On The West Side Of This Sea
Are The Mountains Of The Alani And Lesgis, The Iron-Gate Or Derbent, And
The Mountains Of Georgia.
This sea, therefore, is environed on three sides
by mountains, but by plain ground on the north.
Friar Andrew, in his
journey, travelled along its south and east sides; and I passed its north
side both in going and returning between Baatu and Mangu-khan, and along
its western side in my way from Baatu into Syria. One may travel entirely
round it in four months; and it is by no means true, as reported by
Isidore, that it is a bay of the ocean, with which it nowhere joins, but is
environed on all sides by the land.
At the region from the west shore of the Caspian, where the Iron-gate of
Alexander is situated, now called Derbent, and from the mountains of the
Alani, and along the Palus Moeotis, or sea of Azoph, into which the Tanais
falls, to the northern ocean, was anciently called Albania; in which
Isidore says, that there were dogs of such strength and fierceness, as to
fight with bulls, and even to overcome lions, which I have been assured by
several persons to be true; and even, that towards the northern ocean, they
have dogs of such size and strength, that the inhabitants make them draw
carts like oxen[1].
[1] It is astonishing how easily a small exaggeration converts truth to
fable. Here the ill-told story of the light sledges of the Tshutki,
drawn by dogs of a very ordinary size, is innocently magnified into
carts dragged by gigantic mastiffs.
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