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This other mouth1The Bosphorus again. is two miles across
and the winds blow toward the northeast along the channel
until it reaches the Black Sea.2Known in Dati's time as the "Larger Sea", Mare Maggiore.
If you follow the shore toward the west
the coastline is nine hundred miles long
before you reach Trebizond.3Now Trabzon, Turkey. The ports of call in between are:
Carpi4The first in a series of former Genoese colonies in Anatolia; now Kerpe, Turkey., followed by Penderachia5 Now Karadeniz Ereğli, Turkey. and Samasto6Now Amasra, Turkey.,
then Castelli7Cide, Sinope8Now Sinop, Turkey., and Simisso.9Now Samsun, Turkey.

It is a hundred miles from one city to another:
sometimes a bit more or a little less from one to the next.
Thus it is six hundred miles from Laiazzo to Rhodes
and four hundred from one sea to the other.
In ancient times this rectangle was
called Asia Minor11Anatolia., and within it
there were many provinces and many kings.

Near the top of this rectangle are
the renowned Taurus Mountains,
which form two ridges toward the west
that go along each side.12I.e., the rectangle of Asia Minor.
Today there is a great city between them:
Savasto13Byzantine Sebasteia; now Sivas, Turkey., where the [rule of the] Grand Turk14"Gran turco" is probably a reference to the Ottoman sultan—either Mehmed I (r. 1413–21) or Murad II (r. 1421–51)—but it's unclear, since in Dati's time Sivas was the center of territory disputed by the Seljuks (Turks) and the successors of the Ilkhanids (Mongols) as well as the Ottomans. is honored
all the way from Simisso in the north
nearly to Tarsus in the south.16From Samsun, Turkey, on the Black Sea, to Tarsus (now Mersin) on the Eastern Mediterranean.

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