Volume II Part 72 (1/2)

Russia was overrun with fire and sword as far as Tver and Torshok by Batu Khan (1237-1238), some years before his invasion of Poland and Silesia.

Tartar tax-gatherers were established in the Russian cities as far north as Rostov and Jaroslawl, and for many years Russian princes as far as Novgorod paid homage to the Mongol Khans in their court at Sarai. Their subjection to the Khans was not such a trifle as Polo seems to imply; and at least a dozen Russian princes met their death at the hands of the Mongol executioner.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Mediaeval Russian Church. (From Fergusson.)]

NOTE 2.--The _Lac_ of this pa.s.sage appears to be WALLACHIA. Abulfeda calls the Wallachs _Aulak_; Rubruquis _Illac_, which he says is the same word as _Blac_ (the usual European form of those days being _Blachi, Blachia_), but the Tartars could not p.r.o.nounce the B (p. 275). Abulghazi says the original inhabitants of Kipchak were the _Urus_, the Olaks, _the Majars_, and the _Bashkirs_.

Rubruquis is wrong in placing _Illac_ or Wallachs in Asia; at least the people near the Ural, who he says were so-called by the Tartars, cannot have been Wallachs. Professor Bruun, who corrects my error in following Rubruquis, thinks those Asiatic _Blac_ must have been _Polovtzi_, or c.u.manians.

[Mr. Rockhill (_Rubruck_, p. 130, note) writes: ”A branch of the Volga Bulgars occupied the Moldo-Vallach country in about A.D. 485, but it was not until the first years of the 6th century that a portion of them pa.s.sed the Danube under the leaders.h.i.+p of Asparuk, and established themselves in the present Bulgaria, Friar William's 'Land of a.s.san.'”--H.C.]

NOTE 3.--_Oroech_ is generally supposed to be a mistake for _Noroech_, NORWEGE or Norway, which is probable enough. But considering the Asiatic sources of most of our author's information, it is also possible that _Oroech_ represents WAREG. The _Waraegs_ or _Warangs_ are celebrated in the oldest Russian history as a race of warlike immigrants, of whom came Rurik, the founder of the ancient royal dynasty, and whose name was long preserved in that of the Varangian guards at Constantinople. Many Eastern geographers, from Al Biruni downwards, speak of the Warag or Warang as a nation dwelling in the north, on the borders of the Slavonic countries, and on the sh.o.r.es of a great arm of the Western Ocean, called the _Sea of Warang_, evidently the Baltic. The Waraegers are generally considered to have been Danes or Northmen, and Erman mentions that in the bazaars of Tobolsk he found Danish goods known as _Varaegian_. Mr. Hyde Clark, as I learn from a review, has recently identified the Warangs or Warings with the _Varini_, whom Tacitus couples with the Angli, and has shown probable evidence for their having taken part in the invasion of Britain. He has also shown that many points of the laws which they established in Russia were purely Saxon in character. (_Bayer_ in _Comment. Acad. Petropol._ IV.

276 seqq.; _Fraehn_ in App. to _Ibn Fozlan_, p. 177 seqq.; _Erman_, I. 374; _Sat. Review_, 19th June, 1869; _Gold. Horde_, App. p. 428.)

[1] This Ukak of Ibn Batuta is not, as I too hastily supposed (vol. i. p.

8) the _Ucaca_ of the Polos on the Volga, but a place of the same name on the Sea of Azof, which appears in some mediaeval maps as _Locac_ or _Locaq_ (_i.e. l'Ocac_), and which Elle de Laprimaudaie in his Periplus of the Mediaeval Caspian, locates at a place called Kaszik, a little east of Mariupol. (_Et. sur le Comm. au Moyen. Age_, p. 230.) I owe this correction to a valued correspondent, Professor Bruun, of Odessa.

[2] The word is, however, perhaps Or. Turkish; _Som_, ”pure, solid.”

(See _Pavet de Courteille_, and _Vambery_, s.v.)

CHAPTER XXIII.

HE BEGINS TO SPEAK OF THE STRAITS OF CONSTANTINOPLE, BUT DECIDES TO LEAVE THAT MATTER.

At the straits leading into the Great Sea, on the west side, there is a hill called the FARO.--But since beginning on this matter I have changed my mind, because so many people know all about it, so we will not put it in our description, but go on to something else. And so I will tell you about the Tartars of the Ponent, and the lords who have reigned over them.

CHAPTER XXIV.

CONCERNING THE TARTARS OF THE PONENT AND THEIR LORDS.

The first lord of the Tartars of the Ponent was SAIN, a very great and puissant king, who conquered ROSIA and COMANIA, ALANIA, LAC, MENJAR, ZIC, GOTHIA, and GAZARIA; all these provinces were conquered by King Sain.

Before his conquest these all belonged to the Comanians, but they did not hold well together nor were they united, and thus they lost their territories and were dispersed over divers countries; and those who remained all became the servants of King Sain.[NOTE 1]

After King Sain reigned King PATU, and after Patu BARCA, and after Barca MUNGLETEMUR, and after Mungletemur King TOTAMANGUL, and then TOCTAI the present sovereign.[NOTE 2]

Now I have told you of the Tartar kings of the Ponent, and next I shall tell you of a great battle that was fought between Alau the Lord of the Levant and Barca the Lord of the Ponent.

So now we will relate out of what occasion that battle arose, and how it was fought.

NOTE 1.--+The COMANIANS, a people of Turkish race, the _Polovtzi_[or ”Dwellers of the Plain” of Nestor, the Russian Annalist] of the old Russians, were one of the chief nations occupying the plains on the north of the Black Sea and eastward to the Caspian, previous to the Mongol invasion. Rubruquis makes them identical with the KIPCHAK, whose name is generally attached to those plains by Oriental writers, but Hammer disputes this. [See a note, pp. 92-93 of _Rockhill's Rubruck_.--H.C.]

ALANIA, the country of the Alans on the northern skirts of the Caucasus and towards the Caspian; LAC, the Wallachs as above. MENJAR is a subject of doubt. It may be _Majar_, on the k.u.ma River, a city which was visited by Ibn Batuta, and is mentioned by Abulfeda as _k.u.mmajar_. It was in the 14th century the seat of a Franciscan convent. Coins of that century, both of Majar and New Majar, are given by Erdmann. The building of the fortresses of Kichi Majar and Ulu Majar (little and great) is ascribed in the _Derbend Nameh_ to Naos.h.i.+rwan. The ruins of Majar were extensive when seen by Gmelin in the last century, but when visited by Klaproth in the early part of the present one there were few buildings remaining.

Inscriptions found there are, like the coins, Mongol-Mahomedan of the 14th century. Klaproth, with reference to these ruins, says that _Majar_ merely means in ”old Tartar” a stone building, and denies any connection with the _Magyars_ as a nation. But it is possible that the Magyar country, i.e.

Hungary, is here intended by Polo, for several Asiatic writers of his time, or near it, speak of the Hungarians as _Majar_. Thus Abulfeda speaks of the infidel nations near the Danube as including Aulak, Majars, and Serbs; Ras.h.i.+duddin speaks of the Mongols as conquering the country of the Bashkirds, the Majars, and the Sa.s.san (probably Saxons of Transylvania).

One such mention from Abulghazi has been quoted in note 2 to ch. xxii.; in the _Masalak-al-Absar_, the _Cherkes_, _Russians_, _Aas_ (or Alans), and Majar are a.s.sociated; the Majar _and Alan_ in Sharifuddin. Doubts indeed arise whether in some of these instances a people located in Asia be not intended.[1] (_Rubr._ p. 246; _D'Avezac_, p. 486 seqq.; _Golden Horde_, p. 5; _I.B._ II. 375 seqq.; _Busching_, IV. 359; _Cathay_, p.