OF GEORGIANIA AND THE KINGS THEREOF.
In Georgiania there is a King called David Melic, which is as much
as to say “David King”; he is subject to the Tartar.{1} In old times
all the kings were born with the figure of an eagle upon the right
shoulder. The people are very handsome, capital archers, and most
valiant soldiers. They are Christians of the Greek Rite, and have a
fashion of wearing their hair cropped, like Churchmen.{2}
This is the country beyond which Alexander could not pass when he
wished to penetrate to the region of the Ponent, because that the
defile was so narrow and perilous, the sea lying on the one hand,
and on the other lofty mountains impassable to horsemen. The strait
extends like this for four leagues, and a handful of people might hold
it against all the world. Alexander caused a very strong tower to be
built there, to prevent the people beyond from passing to attack him,
and this got the name of the IRON GATE. This is the place that the Book
of Alexander speaks of, when it tells us how he shut up the Tartars
between two mountains; not that they were really Tartars, however, for
there were no Tartars in those days, but they consisted of a race of
people called COMANIANS and many besides.{3}
[In this province all the forests are of box-wood.{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_].{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.
[Illustration: Mediæval Georgian Fortress, from a drawing dated 1634.
“La provence est toute plene de grant montagne et d’estroit pas et de
fort.”]
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. After that they are found
no more till Lent come round again; and so ’tis every year. ’Tis really
a passing great miracle!{6}
That sea whereof I spoke as coming so near the mountains is called
the Sea of GHEL or GHELAN, and extends about 700 miles.{7} It is
twelve days’ journey distant from any other sea, and into it flows
the great River Euphrates and many others, whilst it is surrounded by
mountains. Of late the merchants of Genoa have begun to navigate this
sea, carrying ships across and launching them thereon. It is from the
country on this sea also that the silk called _Ghellé_ is brought.{8}
[The said sea produces quantities of fish, especially sturgeon, at the
river-mouths salmon, and other big kinds of fish.]{9}
NOTE 1.—Ramusio has: “One part of the said province is subject to
the Tartar, and the other part, owing to its fortresses, remains
subject to the King David.” We give an illustration of one of these
mediæval Georgian fortresses, from a curious collection of MS.
notices and drawings of Georgian subjects in the Municipal Library
at Palermo, executed by a certain P. Cristoforo di Castelli of that
city, who was a Theatine missionary in Georgia, in the first half
of the 17th century.
The G. T. says the King was _always_ called David. The Georgian
Kings of the family of Bagratidae claimed descent from King
David through a prince Shampath, said to have been sent north by
Nebuchadnezzar; a descent which was usually asserted in their
public documents. Timur in his Institutes mentions a suit of
armour given him by the King of Georgia as forged by the hand of
the Psalmist King. David is a very frequent name in their royal
lists. [The dynasty of the Bagratidae, which was founded in 786
by Ashod, and lasted until the annexation of Georgia by Russia on
the 18th January, 1801, had nine reigning princes named David.
During the second half of the 12th century the princes were: Dawith
(David) IV. Narin (1247–1259), Dawith V. (1243–1272), Dimitri II.
Thawdadebuli (1272–1289), Wakhtang II. (1289–1292), Dawith VI.
(1292–1308).—H. C.] There were two princes of that name, David,
who shared Georgia between them under the decision of the Great
Kaan in 1246, and one of them, who survived to 1269, is probably
meant here. The name of David was borne by the last titular King of
Georgia, who ceded his rights to Russia in 1801. It is probable,
however, as Marsden has suggested, that the statement about
the King _always_ being called David arose in part out of some
confusion with the title of _Dadian_, which, according to Chardin
(and also to P. di Castelli), was always assumed by the Princes of
Mingrelia, or Colchis as the latter calls it. Chardin refers this
title to the Persian _Dád_, “equity.” To a portrait of “Alexander,
King of Iberia,” or Georgia Proper, Castelli attaches the following
inscription, giving apparently his official style: “With the
sceptre of David, Crowned by Heaven, First King of the Orient and
of the World, King of Israel,” adding, “They say that he has on his
shoulder a small mark of a cross, ‘_Factus est principatus super
humerum ejus_,’ and they add that he has all his ribs in one piece,
and not divided.” In another place he notes that when attending the
King in illness his curiosity moved him strongly to ask if these
things were true, but he thought better of it! (_Khanikoff; Jour.
As._ IX. 370, XI. 291, etc.; _Tim. Instit._ p. 143; _Castelli_ MSS.)
[A descendant of these Princes was in St. Petersburg about