A Jewish toll-keeper asks if anyone is left in Lithuania
Editorial contextAt Perekop, the single gate into the Crimea, Michalo met a Jewish toll collector who watched endless columns of Lithuanian captives being brought in and asked whether there were still any people left in their lands, and where so many came from. Michalo then describes how the stronger male captives were mutilated, branded and chained to work by day and locked up by night, while young women were kept for pleasure.
So a certain Jew there in Taurica, in charge of the toll at its one and only gate, and always seeing an innumerable multitude of our people brought in as captives, asked us whether there were still any people left in our lands or not, and where so great a supply of mortals came from.
Working translation
Original wording
Unde Iudeus quidam ibi in Taurica ad portam eius unicam illam, teloneo praesidens & innumeram semper hominum nostrorum captivorum multitudinem importari illuc cernens, quaerebat ex nobis utrum adhuc homines in regionibus nostris supersint, nec ne, & unde hic tantae mortalium copiae.
About Crimean Tatars; Lithuanian and Ruthenian captives
Continue in this sourceMichalo the Lithuanian on the customs of the Tartars, Lithuanians and Muscovites1530 to 1549 · 12 passagesUnderground huts and a village in a circle
Editorial contextSouth of Perekop the post stations were sometimes in deserted Tatar villages, and sometimes the stable-keeper lived in a hut dug underground, which she calls common in this treeless, sun-baked country. At sunset she reached a Tatar village of huts straggling in a circle with no fence, while herds of horses, cows and sheep drifted home across the downs: 'a simple and majestic landscape'. A few lines earlier she had called Perekop's Tatar village the dirtiest place she ever saw.
The posts were sometimes in a deserted Tartarian village, and sometimes the only habitation for the stable-keeper was a hut made under ground, a common habitation in this country, where the sun is so extremely hot, and there is no shade of any sort.
About Crimean Tatars
Keep in mind
Villages were emptied by emigration after the Russian annexation of 1783; Craven does not say why these were deserted.
Barrels of gold, some of them fake
Editorial contextPerry repeats the story of why Prince Vasily Golitsyn's army turned back from the Crimea in 1689: the Tatars brought him barrels of gold ducats, 'amongst which, as 'tis said, there were many Counters', and he made peace in the field. On the page before, he reports that the Crimean khan would inherit the Ottoman throne if the sultan's male line failed.
…being tempted by a great Sum of Ducats of Gold, which they brought to him in Barrels (amongst which, as 'tis said, there were many Counters) he concluded Conditions of Peace in the Field, and withdrew his Army.
About Crimean Tatars
Keep in mind
Court rumour, marked as such by Perry ('as 'tis said').
Four hundred ungreased wheels
Editorial contextAt the entrance to the Crimea Webster met a Tatar caravan of about a hundred wagons, drawn by oxen and camels, whose ungreased wheels made an 'excruciating' noise. The Tatars in their black lambskin caps, the camels and the bustards on the plain struck him as a novel eastern scene.
These people never grease the wheels. The creaking of one is sufficiently offensive; but the noise of four hundred was absolutely excruciating. The Tartars, too, were singing, which, with them, is another term for howling … The Tartars, in their black lamb-skin caps and eastern dresses, the camels grazing on each side of the road
About Crimean Tatar carters
Keep in mind
Mocking tone about Tatar song.
OCR normalized; a dash in the original replaced by a comma.
The Nogays: a fragment of the Golden Horde
Editorial contextAlexander describes the Nogays' faces and then explains who they are: a part of the Golden Horde scattered by Timur (Tamerlane), whose wars shattered the Horde in the 1390s. It is a short, fairly accurate piece of steppe history attached to a first-hand description.
Their noses are short, eyes elongated, and beards scanty : such are the Nogays, a party of the Golden Horde dispersed by Timoorlung (Tamarlane).
About Nogay Tartars (Nogais)
Keep in mind
The physical description reflects the racial typing common in travel books of his day.
A Nogai prince in a little clay town
Editorial contextAn Italian merchant told her he had crossed the Nogai steppe and was welcomed by the Nogai chief Beyazet Beg, who lived in a small clay-built town and ate mostly milk, koumis and mutton. Trying to please a European, the prince served an 'Italian' feast so strange that the guest slipped out to be sick, and promised a French one next day.
He said, he found their chief named Beyazet Beg, i. e. Prince Bajazet, dwelling in a little town built with clay, on the lake and rivulet Bolotchik… This Tartar prince, who lives like his Scythian ancestors… principally on milk and its preparation koumis (which constitutes the food, wine, and brandy of the Tartars), with occasionally the flesh of his flocks
About Nogai Tatars
Keep in mind
Second-hand story from a merchant.
Dung fuel, millet and a whole sheep at one sitting
Editorial contextCrossing treeless plains, de Tott explains that the Nogais burn cakes of dung kneaded with sandy earth. He reports (as hearsay) that they had uprooted the old forests so no enemy could surprise them. Their everyday diet is millet and mare's milk, yet a Nogai could eat a whole sheep for a wager.
each family carefully collects the dung of the cattle, which they knead with a sort of sandy earth, and produce a turf which unfortunately smokes the Tartars more than it warms them. No people live more soberly. Millet and mares milk are their usual diet… A Noguais might lay a wager that he eat a whole sheep, and win his wager, without having an indigestion.
About Nogai Tatars
Keep in mind
The claim that the Nogais tore up the forests is something he was 'assured' of, not something he saw.