At a short distance above Gharny, also on the Gharny-tchaï in the Goktcha valley, is the venerable monastery of Aïrits vank, Ghergarr or Keghart, noted for its memorial inscriptions of the 12th, 13th, and 14th centuries (The Crimea and Transc., i, 211, 221).—Ed.
[(8.)] “the priests are of the Order of Preachers, and sing in the Armenian tongue.”—What Schiltberger says with regard to “Meya”—Magou—is confirmed by Clavijo (Hakluyt Soc. Publ., 83). “On Sunday, the first of June, at the hour of vespers, they came to a castle called Maca, belonging to a Catholic Christian called Noradin, and the people who lived in it were Catholic Christians, though they were by birth and language Armenians, and they also knew the Tartar and Persian tongues. In this place there was a monastery of Dominican friars. The castle was in a valley, at the foot of a very high rock, and there was a village on a hill above, and on the top of the hill there was a wall of stone and mortar, with towers, and against the wall there were houses. There was also another wall with towers, and the entrance to it was by a great tower, built to guard it, along steps cut in the rocks. Near the second wall there were houses cut in the rock, and in the centre were some towers and houses, where the lord lived, and here all the people in the village kept their provisions. The rock was very high, and rose above the walls and houses; and from the rocks an overhanging part stretched out, which covers the castle, walls, and houses, like the heaven that is above them.”—Bruun.
(8A.) Tradition asserts that Makou, Makouyeh, in the Armenian province of Artazo-Tasht, to the east of Ararat and south of the Araxes, is built over the place where St. Thaddeus suffered martyrdom. The fortress is situated in a gorge above the village (J. Saint Martin, Mém. sur l’Arménie, i, 135).—Ed.
[(9.)] “Ress.”—Resht, the chief town of Ghilan, a place of great commercial importance in Schiltberger’s time, is distant six miles from the Caspian Sea. The Genoese and Venetians secured the rich produce of this province, especially the silken stuffs made there or imported from Yezd and Kashan. Marco Polo (Yule, i, 54) speaks of silk called Ghellè, after the name of the country on the Sea of Ghel or Ghelan—the Caspian.—Bruun.
[(10.)] “Strawba.”—Schiltberger changes Astrabad to “Strawba”, just as his Italian contemporaries have called the place Strava, Strevi, and Istarba. Its commerce was not considerable, but Astrabad was of some importance as being the depôt for merchandise in transit across the Caspian, from India and Bokhara.—Bruun.
[(11.)] “Antioch.”—Several cities of Asia were in ancient times called Antiochia. Stephen of Byzantium knew of eight, two of which, Edessa and Nisibis, were in Migdonia; and as each, in its turn, had become the foremost bulwark of Christianity, their possession was frequently disputed by the Infidels. Allusion is made in the text to Nisibis, with its ramparts of brick, rather than to Edessa, which was encircled by whitewashed walls.—Bruun.
[(12.)] “Aluitza.”—If the author here alludes to the same fortress (Alindsha ?) as is mentioned in chapter 16, of which there can scarcely be a doubt, that is to say, the fortress in which Ahmed ben Oweis kept his treasure; then the story of its siege by Timour for the space of sixteen years, was a gross exaggeration on the part of his informants, because we know from contemporary authors that the siege of Alindsha lasted eight years only.—Bruun.
[(13.)] “There is a city called Scheckhy; it is in a fertile country near the White Sea.”—It will be generally admitted that this White Sea is no other than the Caspian. Hammer (note, p. 45) says it was so called to distinguish it from the Black Sea; but Wahl (Allg. Beschr. d. persischen Reichs, ii, 679) attributes the distinctive name to the petrified shells, white and gray sand, with which the bed of the sea is overspread. It is pretty certain that White Sea is not a name invented by the author, but that he supplies us with the literal translation of the Georgian words—Tetrysea and Sywa, which have a similar signification, and are even now employed to designate the Caspian Sea. Hammer is mistaken in saying that Schiltberger called the eastern shore of the Caspian by the name of Scherky, as the word appears in Penzel, and which is simply a corruption of “Scheckhy”, now known as Sheky, on the left bank of the river Kour, between Georgia, the districts of Gandja, Shirwan and Daghestan. It is said that this part of the country was occupied as early as the 10th century by the Shekis or Shekines, a Christian people given to commerce and industrial pursuits (D’Ohsson, Des Peup. du Cauc. 18, and note xiv).—Bruun.
[(14.)] “the kingdom Horoson, and its capital is called Hore.”—As stated by Neumann, these places are intended for Khorasan and Herat. According to Masoudi (Ritter, Die Erdkunde etc., x. 65), there existed at the time of the conquest of Hira near the Euphrates, circa A.D. 637, the negotiator Abd-el-Mesy, a man greatly revered by the Arabs in consequence of his wisdom and great age. He had attained his 350th year, and enjoyed the distinction of being considered, if not a saint, at least a servant of God, that is to say, an Ibadite or Jacobite Christian.
Ibn Haukal states that the city of Hira, which was still in existence in the time of Edrisi (Recueil des Voy. et des Mém., iii, 366), was distant one farsang from Koufa, which with Basra was called Basraten—dualis of Basra—or the two Basras, the metropolis of the Nestorians at Basra being known as Euphrates Pherat Mesene or Perat Meissan, a name it had borne since A.D. 310. We are informed by Eastern writers, that at Konfa was the tomb of the saint, Adam (Ritter, Die Erdkunde etc., x, 179–184), a name that reminds us of “Phiradamschyech”, whose age coincided with that of Abd-el-Mesy.