Chapter LXVII

After being for a long time a dependency of the Central Administration at Caffa, Samastris, by a decree of 1449, became subject to that of Pera to which it had previously belonged, but had been detached “propter inopiam et imbecilitatem loci ipsius Pere” (Zap. Odess. Obstschest., v, 810). Under these circumstances it is very probable that the Genoese were at Samastris at a still earlier period than that indicated by Heyd. According to Hammer (Hist. de l’E. O., iii, 69), this city fell into the hands of the Turks in the campaign of 1461, together with Sinope and Trebizond.—Bruun.

In stating that there were one thousand churches, the author intended to convey the idea that they were very numerous; indeed Clavijo estimated the number at three thousand. Schiltberger appears to have been too much dazzled by the magnificence of the church of St. Sophia, to think of entering more largely upon a description of it as others have done.—Bruun.

The Greeks of the Lower Empire changed the name from White-Town to Mavrocastron, turned by the Italians into Mocastro and Moncastro, as we find it in De Lannoy, Barbaro, and others.

There are good grounds for the supposition that the name White was given originally by the Greeks, because the Aspron mentioned by Constantine Porphyrogenitus (De Adm. Imp., 167) should be looked for in this locality, notwithstanding that the emperor situates it on the Dnieper, a scribe’s error for Dniester. I know of no author who speaks of a White-Town on the Lower Dnieper, and the emperor himself describes the place to which he alludes, as being situated on the bank of the river nearest to Bulgaria.

It would appear that the ancient name was not forgotten by the Greeks after they had changed it to Mavrocastron, because some authors of the latter part of the middle ages have alluded to the place as Leucopolichnion or Asprocastron; in all probability identical with “Asparseri”, and certainly to be distinguished from White-Town, but a distinction that is to be attributed to a mistake on the part of the transcriber. How otherwise are we to account for the appearance in the Heidelberg MS., of the native name Asparsaraï—White-Town—and for the statement in the Nuremberg MS. (Penzel’s edition) that Schiltberger took his departure, not from Asparsaraï but from White-Town, direct for Soutchava1 at that time the chief city of Little Walachia or Mavrovlachia as Moldavia was then called.

Grecian colonists were attracted to the neighbourhood of modern Ak-kerman in very remote times. The Tyrites of Herodotus lived there, probably at Ophiussa, a city known to Strabo. There, also, flourished Tyras, to be identified perhaps with Turis, ceded by the emperor Justinian, A.D. 547, to the Antes, a Slave tribe which may have been the first to give the name of Byelgorod to the place which Edrisi certainly had in his mind, when he wrote about the Coman city distant one day’s journey from the mouth of the Danube, called Akliba; a name composed of two Turkish words, Ak and liva—White District—and therefore possibly the Coman designation for the “White City” of Schiltberger, the Akkerman of Aboulfeda.—Bruun.

In distinguishing White Russia from the kingdom of Russia (see page 50), Schiltberger refers to the grand-duchy of Lithuania, and not only to the White Russia of our own times, which then formed part of the grand-duchy.—Bruun.

The Lord’s Prayer in Modern Armenian.

Haïr mer vor hersince es sourp egwitzy anoun kho egwesouè arkhaïouthyoum kho egwitzy kamkh kho vorpess hergwince ev hergry zhatz mer hanapazort tour mez aïsor, evthogmez zpardys mer vorpess, ev mekh thogoumkh meroz pardabanatz, ev my tanyr zmez y tcharè, zy kho è arkhaïouthyoum zorouthyoun ev pharkh havidians. Ammen.

The Lord’s Prayer in the Tatar tongue.

Byzum athamuz ky ghyogdasan pyr olsun sanun adun ghyalsun sanun padshalygun olsun sanun stadygun nedja ky geogda eïla da dïunyada ver byza gyounluk georagymuz va bagushla byzum tahsurlarumuz nedja ky byz baghishlüruh byzum tahsurlulara goïma byzy gedah sheïtan ïoluna amma pakh ela byzy pyslugden tchounky sanunkidr padshalus ihtiar va hiurmat ta diunianun ahruna.