_fra terre_ used, where Euphrates could possibly have no concern, as in
relation to India and Oman. (See Bk. III. chs. xxix. and xxxviii., and
notes in each case.)

With regard to the phrase _spicery_ here and elsewhere, it should be noted
that the Italian _spezerie_ included a vast deal more than ginger and
other things "hot i' the mouth." In one of Pegolotti's lists of _spezerie_
we find drugs, dye-stuffs, metals, wax, cotton, etc.

CHAPTER II.

CONCERNING THE PROVINCE OF TURCOMANIA.

In Turcomania there are three classes of people. First, there are the
Turcomans; these are worshippers of Mahommet, a rude people with an
uncouth language of their own.[NOTE 1] They dwell among mountains and
downs where they find good pasture, for their occupation is
cattle-keeping. Excellent horses, known as _Turquans_, are reared in their
country, and also very valuable mules. The other two classes are the
Armenians and the Greeks, who live mixt with the former in the towns and
villages, occupying themselves with trade and handicrafts. They weave the
finest and handsomest carpets in the world, and also a great quantity of
fine and rich silks of cramoisy and other colours, and plenty of other
stuffs. Their chief cities are CONIA, SAVAST [where the glorious Messer
Saint Blaise suffered martyrdom], and CASARIA, besides many other towns and
bishops' sees, of which we shall not speak at present, for it would be too
long a matter. These people are subject to the Tartar of the Levant as
their Suzerain.[NOTE 2] We will now leave this province, and speak of the
Greater Armenia.

NOTE 1.--Ricold of Montecroce, a contemporary of Polo, calls the Turkmans
_homines bestiales_. In our day Ainsworth notes of a Turkman village: "The
dogs were very ferocious;... the people only a little better." (_J. R. G.
S._ X. 292.) The ill report of the people of this region did not begin
with the Turkmans, for the Emperor Constantine Porphyrog. quotes a Greek
proverb to the disparagement of the three _kappas_, Cappadocia, Crete, and
Cilicia. (In _Bandurit_ I. 6.)

NOTE 2.--In Turcomania Marco perhaps embraces a great part of Asia Minor,
but he especially means the territory of the decaying Seljukian monarchy,
usually then called by Asiatics _Rum_, as the Ottoman Empire is now, and
the capital of which was Iconium, KUNIYAH, the Conia of the text, and
Coyne of Joinville. Ibn Batuta calls the whole country Turkey
(_Al-Turkiyah_), and the people _Turkm