The Travels of Marco Polo — Volume 1 by Marco Polo and da Pisa Rusticiano

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