Mas quanto al gozar del Santo Sepulcro
Son prógimos todos en Christo y hermanos.”
This author evidently confounds the Georgians with the Abhases and the latter with the Abyssinians, as had frequently been done before him. In quoting from documents preserved among the archives at Königsberg, a letter from Conrad of Jungingen, Grand-Master of the Teutonic Order, dated January 20, 1407, and addressed to Prester John, “regi Abassiæ”, Karamsin (Hist. de Russie, iii, 388), observes, that the superscription applies to the king of Abhase in the region of the Caucasus, and not to the king of Abyssinia. We read, likewise, in the chronicle of Alberic (Rel. de Jean du Plan de Carpin, 161) that the legate Pelagius “misit nuntios suos in Abyssiniam terram et Georgianorum, qui sunt viri catholici”.
The friendship that existed between the “negus christianissimus” and the sultan was certainly but rarely interrupted, probably because they sympathised in each other’s apprehensions; but the sentiments entertained by Boursbaï towards the caliph, must have been of a different nature, so that he may have taken upon himself to borrow the title of “guardian of Wadach”, or Baghdad.—Bruun.
[(11.)] “This is done on all the roads of the king-sultan.”—It would appear that during the author’s stay in Egypt, the ladies of that country exceeded all bounds in the abuse of the freedom they were permitted to enjoy during the Baïram festivities, judging by the severe measures adopted by the sultan, to their prejudice, in 1432 (Weil, Gesch. der Chal., v, 208). It was forbidden to every woman, and there were no exceptions, to leave her house, so that the unmarried even incurred the risk of dying of starvation. This law was subsequently modified in favour of coloured slaves and old women, and the young were only permitted to leave their home for the bath, on the express understanding that they returned immediately afterwards.
By another decree, promulgated in the early part of his reign, the sultan Boursbaï abolished the ancient custom which required that the ground should be kissed by all who were admitted to his presence; and it was thenceforth ordained, that according to the rank of the person introduced, so his hand or the hem of his garment should be kissed. But he was soon persuaded to resort to the old usage, except that instead of kissing the ground with the mouth, those presented were to touch the ground with the hand, which was then to be kissed. Schiltberger could not have been in Egypt before the abolition of the above ridiculous and barbarous custom, in the first year of Boursbaï’s reign; but there were no doubt numerous instances in his day of obsequious courtiers and other parasites who did actually kiss the ground. The ceremonial and etiquette observed at the presentation and reception of ambassadors, was in accordance with the customs of the Turks and Tatars upon such occasions.
The little bell for post-horses was introduced by the Mongols into Russia, and having been in use on post-roads ever since the time of their domination, has substituted the horn of the French and German postillion.—Bruun.
[(12.)] “and they send it to whosoever it belongs.”—Pigeons were employed in Asia as earners, in very remote times. It was pigeon service of which the daughter of the governor of Atra, Hatra, or al Hadr, availed herself, that enabled Sapor, king of Persia, 240–271, to capture the city which the emperor Severus had failed to take. It is recorded by numerous European and Eastern writers, that the pigeon-post was in general use in Syria and Egypt during the Crusades. In his story of the Crusade under Henry VI., in 1196, Arnold, bishop of Lubeck, describes the training of pigeons, which was similar to what we read in the text, and observes that “the Infidels are more highly gifted than the children of light”, the training of pigeons being the invention of the Infidels, whose practice was imitated by their enemies. After the fall of Baïrouth in 1197, Boemund, prince of Antioch, announced the good tidings to his subjects by despatching a pigeon.
Khalil Daheri (Quatremère, i, 55, note 77), an Arabian writer of the 15th century, reports that Belbeis, Salehieh, Katia, and Varradeh or Barideh, were the pigeon-post stations on the road to Syria. According to Makrizi (ibid., 56), Varradeh was distant eighteen miles from Alarih. Query? Fort Arich or el-Arich in Lower Egypt, where the French capitulation was signed in 1800. Aboul-Mahazin declares that Bir al-Kady—The Kady’s well—must have marked the limits of Syria and Egypt.
Another Arabian writer (Abd-Allatif, S. de Sacy edition, 43) calls Alarich, Alaris—changed by the bishop of Lubeck, as his German editors believe, into Ahir, a name almost to be identified with “Archey”, one of the principal pigeon stations.—Bruun.