Asia -- Description and travel -- Early works to 1800; Mongols -- History; Polo, Marco, 1254-1323?; Voyages and travels
This signification would embrace a large number of passages
in which the term is used, though certainly not all. It would
account for the mode or sale by the piece, and frequent use of the
expression _a_ buckram, for its habitual application to _coltre_
or counterpanes, its use in the _auqueton_ of Baudouin, and in the
jackets of Falstaff’s “men in buckram,” as well as its employment
in the frocks of the Mongols and Tibetans. The winter _chapkan_,
or long tunic, of Upper India, a form of dress which, I believe,
correctly represents that of the Mongol hosts, and is probably
derived from them, is almost universally of quilted cotton.[1] This
signification would also facilitate the transfer of meaning to
the substance now called buckram, for that is used as a _kind_ of
quilting.
The derivation of the word is very uncertain. Reiske says it is
Arabic, _Abu-Kairám_, “Pannus cum intextis figuris”; Wedgwood,
attaching the modern meaning, that it is from It., _bucherare_, to
pierce full of holes, which might be if _bucherare_ could be used
in the sense of _puntare_, or the French _piquer_; Marsh connects
it with the _bucking_ of linen; and D’Avezac thinks it was a stuff
that took its name from _Bokhara_. If the name be local, as so many
names of stuffs are, the French form rather suggests _Bulgaria_.
[Heyd, II. 703, says that Buckram (Bucherame) was principally
manufactured at Erzinjan (Armenia), Mush, and Mardin (Kurdistan),
Ispahan (Persia), and in India, etc. It was shipped to the west at
Constantinople, Satalia, Acre, and Famagusta; the name is derived
from Bokhara.—H. C.]
(_Della Decima_, III. 18, 149, 65, 74, 212, etc.; IV. 4, 5, 6,
212; _Reiske’s_ Notes to _Const. Porphyrogen._ II.; _D’Avezac_, p.
524; _Vocab. Univ. Ital.; Franc.-Michel, Recherches_, etc. II. 29
_seqq._; _Philobiblon Soc. Miscell._ VI.; _Marsh’s Wedgwood’s Etym.
Dict._ sub voce.)
[Illustration: Castle of Baiburt.]
NOTE 2.—Arziron is ERZRUM, which, even in Tournefort’s time, the
Franks called _Erzeron_ (III. 126); [it was named _Garine_, then
_Theodosiopolis_, in honour of Theodosius the Great; the present
name was given by the Seljukid Turks, and it means “Roman Country”;
it was taken by Chinghiz Khan and Timur, but neither kept it long.
Odorico (_Cathay_, I. p. 46), speaking of this city, says it “is
mighty cold.” (See also on the low temperature of the place,
Tournefort, _Voyage du Levant_, II. pp. 258–259.) Arzizi, ARJISH,
in the vilayet of Van, was destroyed in the middle of the 19th
century; it was situated on the road from Van to Erzrum. Arjish
Kalá was one of the ancient capitals of the Kingdom of Armenia; it
was conquered by Toghrul I., who made it his residence. (Cf. Vital
Cuinet, _Turquie d’Asie_, II. p. 710).—H. C.]
Arjish is the ancient _Arsissa_, which gave the Lake Van one of its
names. It is now little more than a decayed castle, with a village
inside.
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