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Our whole company passed the ensuing night in carts covered with skins, in which we were soon surrounded by a great number of persons, inquiring who we were. On being informed by our Tartar guide that I was of Genoa, they supplied us with milk, and left us. Resuming our journey next morning early, we arrived that day, which was the 16th of June, at the suburbs of Theodosia, otherwise called Kaffa.
The chief province is called Gazzaria or Chazaria, in which Caffa is situate; and the measure of length used by merchants in all these countries is called the Gazzarian ell, which is even used at Tanna . The low country of the island of Kaffa is occupied by the Tartars, who are governed by a prince named Ulubi , the son of Azicharei.
Although I was by no means satisfied with this advice, I allowed myself to be guided by the consul and his brother, who agreed in opinion with the Armenians. I accordingly left Kaffa on the 4th of June , accompanied by the consul, who went with me to the river, where our vessel was in waiting.
Named Arcercheriher in the French translation of Contarini; but which must necessarily be some corruption of Baschiserai, the residence of the khan of the Crim Tartars. Contarini, leaving Kaffa, crosses the Euxine to the city of Phasis, whence he pursues his journey through Mingrelia, Georgia, and part of Armenia, into Persia.
In addition there are less prominent individuals who received honors at the hands of their non-Jewish countrymen. Meïr Ashkenazi of Kaffa, in the Crimea, who was slain by pirates on a trip from "Gava to Dakhel," was envoy of the khan of the Tatars to the king of Poland in the sixteenth century.
It is impossible for me to give any exact description of the city of Kaffa, or Theodosia, or of its government, as the danger of incurring suspicion obliged me to remain continually at home; on which account I can only mention such particulars as I learned from others.
My apprehensions on this occasion may easily be conceived; but God, who had already protected us in so many dangers, was mercifully pleased to deliver us from that which now hung over us. On the 7th of September, Bertonius Liompardus , whom I had before seen at Kaffa, and who had been sent by our illustrious republic, arrived at Tauris.
He arrived at Kaffa, in the Crimea, which was formerly the principal mart of slaves; and hearing that an Armenian had a Georgian and two Circassian girls to dispose of, feigned an intention of purchasing them, in order to gratify his curiosity, and to ascertain the mode of conducting such bargains.
This person went upon a journey to Kaffa in the Crimea, where six different religions are professed among the mixed inhabitants of that peninsula, a part of whom are Christians; After a residence there of five months, Manustzusch crossed the straits of Zabake in the country called Zeckchas or Zikchia, where he sojourned for six months.
Going from Tanna or Asof, by the river Don, and along the sea of Tabache or Asof, quite to Kaffa, and keeping that sea close on the left hand, we come to an isthmus or narrow neck of land, which connects the peninsula of the Crimea; with the mainland, and which is named Zuchala . This is similar to that called Essimilia, formerly the Isthmus of Corinth, which connects the Morea or Peloponnesus with the continent of Greece.
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