But As Tauris Is The Most Noble I Will Tell You About It.[NOTE 1]

The men of Tauris get their living by trade and handi crafts, for they weave many kinds of beautiful and valuable stuffs of silk and gold.

The city has such a good position that merchandize is brought thither from India, Baudas, CREMESOR,[NOTE 2] and many other regions; and that attracts many Latin merchants, especially Genoese, to buy goods and transact other business there; the more as it is also a great market for precious stones. It is a city in fact where merchants make large profits.[NOTE 3]

The people of the place are themselves poor creatures; and are a great medley of different classes. There are Armenians, Nestorians, Jacobites, Georgians, Persians, and finally the natives of the city themselves, who are worshippers of Mahommet. These last are a very evil generation; they are known as TAURIZI.[NOTE 4] The city is all girt round with charming gardens, full of many varieties of large and excellent fruits.[NOTE 5]

Now we will quit Tauris, and speak of the great country of Persia. [From Tauris to Persia is a journey of twelve days.]

NOTE 1. - Abulfeda notices that TABRIZ was vulgarly pronounced Tauriz, and this appears to have been adopted by the Franks. In Pegolotti the name is always Torissi.

Tabriz is often reckoned to belong to Armenia, as by Hayton. Properly it is the chief city of Azerbaijan, which never was included in 'IRAK. But it may be observed that Ibn Batuta generally calls the Mongol Ilkhan of Persia Sahib or Malik ul-'Irak, and as Tabriz was the capital of that sovereign, we can account for the mistake, whilst admitting it to be one. [The destruction of Baghdad by Hulaku made Tabriz the great commercial and political city of Asia, and diverted the route of Indian products from the Mediterranean to the Euxine. It was the route to the Persian Gulf by Kashan, Yezd, and Kerman, to the Mediterranean by Lajazzo, and later on by Aleppo, - and to the Euxine by Trebizond. The destruction of the Kingdom of Armenia closed to Europeans the route of Tauris. - H. C.]

NOTE 2. - Cremesor, as Baldelli points out, is GARMSIR, meaning a hot region, a term which in Persia has acquired several specific applications, and especially indicates the coast-country on the N.E. side of the Persian Gulf, including Hormuz and the ports in that quarter.

NOTE 3. - [Of the Italians established at Tabriz, the first whose name is mentioned is the Venetian Pietro Viglioni (Vioni); his will, dated 10th December, 1264, is still in existence. (Archiv. Venet. XXVI. pp. 161-165; Heyd, French Ed., II. p. 110.) - H. C.] At a later date (1341) the Genoese had a factory at Tabriz headed by a consul with a council of twenty four merchants, and in 1320 there is evidence of a Venetian settlement there. (Elie de la Prim, 161; Heyd, II. 82.)

Rashiduddin says of Tabriz that there were gathered there under the eyes of the Padishah of Islam "philosophers, astronomers, scholars, historians, of all religions, of all sects; people of Cathay, of Machin, of India, of Kashmir, of Tibet, of the Uighur and other Turkish nations, Arabs and Franks." Ibn Batuta, "I traversed the bazaar of the jewellers, and my eyes were dazzled by the varieties of precious stones which I beheld.

Enter page number Go  Previous Next
Page 263 of 655
Words from 137550 to 138117 of 342071