Note (11) — 36.—The countries in which I have been, that belong to Tartary.

(11.) “they suppose that a man struck by lightning is a saint.”—The “Starchas” or Tcherkess—Circassians—were known to Giovanni dal Piano di Carpine, Aboulfeda, Barbaro and others, and were more generally called Zikhes and Cossacks, two branches of that people. The proof of the identity of the Zikhes with the Cossacks or Tcherkess is to be found in Interiano (Ramusio edition, 196), who visited the country in 1502: “Zychi in lingua vulgare, greca et latina cosi chiamati, et da Tartari et Turchi dimandati Ciarcassi”. Their identity, however, is established in the present work, and therefore before the Italian’s travels; it being stated in chapter 56 that the Turks designate the “Sygun”—Zikhes—by the name of “Ischerkas”—Tcherkess. In the days of Constantine Porphyrogenitus (De Adm. Imp., c. 42), their territory extended along the Black Sea shore over a distance of three hundred miles, from the river Oukroukh (Kouban), which separated them from Tamatarcha (Taman), to the river Nicopsis at the frontier of Abhase, a country that reached to Soteriopolis situated in all probability where is now Pytzounda the ancient Pityus, to the north west of Soukhoum Kaleh, for it is stated by Codinus (Hieroclis Synecdemus, etc., 315) that Pityus was at one time called Soteropolis.