NOTE 3.—“_Enferme durement_.” So Marino Sanuto objects to Lesser Armenia as a place of debarkation for a crusade “_quia terra est infirma_.” Langlois, speaking of the Cilician plain: “In this region once so fair, now covered with swamps and brambles, fever decimates a population which is yearly diminishing, has nothing to oppose to the scourge but incurable apathy, and will end by disappearing altogether,” etc. (_Voyage_, p. 65.) Cilician Armenia retains its reputation for sport, and is much frequented by our naval officers for that object. Ayas is noted for the extraordinary abundance of turtles. NOTE 4.—The phrase twice used in this passage for the _Interior_ is _Fra terre_, an Italianism (_Fra terra_, or, as it stands in the Geog. Latin, “_infra terram Orientis_”), which, however, Murray and Pauthier have read as an allusion to the _Euphrates_, an error based apparently on a marginal gloss in the published edition of the Soc. de Géographie. It is true that the province of Comagene under the Greek Empire got the name of _Euphratesia_, or in Arabic _Furátíyah_, but that was not in question here. The great trade of Ayas was with Tabriz, _viâ_ Sivas, Erzingan, and Erzrum, as we see in Pegolotti. Elsewhere, too, in Polo we find the phrase _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.{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.{2} We will now leave this province, and speak of the Greater Armenia.