The Bondage and Travels of Johann Schiltberger, a Native of Bavaria, in Europe, Asia, and Africa, 1396-1427Schiltberger, Johannes
History
The Bondage and Travels of Johann Schiltberger, a Native of Bavaria, in Europe, Asia, and Africa, 1396-1427
Schiltberger, Johannes
Timur, 1336-1405 -- Early works to 1800; Turkey -- History -- Bayezid I, 1389-1403; Voyages and travels -- Early works to 1800
In Masoudi’s time, the Kaïtak or Kaïdak inhabited the northern slopes
of the Caucasus towards the Caspian Sea. There, also, Aboulfeda placed
them, and there they are to this day. We have seen how futile were
their endeavours to oppose Timour upon his last expedition against
Toktamish, and that Romanists and Christians of other denominations
soon afterwards introduced themselves amongst them; but that they
had not discontinued their evil practices is proved by the bitter
experience of the Russian merchant Nikitin, who was plundered when
shipwrecked on their coast in 1468. It was in vain that he sought
to recover his property, even though he appealed to Shirvan Shah,
brother-in-law to Ali Bek their prince (Dorn, _Versuch einer Gesch. der
Schirwan-Sch._, 582). The Kaïtak were a people of sufficient importance
to have attracted the notice of Schiltberger, when he passed through
their territory on his way from Persia to Great Tatary.
Whilst in those parts, the author must have spent some time amongst the
Nogaï of the tribes of Jambolouk or Yembolouk, as they are designated
by Thunmann (Büsching, _Gr. Erdbeschr._, iv, 387), and who were so
named because their earliest settlements were near the Jem or Yemba
which flows into the Caspian. It was only towards the close of the 18th
century that they moved to the western shores of the Sea of Azoff,
where they met with other Nogaï, at a time that the territory was being
annexed to the Russian empire. The wandering life of these Tatars,
and their frequent internecine divisions, justify us in assuming that
in Schiltberger’s time the greater number, if not the whole of the
Jambolouks, had moved their encampments in a westerly direction, and
this explains why the Tatar duke met by De Lannoy (_Voy. et Ambass._,
40) in 1421, who lived on the ground with all his people, was named
Jambo. It was in the power of the descendants of that duke to remove
to any other more convenient site; it is, therefore, very possible,
that the fortress and town of Yabou, ceded in 1517 by the Crimean Khan
to Sigismund of Poland, together with other places on the Dnieper,
may have belonged to him (_Sbornyk_ by Prince Obolensky, i, 88). I
feel that we are at liberty to infer from these several facts that the
“Inbu” were Tatars of the Jambolouk Horde.—BRUUN.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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