc.
Divers Savans, II. 483; Edrisi, II. 416-420, etc.)
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 (Shara' 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. 176-179. - H. C.]
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 'Afci, "Falco montanus." (See Casiri,
I. 320.) Major St. John tells me that the Terlan, 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 (1590,
reprinted 1868) 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.
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 Akhaltzike 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
coincides 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 day 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.
