They consisted of a race of people called COMANIANS and many besides.[NOTE
3]
[Illustration: Mediaeval Georgian Fortress, from a drawing dated 1634. "La
provence est tonte plene de grant montagne et d'estroit pas et de fort"]
[In this province all the forests are of box-wood.[NOTE 4]] There are
numerous towns and villages, and silk is produced in great abundance. They
also weave cloths of gold, and all kinds of very fine silk stuffs. The
country produces the best goshawks in the world [which are called
Avigi].[NOTE 5] It has indeed no lack of anything, and the people live
by trade and handicrafts. 'Tis a very mountainous region, and full of
strait defiles and of fortresses, insomuch that the Tartars have never
been able to subdue it out and out.
There is in this country a certain Convent of Nuns called St. Leonard's,
about which I have to tell you a very wonderful circumstance. Near the
church in question there is a great lake at the foot of a mountain, and in
this lake are found no fish, great or small, throughout the year till Lent
come. On the first day of Lent they find in it the finest fish in the
world, and great store too thereof; and these continue to be found till
Easter Eve.
