(8.) “Wegureisari.”—This town, which occupies the site of the ancient Gangra, is the principal in the district. In the days of Hadjy Khalpha, it contained a fortress and an imperial residence, which must have been in existence in Schiltberger’s time, and accounts for his addition of the word saraï—palace—to Kiankary, and thus converting the name to “Wegureisari”.—BRUUN.
(9.) “In this country Saint Basil was bishop.”—It was generally believed that the remains of St. Basil, interred at Cæsarea, were never disturbed; the Abbey of St. Philibert at Tournes in Burgundy, the cities of Bruges, St. Armand in Flanders, and Rome, each claim the possession, but how they came by them is not satisfactorily explained (Baillet, _Vie des Saints_, iv, 710).—ED.
(10.) “Kureson.”—Near this city, commonly called Kerasous, Keresoun, situated between Samsoun and Trebizond, are still to be seen the ruins of ancient Κερασοῦς or Parthenium. There was at one time, on the coast near Trebizond, another even more ancient Kerasous, that of Xenophon, of which a lovely valley still retains the name, being known as Kerasoun-derè; but of the city itself, there are no traces.—BRUUN.
(1.) “Then he left her.”—Virgin’s towers are by no means uncommon in the East. Rich (_Residence in Kourdistan_, i, 172) mentions a Kiz-Kalesi—girl’s castle—as being on a hill above the Kizzeljee in Kourdistan. Hear a place called Ak-boulak, about twenty-five miles to north-east of Shousha in Transcaucasia, are the ruins of Kiz Kaleh—Virgin’s castle—situated on a hill in a perfectly impregnable position. Another Virgin’s castle in that part of Asia, is at Bakou; an inscription on its walls, in Cufic characters, deciphered by Khanikoff (_Ysvest. Geog. Obshtchest._, ix), records its construction by Masoudi, the son of Daud, one of the “Samiardi fratres” mentioned in the history of Otto, bishop of Freising. Again, there is a tower, erected on the highest pinnacle of the rocky mount upon which stand the fortifications of Soldaya, now Soudagh, in the Crimea, called Kiz-Koula by the Tatars (_The Crimea and Transc._, ii, 158). The ruins of another fortress, Kaleh Dokhter, are described by Abbott (_Southern Cities of Persia_, MS.) as crowning the height above the city of Kirman; and visitors to Constantinople are familiar with the construction on the rock off Scutari, unaccountably called by Europeans the Tower of Leander, but known, more legitimately, as the Maiden’s Tower, ever since it became the burial-place of Damalis, wife of the Athenian general Chares, who was sent to the assistance of the Byzantines against Philip of Macedon.