Venice,
Vienna, and Trieste.--H. C.]

CHAPTER III.

DESCRIPTION OF THE GREATER HERMENIA.

This is a great country. It begins at a city called ARZINGA, at which they
weave the best buckrams in the world. It possesses also the best baths
from natural springs that are anywhere to be found.[NOTE 1] The people of
the country are Armenians, and are subject to the Tartar. There are many
towns and villages in the country, but the noblest of their cities is
Arzinga, which is the See of an Archbishop, and then ARZIRON and
ARZIZI.[NOTE 2]

The country is indeed a passing great one, and in the summer it is
frequented by the whole host of the Tartars of the Levant, because it then
furnishes them with such excellent pasture for their cattle. But in winter
the cold is past all bounds, so in that season they quit this country and
go to a warmer region, where they find other good pastures. [At a castle
called PAIPURTH, that you pass in going from Trebizond to Tauris, there is
a very good silver mine.[NOTE 3]]

And you must know that it is in this country of Armenia that the Ark of
Noah exists on the top of a certain great mountain [on the summit of which
snow is so constant that no one can ascend;[NOTE 4] for the snow never
melts, and is constantly added to by new falls. Below, however, the snow
does melt, and runs down, producing such rich and abundant herbage that in
summer cattle are sent to pasture from a long way round about, and it
never fails them. The melting snow also causes a great amount of mud on
the mountain].

The country is bounded on the south by a kingdom called Mosul, the people
of which are Jacobite and Nestorian Christians, of whom I shall have more
to tell you presently. On the north it is bounded by the Land of the
Georgians, of whom also I shall speak. On the confines towards Georgiania
there is a fountain from which oil springs in great abundance, insomuch
that a hundred shiploads might be taken from it at one time. This oil is
not good to use with food, but 'tis good to burn, and is also used to
anoint camels that have the mange. People come from vast distances to
fetch it, for in all the countries round about they have no other
oil.[NOTE 5]

Now, having done with Great Armenia, we will tell you of Georgiania.

NOTE 1.--[Erzinjan, Erzinga, or Eriza, in the vilayet of Erzrum, was
rebuilt in 1784, after having been destroyed by an earthquake.
"Arzendjan," says Ibn Batuta, II. p. 294, "is in pos