Kurt Is Turkish For A Wolf, Not Persian, Which Is Gurg; But
The Name (Karduchi, Kordiaei, Etc.) Is Older, I Imagine, Than The
Turkish Language In That Part Of Asia.
Quatremere refers it to the Persian
gurd, "strong, valiant, hero." As regards the statement that some of the
Kurds were Christians, Mas'udi states that the Jacobites and certain other
Christians in the territory of Mosul and Mount Judi were reckoned among
the Kurds.
(Not. et Ext. XIII. i. 304.) [The Kurds of Mosul are in part
nomadic and are called Kotcheres, but the greater number are sedentary
and cultivate cereals, cotton, tobacco, and fruits. (Cuinet.) Old
Kurdistan had Shehrizor (Kerkuk, in the sanjak of that name) as its
capital. - H. C.]
NOTE 5. - Ramusio here, as in all passages where other texts have
Bucherami and the like, puts Boccassini, a word which has become
obsolete in its turn. I see both Bochayrani and Bochasini coupled, in
a Genoese fiscal statute of 1339, quoted by Pardessus. (Lois Maritimes,
IV. 456.)
MUSH and MARDIN are in very different regions, but as their actual
interval is only about 120 miles, they may have been under one
provincial government. Mush is essentially Armenian, and, though the seat
of a Pashalik, is now a wretched place. Mardin, on the verge of the
Mesopotamian Plain, rises in terraces on a lofty hill, and there, says
Hammer, "Sunnis and Shias, Catholic and Schismatic Armenians, Jacobites,
Nestorians, Chaldaeans, Sun-, Fire-, Calf-, and Devil-worshippers dwell
one over the head of the other." (Ilchan. I. 191.)
CHAPTER VI.
OF THE GREAT CITY OF BAUDAS, AND HOW IT WAS TAKEN.
Baudas is a great city, which used to be the seat of the Calif of all the
Saracens in the world, just as Rome is the seat of the Pope of all the
Christians.[NOTE 1] A very great river flows through the city, and by this
you can descend to the Sea of India. There is a great traffic of merchants
with their goods this way; they descend some eighteen days from Baudas,
and then come to a certain city called KISI, where they enter the Sea of
India.[NOTE 2] There is also on the river, as you go from Baudas to Kisi,
a great city called BASTRA, surrounded by woods, in which grow the best
dates in the world.[NOTE 3]
In Baudas they weave many different kinds of silk stuffs and gold
brocades, such as nasich, and nac, and cramoisy, and many another
beautiful tissue richly wrought with figures of beasts and birds. It is
the noblest and greatest city in all those regions.[NOTE 4]
Now it came to pass on a day in the year of Christ 1255, that the Lord of
the Tartars of the Levant, whose name was Alaue, brother to the Great Kaan
now reigning, gathered a mighty host and came up against Baudas and took
it by storm.[NOTE 5] It was a great enterprise! for in Baudas there were
more than 100,000 horse, besides foot soldiers.
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