- Harris. [13] The Whole Secret Of This Miracle May Be Easily Explained.

David escaped from prison, and told all the rest of the story to the ignorant and credulous Jews of Omaria, from whom the fable has been handed down to Benjamin and other believing relaters.

- E.

[14] Shiraz, about forty miles from which are the ruins of Persepolis. - E.

[15] The distance here is extremely corrupt, and perhaps four months are meant. - E.

[16] The ridiculous impressing of ancient scriptural names for the geographical features of the country, and the nations which inhabited it in his time, and his rambling itinerary, by days journeys, without pointing out the precise direction of the routs, render it next to impossible to investigate the real objects of his observations with any decent chance of success. - E.

[17] This description suits the Calmuks. - E.

[18] Once a great city in the N.W. of Irac-agemi, not far from Cashbin. See Chardin's Travels in Persia, to be found afterwards in this collection. - E.

[19] This island has much puzzled commentators, some of whom have wandered to Ormus in quest of its situation. It is probably the flat country of Assyria, between the Tigris and Euphrates, below Bagdat, which he may have mistaken for an island; or it may refer to the Delta of the Tigris and Ahwas. The extent mentioned in the text does not say whether it is to be understood as the length or circumference of the island. - E.

[20] This must be at or near Bahrein, in the Persian Gulf, famous for its pearl-fishery. - E.

[21] Nisan, the first month of the Jewish year, contains the latter half of our March and former half of April; Tisri is equivalent to half of September and half of October. - E.

[22] From the circumstance of pepper being plenty in this place it is probable that some part of Malabar is meant, where he may have found a colony of Parsees. Astronomy is often called astrology by old writers. - E.

[23] This must have been some secret mechanical contrivance, all wonders unknown to the ignorant being attributed by them to magic art. - E.

[24] Tzin is obviously China. By the Nikpha, or coagulated sea, the sea of Tartar may be intended; concerning which, some ill-told stories may have reached Benjamin, of mariners having been frozen up. The situation of Cinrog it is impossible to ascertain; but it must have been some part of India, where voluntarily burning alive is still practised, but only by the widows of the higher casts. - E.

[25] Benjamin here obviously speaks of the Jews in the mountains of Abyssinia, still known there under the name of Falassa. It would appear, that the previously indicated courses led across the peninsula of Arabia and the Red Sea; but his names of places are unintelligible. - E.

[26] Perhaps Asowan in upper Egypt, which is rendered probable by the journey through the desert. - E.

[27] Harris considered Gana to mean Guinea; but it is probably Nigritia, or the inland country of Africa, on the Niger or Joliba. - E.

[28] Perhaps Memphis, as he evidently alludes to the pyramids. - E.

[29] Kahira, or Cairo, called also Messir. - E.

[30] Elul contains from the middle of August to the middle of September and Tisri from that to the middle of October. But the Nile begins to rise in the middle of June, and returns to its usual level in October. - E.

[31] Of the Rabbinists or Talmudists. - E.

[32] This may possibly have been the Sarcophagus brought lately from Alexandria, and deposited in the British museum, under the strange idea of having been the tomb of Alexander. Benjamin seems to have known nothing about the hieroglyphics, with which his tomb was obviously covered. - E.

[33] This short commentary upon three words in that part of the travels of Benjamin, which has been omitted in Harris, is extracted from Forster, Hist of Voy. and Disc. in the North, p. 92, and shews the extreme difficulty of any attempt to give an accurate edition of the whole work, if that should be thought of, as it would require critical skill not only in Hebrew, but in the languages of the different countries to which the travels refer. - E.

CHAP. VI.

Travels of an Englishman into Tartary, and thence into Poland, Hungary, and Germany, in 1243.[1]

This earliest remaining direct account of the Tartars, or Mongols receiving that name, which is extremely short and inconclusive, is recorded by Matthew Paris, in a letter from Yvo de Narbonne to the archbishop of Bourdeaux, and is here given as a literary curiosity.

* * * * *

Provoked by the sins of the Christians, the Lord hath become as it were a destroying enemy, and a dreadful avenger; having sent among us a prodigiously numerous, most barbarous, and inhuman people, whose law is lawless, and whose wrath is furious, even as the rod of God's anger, overrunning and utterly ruining infinite countries, and cruelly destroying every thing where they come with fire and sword. This present summer, that nation which is called Tartars, leaving Hungary, which they had surprised by treason, laid siege, with many thousand soldiers, to the town of Newstadt, in which I then dwelt, in which there were not above fifty men at arms, and twenty cross-bow-men, left in garrison. All these observing from certain high places the vast army of the enemy, and abhorring the beastly cruelty of the accomplices of Antichrist, signified to the governor the hideous lamentations of his Christian subjects, who, in all the adjoining provinces, were surprised and cruelly destroyed, without any respect of rank, fortune, age, or sex. The Tartarian chieftains, and their brutishly savage followers, glutted themselves with the carcasses of the inhabitants, leaving nothing for the vultures but the bare bones; and strange to tell, the greedy and ravenous vultures disclaimed to prey on the remains left by the Tartars. Old and deformed women they gave for daily sustenance to their cannibals:

Enter page number Go  Previous Next
Page 51 of 217
Words from 51193 to 52196 of 222093