"In this region once so fair,
now covered with swamps and brambles, fever decimates a population which
is yearly diminishing, has nothing to oppose to the scourge but incurable
apathy, and will end by disappearing altogether," etc. (Voyage, p. 65.)
Cilician Armenia retains its reputation for sport, and is much frequented
by our naval officers for that object. Ayas is noted for the extraordinary
abundance of turtles.
NOTE 4. - The phrase twice used in this passage for the Interior is Fra
terre, an Italianism (Fra terra, or, as it stands in the Geog. Latin,
"infra terram Orientis"), which, however, Murray and Pauthier have read
as an allusion to the Euphrates, an error based apparently on a marginal
gloss in the published edition of the Soc. de Geographie. It is true that
the province of Comagene under the Greek Empire got the name of
Euphratesia, or in Arabic Furatiyah, but that was not in question
here. The great trade of Ayas was with Tabriz, via Sivas, Erzingan, and
Erzrum, as we see in Pegolotti. Elsewhere, too, in Polo we find the phrase
fra terre used, where Euphrates could possibly have no concern, as in
relation to India and Oman. (See Bk. III. chs. xxix. and xxxviii., and
notes in each case.)
With regard to the phrase spicery here and elsewhere, it should be noted
that the Italian spezerie included a vast deal more than ginger and
other things "hot i' the mouth." In one of Pegolotti's lists of spezerie
we find drugs, dye-stuffs, metals, wax, cotton, etc.
