We have little information as to the Genoese navigation of the Caspian, but the great number of names exhibited along its shores in the map just named (1375) shows how familiar such navigation had become by that date.  See also Cathay, p. 50, where an account is given of a remarkable enterprise by Genoese buccaneers on the Caspian about that time.  Mas’udi relates an earlier history of how about the beginning of the 9th century a fleet of 500 Russian vessels came out of the Volga, and ravaged all the populous southern and western shores of the Caspian.  The unhappy population was struck with astonishment and horror at this unlooked-for visitation from a sea that had hitherto been only frequented by peaceful traders or fishermen. (II. 18-24.)

NOTE 9.—­[The enormous quantity of fish found in the Caspian Sea is ascribed to the mass of vegetable food to be found in the shallower waters of the North and the mouth of the Volga.  According to Reclus, the Caspian fisheries bring in fish to the annual value of between three and four millions sterling.—­H.  C.]

[1] See Letter of Frederic to the Roman Senate, of 20th June, 1241, in
    Breholles.  Mahommedan writers, contemporary with the Mongol
    invasions, regarded these as a manifest sign of the approaching end of
    the world. (See Elliot’s Historians, II. p. 265.)

[2] When the first edition was published, I was not aware of remarks to
    like effect regarding names of this character by Sir H. Rawlinson in
    the J.  R. As.  Soc. vol. xi. pp. 64 and 103.

CHAPTER V.

OF THE KINGDOM OF MAUSUL.

On the frontier of Armenia towards the south-east is the kingdom of MAUSUL.  It is a very great kingdom, and inhabited[NOTE 1] by several different kinds of people whom we shall now describe.

First there is a kind of people called ARABI, and these worship Mahommet.  Then there is another description of people who are NESTORIAN and JACOBITE Christians.  These have a Patriarch, whom they call the JATOLIC, and this Patriarch creates Archbishops, and Abbots, and Prelates of all other degrees, and sends them into every quarter, as to India, to Baudas, or to Cathay, just as the Pope of Rome does in the Latin countries.  For you must know that though there is a very great number of Christians in those countries, they are all Jacobites and Nestorians; Christians indeed, but not in the fashion enjoined by the Pope of Rome, for they come short in several points of the Faith.[NOTE 2]

All the cloths of gold and silk that are called Mosolins are made in this country; and those great Merchants called Mosolins, who carry for sale such quantities of spicery and pearls and cloths of silk and gold, are also from this kingdom.[NOTE 3]

There is yet another race of people who inhabit the mountains in that quarter, and are called CURDS.  Some of them are Christians, and some of them are Saracens; but they are an evil generation, whose delight it is to plunder merchants.[NOTE 4]