Schiltberger was under the impression, as was his contemporary De Lannoy (_Voy. et Ambass._, 88), that the Nile traversed India before entering Egypt,[1] which accounts for his supposition that the giraffe was indigenous to the former country.—BRUUN.
[1] That Ethiopia was called India, and thus confounded with real India, is fully set forth by Colonel Yule in a note to Marco Polo, ii, 426.—ED.
(6A.) Zerypha—yellow-coloured—is the Persian for giraffe, from zerd—yellow—and fam—colour; a name corrupted by the Turks and Arabs to zerafè, whence “surnasa”. The giraffe at the British Museum could have reached food at a height of at least twenty feet, as Dr. Günther, Keeper of Zoology, has been good enough to inform me. The finest specimen at the Museum d’Histoire Naturelle, at Paris, is even inferior in size, according to the measurements kindly supplied by Professor Milne-Edward of that institution. Schiltberger must have greatly miscalculated the proportions of the animal he saw, allowing even for probable degeneration; large giraffes having now become very scarce.
(7.) “Zekatay.”—Jagatai owes its name to the second son of Jengiz Khan, who received in appanage the countries to the east and south-east of the Oulons of Jujy, that is to say, from the limits of Khorasan (until taken from the Jujy by Timour) on both sides of the Amu-Darya, to Turkestan. All those territories were included under the name of Jagatai, as were also the dialects of the inhabitants. The last princes of the house, and in whose name Timour ruled, were Suurgatmysh and Mahmoud; their coinage was struck at Bokhara, Samarkand, Termed, Kesh, Badakshan, and Otrar; but their residence was at Besh balyk—Five Cities—until transferred by Timour to Samarkand, which the despot sought to place at the head of all cities in Asia, by means of the vigorous measures to which Clavijo bears witness.
(1.) “Great Tartaria.”—The details entered into by Schiltberger in this chapter, demonstrate that he includes in Great Tatary the possessions of the three branches of the Jujy. First, the Ordou Itchen or the White Horde, who were the successors of the eldest son of Jujy. Secondly, those of the Golden Horde, the successors of Batou, the second son; and, Thirdly, those of Shaïban, the fifth son, who, in recompense for his brilliant services during Batou’s campaign in Russia, received from the Ordou Itchen some territories near the Ural for his summer encampment; and for his winter use, those near the Syr Darya, that is to say, the actual steppe of the Kirghis, so that the domains of the Shaïbani separated the Golden Horde from the White Horde. Their dominions afterwards extended northwards, when they nominated khans to Siberia.