[180] Tana was the name of a place at the mouth of the Don or Tanais, the site of an early Venetian factory.
[181] See note (2) page 54.
[182] “Cicilia,” in orig.
[183] Marco Polo also places the country of the three Magi, Balthazar, Gaspar, and Melchior, in this region (ii. 9), as appears from his connecting them with the worshipped fire at Baku. Their tombs, according to him, were in a city called Sava.
[184] The Iron Gates, at the place called by the Persians Der-bend (Dăr-bănd), or the Closed Gate, the capital of Daghestan, and lying in a defile between the Caucasus and the Caspian. The city is traditionally said to have been founded by Alexander, and part of the celebrated wall of Gog and Magog, said to have extended from the Black Sea to the Caspian, is to be seen here, running over high and almost inaccessible mountains. (Kinneir’s Pers. Empire, p. 355.)
[185] One suspects some mistake here. He would seem still to be speaking of Cathay, in which case his estimate would have some propriety.
[186] I cannot explain all these names. But the author’s reference is to the several empires into which the vast conquests of Chengiz Khan were partitioned among his descendants. 1. Cathay, or all the eastern part of the empire, including China, with a paramount authority over all, fell to Okkodai and his successors, the “Great Khans” or “Great Tartars” of our author. 2. Kipchak, or Comania, all the country westward of the Ural river, through the south of Russia, fell eventually to Batu, the grandson of Chengiz, whose invasion, penetrating to Silesia and Hungary, struck terror into Europe. This is the Gatzaria of the text; Khazaria being properly the country adjoining the Sea of Azoph, and including the Crimea. The expression “now of Osbet” appears to refer to Uzbeg, who was Khan of Kipchak from 1313 to 1340. 3. Jagatai (Elchigaday = El Jagatai, I suppose) was Transoxiana, lying between the first and second empires. It was so called from Jagatai, the son of Chengiz, to whom it fell. Kaidu, the grandson of Jagatai, according to Marco Polo, was the ruler of this country in the time of that traveller. Dua and Capac I cannot explain. 4. Persia. The second and third are of course the “other two empires of the Tartars” mentioned in the text. (See D’Avezac’s “Notice of Old Travels in Tartary” in Recueil de Voyages, vol. iv.; and Introduction to Erskine’s Translation of Baber’s Memoirs, etc.)
[187] See in Ibn Batuta, p. 172, a description of the great Chinese junks, trading at that time to Malabar. It is remarkable that the Arabian traveller uses literally the word junk, showing that we got it through the Arab mariners, though ultimately from the Malay ajong, a ship.
[188] Sic in orig. Qu. Arabia?
[189] It was just about this time that a great proselytizing energy was developed by Islám in the far east, extending to Sumatra and Java.