All this the Great Lord hath ordered,
that he may attach the more of grandeur and dignity to his festivals.
And now I must mention another thing that I had forgotten, but which you
will be astonished to learn from this Book. You must know that on the
Feast Day a great Lion is led to the Emperor's presence, and as soon as it
sees him it lies down before him with every sign of the greatest
veneration, as if it acknowledged him for its lord; and it remains there
lying before him, and entirely unchained. Truly this must seem a strange
story to those who have not seen the thing![NOTE 3]
NOTE 1. - On the Keshican, see note 1 to chap. xii., and on the changes
of raiment note 3 to chap. xiv., and the remarks there as to the number of
distributions. I confess that the stress laid upon the number 13 in this
chapter makes the supposition of error more difficult. But there is
something odd and unintelligible about the whole of the chapter except the
last paragraph. For the 12,000 Keshican are here all elevated to
Barons; and at the same time the statement about their changes of
raiment seems to be merely that already made in chapter xiv. This
repetition occurs only in the French MSS., but as it is in all these we
cannot reject it.
NOTE 2. - The words Camut and Borgal appear both to be used here for
what we call Russia-Leather. The latter word in one form or another,
Bolghar, Borghali, or Bulkal, is the term applied to that material to
this day nearly all over Asia. Ibn Batuta says that in travelling during
winter from Constantinople to the Wolga he had to put on three pairs of
boots, one of wool (which we should call stockings), a second of wadded
linen, and a third of Borghali, "i.e. of horse-leather lined with
wolf-skin." Horse-leather seems to be still the favourite material for
boots among all the Tartar nations. The name was undoubtedly taken from
Bolghar on the Wolga, the people of which are traditionally said to have
invented the art of preparing skins in that manner. This manufacture is
still one of the staple trades of Kazan, the city which in position and
importance is the nearest representative of Bolghar now.
Camut is explained by Klaproth to be "leather made from the back-skin of
a camel." It appears in Johnson's Persian Dictionary as Kamu, but I do
not know from what language it originally comes.
