[(13.)] “and has daily twenty thousand men at his court.”—In writing after his own fashion the native name of Fostat as “Missir”, erroneously called Old Cairo by Europeans (Abd-Allatif, S. de Sacy edition, 424), Schiltberger imagined that the name was equally applicable to Cairo, because at that period the two towns had largely extended towards each other, so as to form one city. De Lannoy (Voy. et Ambass., 80) distinguishes Cairo from Fostat or Misr, which he calls Babylon, a name it had received in consequence of the settlement there of a Babylonian colony in the reign of Cambyses (Noroff, Pout. po Yeghyptou, i, 154). Even now the Copts include a part of Cairo and of Fostat under the name of Boblien—Little Babylon—the new Babylon of the writers of the middle ages, who took it upon themselves to bestow on the sovereigns of Egypt the title of Sultan of Babylon, and some of whom, Arnold of Lubeck for instance (Geschichtschr. der Deutsch. Vorzeit., etc., xiii Jahrhund. iii, 283), have even confounded the Euphrates with the Nile. De Lannoy assists us in a measure to discern the error into which Schiltberger has fallen ... “est à-sçavoir que le Kaire, Babillonne et Boulacq furent jadis chascune ville à par lui, mais à présent s’est tellement édiffiée, que ce n’est que une mesme chose, et y a aucune manière de fossez entre deux plas sans eaue, combien qu’il y a moult de maisons et chemins entre deux, et peut avoir du Kaire à Babillonne trois milles et de Boulacq au Kaire trois mille.” Noroff considered Boulak to be the Egyptian Manchester, because of the manufactories established there by Mehemet Ali. The population of the three towns was quite in proportion to their extent, and certainly so continued until about twenty years before De Lannoy’s arrival, when it decreased; indeed it is stated by Aboul-Mahazin, that Egypt and Syria had fallen preys to every sort of calamity during the reign of Faradj, 1399–1412. Apart from the Mongol invasion and incessant civil war, those countries were assailed by the European maritime powers, and visited by plague and famine, so that the population was reduced by one-third.
There was a time when it was generally believed that the people in Cairo could not be numbered, because it was considered the most populous city in the world, with more inhabitants than all Italy contained, the vagabonds it sheltered sufficing to fill Venice! In saying this, Breidenbach (Webb, A Survey of Egypt and Syria, etc.) does not fail to observe: “Audita refero—neque enim ipso numeravi.” Schiltberger may have thought the same, when he computed the streets in “Missir” to be as numerous as were the houses in Caffa; and this he did that his readers might be the better able to judge of the difference between the two cities.
That the sultan’s suite consisted of twenty thousand men is most probable, allusion being made to the dwellers in the citadel. Thus, De Lanuoy:—“est ledit chastel moult grant comme une ville fermée, et y habite dedens avecq le soudan grant quantité de gens, en espécial bien le nombre de deux mille esclaves de cheval qu’il paye à ses souldées comme ses meilleurs gens d’armes à garder son corps, femmes et enffans, et autres gens grant nombre.”
In 1778, thirty thousand people lived in the citadel, one half of that number being troops (Parsons, Travels in Asia and Africa, etc., 382).—Bruun.
[(14.)] “no person can be made king-sultan unless he has been sold.”—The Mamelouk militia, formed, as the name indicates, of old slaves, arrogated to themselves the right of elevating to the throne one of their own number, upon the death of the sultan. See De Lannoy (83).—Bruun.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
[(1.)] “and on the spike he must rot.”—Among those who had reigned or assumed the supreme power in Egypt, appear the names of “Marochloch” and “Jusuphda”, intended for Barkok and Faradj; also “Mathas”, whose reign intervened between that of “Marochloch” and “Jusuphda”. The successors of the latter were “Zechem”, “Schyachin”, and “Malleckchafcharff” also known as “Balmander”, who was no other than Boursbaï, 1422–1438; he assumed upon his accession, according to custom, the title of Ak Melyk, and the distinctive prefix of Alashraf Seif uddin Aboul-Nazr—The most Noble Sword of the Faith, and Father of Victory (Weil, Gesch. der Chal., v, 167). “Mathas” was Mintash or Mantash, governor of Malatia, who, after having for a time replaced Barkok, perished in 1393 by being broken on the wheel. It is possible, however, that Arabian authors have otherwise described the mode of Mantash’s execution, through misapprehension, because the sawing in two parts was a punishment of antiquity, practised in eastern countries other than Egypt. Dion Cassius (lxviii, 32) relates that the Jews in Cyrene and Egypt, under Trajan, having revolted, sawed in two the Romans and Greeks who fell into their hands, staining their faces with the blood of their victims, and adorning themselves with the skin. In one of the admirable notes to his translation of Makrizi, Quatremère (i, 72, note 103) cites numerous instances of this kind of punishment in Schiltberger’s day, not in Egypt only, but also in Persia and among the Mongols. The Russian princes captured after the battle of the Kalka, in 1223, were thus tortured (Karamsin, Hist. de Russie, iii, 291).
“Zechem” is to be identified with Jakam, governor of Syria, who revolted against Faradj. He was acknowledged as sultan in Syria, but succumbed in a war with Kara Yelek in 1405–06.
“Schyachin” is a name that slightly recalls to mind Sheykh Mahmoud, sultan in 1421; he was successor to the caliph Abbas al-mustein Billahy who reigned for a few months after the death of Faradj in 1412; but Sheykh Mahmoud died a natural death at an advanced age, and could not therefore have been the ruler whose execution Schiltberger describes so minutely, that he must have been a witness to his torments. None of Boursbaï’s predecessors—Ahmed, the eldest son of Mahmoud—Tater, an old Mamelouk—or Mohammed, the youngest son of Mahmoud, deposed by Boursbaï, met with the fate of “Schyachin”, a name intended perhaps for Azahiri, governor of Safad, who raised the standard of revolt at the very commencement of Boursbaï’s reign. He was deserted by his followers, and having surrendered was put to torture, 1422, perhaps enduring the sufferings to which “Schyachin” was subjected.—Bruun.