[(8.)] “inhabited by seventy-two languages.”—This “great forest” is the Caucasus, the extent of the great mountain range in a direct line from sea to sea, agreeing exactly with the length given. The seventy-two languages are the seventy-two nationalities (Dorn, Geog. Cauc., 221), each of which spoke a different tongue; they were the seventy-two nations confined by Alexander beyond the Caspian Gates.
There exists a tradition, that when upon his death-bed Mahomet recommended to the faithful the conquest of the Caucasus, a country he had ever held in special veneration, so that several Shyite sects place it, in point of sanctity, above the cities of Arabia (D’Ohsson, Des Peup. du Cauc., ii, 182). It is therefore not at all strange that the sovereignty over a region so specially blessed and in which the sultan himself was born, should have been included amongst his dignities, since he was entitled, in a measure, to consider the power of the founder of Alexandria to be his heritage.
Claiming the monarchy, as he did, over the forests of the Caucasus, the sultan naturally added thereunto his possession of Cappadocia, a portion of which did indeed belong to him, and wherein he had every right to situate Paradise. Mahomedans believe, as do Christians and Jews, that the Garden was in a beautiful land called Adn, watered by a marvellous river which was the source of the Euphrates, of the Tigris, the Jihoun (Pyramus of the ancients) and the Syhoun (Sarus), all in Cappadocia or in its immediate neighbourhood. Really, Boursbaï was no farther out in his calculations, than were those learned men who recognised the two last-named rivers in the Oxus and Jaxartes (Hammer), in the Araxes and Phasis (Brugsch), and even in the Volga and Indus (Raumer)—Bruun.
[(9.)] “the guardian of the caves.”—The disappearance, A.D. 873, at the age of twelve, of Mohammed the descendant of Ali and the twelfth and last Imam, in a cave near Sermen Rey, distant thirty-two miles from Baghdad, gave rise to numerous conjectures, all of equal absurdity. The Shyites believe that this Mehdy, or celestial judge, is still in the unknown cave, and they await his return as impatiently as do the Jews that of the Messiah. The Sunnites are satisfied that when the world comes to an end, he will make his appearance accompanied by three hundred and sixty celestial spirits, and prevail upon the people of the earth to embrace Islamism (D’Ohsson, Tableau. général de l’E. O., i, 152).
The sultan of Egypt is said to have styled himself “the guardian of the caves” (ein vogt der hellen), perhaps because the cavern was under his protection; but it is also possible that for “hellen” we should read Helle or Halle, the German for Hillah, on the site of ancient Babylon, and celebrated for such holy places in its neighbourhood as Kerbela and Mesjyd Ali, the Campo Santo to which the Shyites perform pilgrimages (Ritter, Die Erdkunde etc., ix, 842, 869, 955).—Bruun.
[(10.)] “Destructor of the Gods.”—It is impossible to agree with Penzel, that Schiltberger entertained the strange notion of having seen a protector of hell in that Boursbaï, whom Penzel himself admits had glorified himself as being the friend of all gods (aller Götter Freund), because the last title on the list is “Destructor of the Gods” (Ain mäg der götter). But here Penzel is again at fault in his interpretation of Schiltberger’s meaning, because the monarch who claimed to be the Light of the true Faith (S. de Sacy, Chrestom. Arabe, 322), rather than boast of his friendship for the gods, would have declared himself to be, in keeping with the tenets of his religion, the implacable enemy to idolatry, a destructor of gods, a Mahhy, transformed in the text into “mäg”.
There is some difficulty in accounting for the sultan’s usurpation of the title of “the mighty emperor of Constantinoppel”. In his letter to Shah Rokh, alluded to in note 4, page 184, he wrote as follows: “The kings of the earth have come from all parts as the bearers of their homage. The King of Hormuz, the Sultan of Hisn, the son of Karaman; these princes, sovereigns of their countries, the Sultan of the revered city of Mecca, the Sultans of Yemen, of Magreb, and of Tekrour, the King of Cyprus, since dead, all have presented themselves at my Court”. This king of Cyprus, who was named John and died in 1432, was captured by the Egyptians on their expedition to the island in 1426, and being forced to acknowledge the suzerainty of the sultan, agreed to pay annual tribute to the amount of twenty thousand dinars, to enable him to obtain his freedom (Weil, Gesch. der Chal., v, 177). John II., emperor of Byzantium, sought, but in vain, to intercede for the king by entering into negociations with the sultan (ibid., 173), upon which occasion he may possibly have stooped to pay homage as others did, for he was not ashamed at another time to prostrate himself and kiss the Pope’s slipper. It is likely enough that he presented himself under the name of Tekrour, a country Silvester de Sacy is at a loss to determine. Tekrour, however, need not have been the name of a country at all, but a corruption of Takfour, a designation in the East for the emperor of Constantinople.
The homage of the ruling powers on earth, did not suffice to satisfy the despot Boursbaï, for his ambition wafted him to the skies (“the lord [of the places] where Enoch and Helyas are buried”), the place of sepulture, say the Mahomedans, of their prophets Enoch, and Elias the protector of travellers, and who is believed by the Jews to have been borne away to heaven (D’Ohsson, l. c., i, 51, 111).
Another title, though less bombastic, is still more puzzling, unless “Kaylamer” is to be identified with the fortress of Kalamil visited in 1221 by Willbrand of Oldenburg (Viv. de Saint-Martin, Desc. de l’A. M., i, 488), after leaving Mamistra (Mopsvesta of the ancients, Mimistra of the Byzantines, the actual Missis). When upon this journey, Willbrand left on his right hand a place called the King’s Black Castle, an indication that conducts us with Saint-Martin to the defile known to the ancients as the Pylæ Armeniæ or Pylæ Ciliciæ, now called Demyr Kapou by the Turks; evidently the same locality as that noticed by Marino Sanudo (Liber Secret. Fidel., etc., 221—Pauthier, Marco Polo, cxxxii, 1). “Tartari autem sequenti anno (1260) violenter irrumpentes, ceperunt Alapiam, Harem, Hamam, Calamelam et Damascum.” The fortress of Calamela being included among the chief cities in Syria, it is to be inferred that its strategical and commercial importance had greatly increased during the half century that transpired after Willbrand’s visit. Nor does Calamila seem to have escaped the notice of Italian navigators, for the name, slightly varied, appears in the hydrographic charts of the 14th century. In the Catalan atlas, 1375, for instance, Caramila is evidently the same as the Cramela spoken of by the author of Liber Secretorum Fidelium, etc., who observes that it stood on the site of ancient Issus, the gulf of this city being marked on the chart, “golfo de Cramela”. At that time, Cramela divided the possessions of the sultan of Egypt from those of the king of Armenia; and considering its importance, the sultan may not have disdained to style himself amir of Calamila, transformed by Schiltberger into “Amorach of Kaylamer”.