From Lodese, three of Quirini's crew went home in a vessel bound for Rostock, and eight of them accompanied him to England, where they came to their friends in London, by way of Ely and Cambridge. After residing two months at London, they took shipping thence for Germany; and, travelling thence by way of Basil, in Switzerland, they arrived, after a journey of twenty-four days, in safety and good health at Venice.
[CHAPTER XIX.]
Travels of Josaphat Barbaro, Ambassador from Venice to Tanna, now called Asof, in 1436.[1]
[1] Forster, Voy. and Disc, in the North p. 165.
INTRODUCTION.
Josaphat Barbaro, a Venetian, was sent, in the year 1436, by the republic of Venice, as ambassador to Tanna, now called Asof, which at that time was in the hands of the Genoese. This relation was printed in a small and scarce collection at the Aldus press in Venice, by Antonio Minutio in 1543, and was afterwards inserted in the collection of Giovanne Baptista Ramusio. The following is an abstract of that journey. He went afterwards into Persia in 1471, as ambassador to Ussum Hassan, or Assambei, a Turkomanian prince of the white weather tribe, and was sixteen years among the Tartars; and on his return to his native country wrote an account of both these expeditions. He died at Venice at a very advanced age, in 1494.
These travels are not given in any regular order, nor is any itinerary mentioned. It would appear that he resided for some time at Tanna, now Asof, making several journeys into the Crimea, and among the nations which inhabit between the Don and the Wolga, the Black Sea and the Caspian; and that he returned home by way of Moscow, Novogorod, Warsaw, and Francfort on the Oder, and through Germany into Italy.
Josaphat Barbaro began his journey to Tanna in 1436, and explored that country with great assiduity, and a spirit of inquiry that does him much honour, partly by land and partly by water, for sixteen years. The plain of Tartary is bounded on the east by the great river Ledil, Edil, or Wolga; on the west by Poland; on the north by Russia; on the south by the Great or Black Sea, Alania, Kumania or Comania, and Gazaria, all of which border on the sea of Tebache[2]. Alania has its name from the people called Alani, who call themselves As in their own language. These people were Christians, and their country had been ravaged and laid waste by the Tartars or Mongals. The province of Alania contains many mountains, rivers, and plains, and in the latter there are many hills made by the hand of man, serving for sepulchral monuments, on the top of each of which there is a flat stone with a hole in it, in which a stone cross is fixed. About 110 years before the journey of Barbaro, or in 1326, the religion of Mahomet was adopted by the Tartars or Mongals; though, indeed, before that period there were some Mahometans in the country, but every one was permitted to follow what religion he chose. In consequence of this, some worshipped wooden images, which they carried about with them on their carts or moveable huts: But the compulsatory establishment of the Mahometan religion takes its date from the time of Hedighi, Edigi, or Jedighei, who was a general under the Tartarian emperor Sidahameth khan. This Hedighi was the father of Naurus, in whose days Ulu-Mohameth, or Mahomet the great, was khan of the Tartars.
[2] Called likewise the sea of Zabachi, Ischaback-Denghissi, the Palus Maeotis, and Sea of Asof.--Forst.