[190] Of the nations mentioned in this passage the Mingrelians live along the coast from the Turkish frontier to Sukhum Kaleh; the Iberians correspond to the modern Imeritians, while the ancient Albanians lived in what is now the part of Georgia that borders on the Caspian and in Daghestan, the country of the Lesghians. According to Mr. Bryce (_Transcaucasia and Ararat_, p. 99) the modern Mingrelians correspond to Busbecq’s description of their ancestors. ‘They are the ne’er-do-wells of the Caucasian family. All their neighbours, however contemptible a Western may think them, have a bad word and a kick for the still more contemptible Mingrelian. To believe them, he is lazy, sensual, treacherous and stupid, a liar and a thief. Lazy the Mingrelian certainly is, but in other respects I doubt if he is worse than his neighbours; and he lives in so damp and warm a climate that violent exercise must be disagreeable.’ According to Malte Brun, ‘the Prince of Mingrelia assumes the title of Dadian or Master of the Sea, though he possesses not even a fishing-boat: he generally moves about with his suite from place to place, and his camp is the scene of licentiousness as well as poverty.’ The Caspian Gates mentioned in the text are probably the Dariel Pass. ‘There were three passes, between which boundless confusion has arisen: first, the Dariel, sometimes called the Caucasian, sometimes the Caspian, sometimes the Iberian Gates; second, the pass between the mountains and the sea near Derbend, where is the wall of Gog and Magog, called sometimes the Caucasian, sometimes the Caspian, sometimes the Albanian Gates; third, a pass somewhere on the south coast of the Caspian, which was really visited and fortified by Alexander the Great.’—Bryce, _Transcaucasia and Ararat_, p. 76. [191] ‘A plant of the millet kind, differing from it in the disposition of the flower and seeds, which grow in a close thick spike. It is sown in parts of Europe as corn for the sustenance of the inhabitants.’—Johnson’s _Dictionary_. [192] Medea was a Colchian, i.e. Mingrelian. [193] M. Génin, in the introduction to his edition of the _Song of Roland_, the most famous hero of the Carlovingian epic cycle, speaking of the wide-spread popularity of the legend, quotes this passage. He also mentions that Bellonus, or Belon (see note, page 140), states that the Turks preserved at Broussa the sword of Roland, who, they declared, was one of their countrymen. This illustrates what Busbecq in his first letter says of the way in which the Turks identified St. George with one of their own legendary heroes. Godfrey de Bouillon was one of the leaders of the first Crusade, and the first Christian King of Jerusalem. [194] See note, page 229.