Page:Notes upon Russia (volume 2, 1851).djvu/106

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78
NOTES UPON RUSSIA.

there.[1] Moreover the whole Chersonesus is divided in two by a wood, and that part which looks towards the Black Sea, in which is situated the celebrated city of Caffa, and which was peopled by a colony from Genoa, formerly called Theodosia, is entirely in the possession of the Turks. The Turkish sultan, however, after the seige of Constantinople and the overthrow of the Greek sovereignty, bought Caffa from the Genoese. The other part of the island is possessed by the Tartars. All the Tartar kings of Taurida, however, derive their origin from the kings of Savolha, and after some of them were driven out from the kingdom by internal sedition, being unable to find any fixed abode in the neighbourhood, they took possession of that part of Europe, and still mindful of the ancient grievance, continually carried on war with the people of Savolha. At length, within the memory of the last generation, Scheachmet, King of Savolha, came into Lithuania at the time that Alexander, the Grand Duke of Lithuania, held sway in Poland, and entering into a treaty with him, with their united forces drove out Machmetgerei King of Taurida. Both of the princes agreed in this movement, but afterwards, when the Lithuanians, according to their custom, delayed the war to an unreasonable period, the wife of the king of Savolha, together with the army which was then kept in the field, becoming impatient both of the delay and the cold, begged of their king, who was busying himself in some of the towns, to get rid of the King of Poland, in order that they might provide for their own interests in good time. As, however, they could not prevail upon him, the wife deserted her husband, and went over with part of the army to Mach-

  1. โ†‘ The editor has not succeeded in discovering the writer here alluded to; but Herberstein's explanation is borne out by the following passages in Botero's Relationi Universali (Ven. 1608, 4แต’, parte 1, lib. i, fol. 118): โ€” "Il Prencipe de' Tartari habita in Precopi, terra, onde prendono nomi i Tartari chi si dicono Precopiti. ... Il Precopo, che essi chiamano Zar, che vuol dir Cesare," etc.
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