[21] Bahrein is an island in the Persian gulf, on the Arabian shore, still celebrated for its pearl fishery.--E.
_Travels of Rabbi Benjamin of Tudela, through Europe, Asia, and Africa, from Spain to China, between A.D. 1160 and 1173_[1].
This Spanish Jew was the son of Rabbi Jonas, of Tudela, a small town in Navarre. According to the testimony of Rabbi Abraham Zuka, a celebrated professor of astronomy at Salamanca, it is supposed that Rabbi Benjamin travelled from 1160 to 1173. Young Barratier, a prodigy of early literary genius, asserts that Benjamin never made the journey at all, but patched up the whole work from contemporary writers. There is no doubt that his work is full of incredible tales, yet many of the anomalies it contains, may have proceeded from mistakes of copyists; exaggeration was the taste of the times, and other travellers who are believed actually to have travelled, are not behind him in the marvellous. These often relate the miracles of pretended Christian saints, while he details the wonders performed by Jewish Rabbis. He contains however, many curious pieces of information, not to be found anywhere else, and it seems necessary and proper to give a full abstract of his travels in this place.
Travelling by land to Marseilles, Benjamin embarked for Genoa, and proceeded to Rome, from whence he went through the kingdom of Naples to Otranto, where he crossed over to Corfu and Butrinto, and journeyed by land through Greece to Constantinople, having previously visited the country of Wallachia. All this takes up the four first chapters, which are omitted in Harris. In the fifth, he gives an account of the city and Court of Constantinople, as follows: Constantinople is an exceedingly great city, the capital of the Javanites[2], or the nation called Greeks, and the principal seat of the emperor Emanuel[3], whose commands are obeyed by twelve kings, for every one of whom there are several palaces in Constantinople, and they have fortresses and governments in other places of the empire, and to them the whole land is subject. The principal of these is the Apripus, _Praepositus_, or prime minister; the second, Mega Dumastukitz, [Greek: Mezas Domestichos], or great chamberlain; the third Dominot, _Dominos_, or lord: but his peculiar office or department does not appear; the fourth Mackducus, [Greek: Mezas Dochas], great duke or high Admiral; the fifth Iknomus Megli, [Greek: Oichonomos mezas], or lord high steward of the household; and the rest have names like unto these[4]. Constantinople is eighteen miles in circuit, half of it being on the sea, and the other half towards the continent; it stands on two arms of the sea, into one of which the sea flows from Russia, and into the other from Spain; and its port is frequented by many traders, from the countries and provinces of Babylon, Senaar, Media, Persia, Egypt, Canaan, Russia, Hungary, _Psianki[5], Buria_, Lombardy, and Spain.