- "Enferme durement." So Marino Sanuto objects to Lesser Armenia
as a place of debarkation for a crusade "quia terra est infirma"
Langlois, speaking of the Cilician plain:
"In this region once so fair,
now covered with swamps and brambles, fever decimates a population which
is yearly diminishing, has nothing to oppose to the scourge but incurable
apathy, and will end by disappearing altogether," etc. (Voyage, p. 65.)
Cilician Armenia retains its reputation for sport, and is much frequented
by our naval officers for that object. Ayas is noted for the extraordinary
abundance of turtles.
NOTE 4. - The phrase twice used in this passage for the Interior is Fra
terre, an Italianism (Fra terra, or, as it stands in the Geog. Latin,
"infra terram Orientis"), which, however, Murray and Pauthier have read
as an allusion to the Euphrates, an error based apparently on a marginal
gloss in the published edition of the Soc. de Geographie. It is true that
the province of Comagene under the Greek Empire got the name of
Euphratesia, or in Arabic Furatiyah, but that was not in question
here. The great trade of Ayas was with Tabriz, via Sivas, Erzingan, and
Erzrum, as we see in Pegolotti. Elsewhere, too, in Polo we find the phrase
fra terre used, where Euphrates could possibly have no concern, as in
relation to India and Oman. (See Bk. III. chs. xxix. and xxxviii., and
notes in each case.)
With regard to the phrase spicery here and elsewhere, it should be noted
that the Italian spezerie included a vast deal more than ginger and
other things "hot i' the mouth." In one of Pegolotti's lists of spezerie
we find drugs, dye-stuffs, metals, wax, cotton, etc.
CHAPTER II.
CONCERNING THE PROVINCE OF TURCOMANIA.
In Turcomania there are three classes of people. First, there are the
Turcomans; these are worshippers of Mahommet, a rude people with an
uncouth language of their own.[NOTE 1] They dwell among mountains and
downs where they find good pasture, for their occupation is
cattle-keeping. Excellent horses, known as Turquans, are reared in their
country, and also very valuable mules. The other two classes are the
Armenians and the Greeks, who live mixt with the former in the towns and
villages, occupying themselves with trade and handicrafts. They weave the
finest and handsomest carpets in the world, and also a great quantity of
fine and rich silks of cramoisy and other colours, and plenty of other
stuffs. Their chief cities are CONIA, SAVAST [where the glorious Messer
Saint Blaise suffered martyrdom], and CASARIA, besides many other towns and
bishops' sees, of which we shall not speak at present, for it would be too
long a matter. These people are subject to the Tartar of the Levant as
their Suzerain.[NOTE 2] We will now leave this province, and speak of the
Greater Armenia.
NOTE 1. - Ricold of Montecroce, a contemporary of Polo, calls the Turkmans
homines bestiales. In our day Ainsworth notes of a Turkman village:
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