Volume II Part 72 (2/2)

233; _Numi Asiatici_, I. 333, 451; _Klaproth's Travels_, ch. x.x.xi.; _N. et Ex._ XIII. i. 269, 279; _P. de la Croix_, II. 383; _Rein. Abulf._ I. 80; _D'Ohsson_, II. 628.)

[”The author of the _Tarikh Djihan Kushai_, as well as Ras.h.i.+d and other Mohammedan authors of the same period, term the Hungarians _Bashkerds_ (Bashkirs). This latter name, written also _Bashkurd_, appears for the first time, it seems, in Ibn Fozlan's narrative of an emba.s.sy to the Bulgars on the Volga in the beginning of the 10th century (translated by Fraehn, 'De Bashkiris,' etc., 1822).... The Hungarians arrived in Europe in the 9th century, and then called themselves _Magyar_ (to be p.r.o.nounced Modjor), as they do down to the present time. The Russian Chronicler Nestor mentions their pa.s.sing near Kiev in 898, and terms them _Ugry_. But the name Magyar was also known to other nations in the Middle Ages.

Abulfeda (ii. 324) notices the _Madjgars_; it would, however, seem that he applies this name to the Bashkirs in Asia. The name _Madjar_ occurs also in Ras.h.i.+d's record. In the Chinese and Mongol annals of the 13th century the Hungarians are termed _Madja-rh_.” (_Bretschneider, Med. Res._ I. pp.

326-327.)--H.C.]

ZIC is Circa.s.sia. The name was known to Pliny, Ptolemy, and other writers of cla.s.sic times. Ramusio (II. 196 _v_) gives a curious letter to Aldus Manutius from George Interiano, ”_Della vita de'_ Zychi _chiamati Circa.s.si_,” and a great number of other references to ancient and mediaeval use of the name will be found in D'Avezac's Essay, so often quoted (p. 497).

GOTHIA is the southern coast of the Crimea from Sudak to Balaklava and the mountains north of the latter, then still occupied by a tribe of the Goths. The Genoese officer who governed this coast in the 15th century bore the t.i.tle of _Capita.n.u.s Gotiae_; and a remnant of the tribe still survived, maintaining their Teutonic speech, to the middle of the 16th century, when Busbeck, the emperor's amba.s.sador to the Porte, fell in with two of them, from whom he derived a small vocabulary and other particulars. (_Busbequii Opera_, 1660, p. 321 seqq.; _D'Avezac_, pp.

498-499; _Heyd._, II. 123 seqq.; _Cathay_, pp. 200-201.)

GAZARIA, the Crimea and part of the northern sh.o.r.e of the Sea of Azov, formerly occupied by the _Khazars_, a people whom Klaproth endeavours to prove to have been of Finnish race. When the Genoese held their settlements on the Crimean coast the Board at Genoa which administered the affairs of these colonies was called _The Office of Gazaria_.

NOTE 2.--The real list of the ”Kings of the Ponent,” or Khans of the Golden Horde, down to the time of Polo's narrative, runs thus: BATU, _Sartak, Ulagchi_ (these two almost nominal), BARKA, MANGKU TIMUR, TUDAI MANGKU, _Tulabugha_, _Tuktuka_ or TOKTAI. Polo here omits Tulabugha (though he mentions him below in ch. xxix.), and introduces before Batu, as a great and powerful conqueror, the founder of the empire, a prince whom he calls _Sain_. This is in fact Batu himself, the leader of the great Tartar invasion of Europe (1240-1242), whom he has split into two kings. Batu bore the surname of _Sain Khan_, or ”the Good Prince,” by which name he is mentioned, e.g., in Makrizi (_Quatremere's Trans._ II.

45), also in Wa.s.saf (_Hammer's Trans._ pp. 29-30). Piano Carpini's account of him is worth quoting: ”Hominibus quidem ejus satis benignus; timetur tamen valde ab iis; sed crudelissimus est in pugna; sagax est multum; et etiam astutissimus in bello, quia longo tempore jam pugnavit.” This Good Prince was indeed _crudelissimus in pugna_. At Moscow he ordered a general ma.s.sacre, and 270,000 right ears are said to have been laid before him in testimony to its accomplishment. It is odd enough that a mistake like that in the text is not confined to Polo. The chronicle of Kazan, according to a Russian writer, makes _Sain_ succeed _Batu_. (_Carpini_, p. 746; _J. As._ ser. IV. tom. xvii. p. 109; _Busching_, V. 493; also _Golden Horde_, p. 142, note.)

Batu himself, in the great invasion of the West, was with the southern host in Hungary; the northern army which fought at Liegnitz was under Baidar, a son of Chaghatai.

According to the _Masalak-al-Absar_, the territory of Kipchak, over which this dynasty ruled, extended in length from the Sea of Istambul to the River Irtish, a journey of 6 months, and in breadth from Bolghar to the Iron Gates, 4 (?) months' journey. A second traveller, quoted in the same work, says the empire extended from the Iron Gates to _Yughra_ (see p. 483 supra), and from the Irtish to the country of the _Nemej_. The last term is very curious, being the Russian _Niemicz_, ”Dumb,” a term which in Russia is used as a proper name of the Germans; a people, to wit, unable to speak Slavonic. (_N. et Ex._ XIII. i. 282, 284.)

[”An allusion to the Mongol invasion of Poland and Silesia is found in the _Yuen-s.h.i.+_, ch. cxxi., biography of Wu-liang-ho t'ai (the son of Su-bu-t'ai). It is stated there that Wu-liang-ho t'ai [Urtangcadai]

accompanied Badu when he invaded the countries of _Kin ch'a_ (Kipchak) and _Wu-la-sz'_ (Russia). Subsequently he took part also in the expedition against the _P'o-lie-rh_ and _Nie-mi-sze_.” (_Dr. Bretschneider, Med. Res._ I. p. 322.) With reference to these two names, Dr. Bretschneider says, in a note, that he has no doubt that the Poles and Germans are intended. ”As to its origin, the Russian linguists generally derive it from _nemoi_, 'dumb,'

i.e., unable to speak Slavonic. To the ancient Byzantine chroniclers the Germans were known under the same name. Cf. _Muralt's Essai de Chronogr.

Byzant., sub anno_ 882: 'Les Slavons maltraites par les guerriers _Nemetzi_ de Swiatopolc' (King of Great Moravia, 870-894). Sophocles' Greek Lexicon of the Roman and Byzantine periods from B.C. 146 to A.D. 1100: '_Nemitzi_'

Austrians, Germans. This name is met also in the Mohammedan authors.

According to the Masalak-al-Absar, of the first half of the 14th century (transl. by Quatremere, _N. et Ext._ XXII. 284), the country of the Kipchaks extended (eastward) to the country of the _Nemedj_, which separates the Franks from the Russians. The Turks still call the Germans _Niemesi_; the Hungarians term them _Nemet_.”--H.C.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figure of a Tartar under the feet of Henry II, Duke of Silesia, Cracow, and Poland, from the tomb at Breslau of that Prince, killed in battle with the Tartar host at Liegnitz, 9th April, 1241.]

[1] This doubt arises also where Abulfeda speaks of _Majgaria_ in the far north, ”the capital of the country of the _Madjgars_, a Turk race”

of pagan nomads, by whom he seems to mean the _Bashkirs_. (_Reinaud's Abulf._ I. 324.) For it is to the Bashkir country that the Franciscan travellers apply the term Great Hungary, showing that they were led to believe it the original seat of the _Magyars_. (_Rubr._ 274, _Plan.

Carpin._ 747; and in same vol. _D'Avezac_, p. 491.) Further confusion arises from the fact that, besides the Uralian Bashkirs, there were, down to the 13th century, Bashkirs recognised as such, and as distinct from the Hungarians though akin to them, dwelling in _Hungarian territory_. Ibn Said, speaking of Sebennico (the cradle of the Polo family), says that when the Tartars advanced under its walls (1242?) ”the Hungarians, the Bashkirs, and the Germans united their forces near the city” and gave the invaders a signal defeat. (_Reinaud's Abulf._ I. 312; see also 294, 295.) One would gladly know what are the real names that M. Reinaud refers _Hongrois_ and _Allemands_. The Christian Bashkirds of Khondemir, on the borders of the Franks, appear to be Hungarians. (See _J. As._, ser. IV. tom. xvii. p. 111.)

CHAPTER XXV.

OF THE WAR THAT AROSE BETWEEN ALAU AND BARCA, AND THE BATTLES THAT THEY FOUGHT.

It was in the year 1261 of Christ's incarnation that there arose a great discord between King Alau the Lord of the Tartars of the Levant, and Barca the King of the Tartars of the Ponent; the occasion whereof was a province that lay on the confines of both.[NOTE 1]

<script>