The Expression Used By Joinville In Speaking Of The
Original Land Of The Tartars, "Une Grande Berrie De Sablon," Has Not
Been Elucidated In Any Edition That I Have Seen.
It is the Arabic [Arabic]
Baeriya, "a Desert." No doubt Joinville learned the word in Palestine.
(See Joinville, p. 143 seqq.; see also Oppert, Der Presb.
Johannes in
Sage und Geschichte, and Cathay, etc., pp. 173-182.) [Fried. Zarncke,
Der Priester Johannes; Cordier, Odoric. - H. C.]
[1] A passage in Mirkhond extracted by Erdmann (Temudschin, p. 532)
seems to make Bala Saghun the same as Bishbalik, now Urumtsi, but this
is inconsistent with other passages abstracted by Oppert (Presbyter
Johan. 131-32); and Vambery indicates a reason for its being sought
very much further west (H. of Bokhara, 116). [Dr. Bretschneider
(Med. Res.) has a chapter on Kara-Khitai (I. 208 seqq.) and in a
long note on Bala Sagun, which he calls Belasagun, he says (p. 226)
that "according to the Tarikh Djihan Kushai (d'Ohsson, i. 433), the
city of Belasagun had been founded by Buku Khan, sovereign of the
Uigurs, in a well-watered plain of Turkestan with rich pastures. The
Arabian geographers first mention Belasagun, in the ninth or tenth
century, as a city beyond the Sihun or Yaxartes, depending on
Isfidjab (Sairam, according to Lerch), and situated east of Taras.
They state that the people of Turkestan considered Belasagun to
represent 'the navel of the earth,' on account of its being situated
in the middle between east and west, and likewise between north and
south." (Sprenger's Poststr. d. Or., Mavarannahar). Dr.
Bretschneider adds (p. 227): "It is not improbable that ancient
Belasagun was situated at the same place where, according to the T'ang
history, the Khan of one branch of the Western T'u Kue (Turks) had his
residence in the seventh century. It is stated in the T'ang shu that
Ibi Shabolo Shehu Khan, who reigned in the first half of the seventh
century, placed his ordo on the northern border of the river Sui ye.
This river, and a city of the same name, are frequently mentioned in
the T'ang annals of the seventh and eighth centuries, in connection
with the warlike expeditions of the Chinese in Central Asia. Sui ye
was situated on the way from the river Ili to the city of Ta-lo-sz'
(Talas). In 679 the Chinese had built on the Sui ye River a fortress;
but in 748 they were constrained to destroy it." (Comp. Visdelou in
Suppl. Bibl. Orient. pp. 110-114; Gaubil's Hist. de la Dyn. des
Thang, in Mem. conc. Chin. xv. p. 403 seqq.). - H. C.]
[2] Sic: Per aliquot annos, but an evident error.
[3] J. As. ser. V. tom. xi. 449.
[4] The Great Plain on the Lower Araxes and Cyrus. The word Moghan =
Magi: and Abulfeda quotes this as the etymology of the name.
(Reinaud's Abulf. I. 300.) - Y. [Cordier, Odoric, 36.]
[5] Here is the passage, which is worth giving for more reasons than one:
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