Chapter 36
). It is not even necessary to conclude that “Origens”,
like Astrahan, was bathed by the waters of the Volga, though the Turk name of that river is actually Etel, or Edil, a designation that may have been applied to some other river, because Schiltberger states elsewhere (Chap. 36) that “Orden”, Ourjenj, the chief town of “Horosaman”, Khwarezm, was situated near the “Edil”, and it cannot be doubted that he there alludes to the Jyhoun, or Oxus, and not to the Volga.
The first large river the author got to after leaving Derbent, was the Terek; we are, therefore, at liberty to suppose that “Origens” was in the delta of that river. Güldenstadt (_Reisen durch Russl._, i, 166) informs us that the vestiges of the ancient cities of Terki and Kopaï-Kala—now known as Guen-kala, the Burnt Fortress, were close to that locality, and that near the mouth of the river were other ruins, which he took to be those of the cities of Tumen and Bortchala, or “the town of the three walls”. It is certain that in these parts must have been the residence of the Khozar kings, called Semender, or Saraï-Banou—the lady’s palace—Hammer, (_Gesch. d. G. H._, 8) distant a four days’ journey only from Derbent, but a seven days’ journey from the Itil (Dorn, _Géog. Cauc._ in _Mém. de l’Ac. de St. P._, vi, ser. vii, 527), which is equal to the twenty farsangs that separated this city from the great river Varshan, or Orshan, alluded to in the celebrated letter of the king of the Khozars to the minister of Abdor-Rahmen III. (D’Ohsson, _Des Peup. du Cauc._, Par. 828, p. 208.) In these same parts, also, should be placed the residence of the Tchamkal, known to the natives by a name that it was found impossible to pronounce. This name, so difficult of pronunciation, may have been transformed by Schiltberger into “Origens”, seeing that Russian annalists have construed it into Ornatch or Arnatch, evidently to be identified with Tenex or Ornacia (Ornatia, Oruntia, Cornax, Tornax). The monk Alberic (_Rel. de Jean du Plan de Carpin_, 114) tells us that this city was taken by the Mongols in 1221, upon the occasion of their irruption into the territory of the Comans and Russians, a city apparently identical with Ornas, “civitas Ornarum”, inhabited by Russians, Alans, and other Christians, but belonging to the Saracens. It was completely destroyed by the hordes of Batou, before their invasion of the country of the Russians and Turks (Turcorum, Taycorum, and Tortorum), as we learn from Giovanni dal Piano di Carpine and his travelling companion.
It is to be regretted that, whilst admitting the identity of this city under its various denominations, authors are unable to agree as to its site. Karamsin, D’Avezac, and Kunik are in support of Thunmann’s theory, that it was Tana, the modern Azoff. Others, Leontief (Propilei, iv), for instance, are in favour of Frachn’s (Ibn Foszlan, 162) opinion that the Oruntia of Alberic, the Ornas of Giovanni dal Piano di Carpine, and the Arnatch of the Russian chroniclers, were all identical with the Ourjenj of Khorasan. I did at one time support these views, but have since sought to prove (_Sitzungsberichte d. Kön. Bay. Akad._, 1869, ii, 276 _et seq._) that the city in question was equidistant from Azoff and Ourjenj, or, in other words, that it coincided with “Origens”, situated, as we read in the text, on the “Edil”, a great river, viz., the Terek. It is pretty clear that “Origens”, and Ornatch or Arnatch of the Russians, are corruptions of Anjadz or Anjak, which, according to Khanikoff (_Mémoire sur Khâcâni_, vi, v) was a port in the Caspian Sea near Astrahan, of which the people of the eastern provinces near the Caspian might have availed themselves for the purpose of penetrating into Southern Russia.
There can scarcely, however, be a doubt that the city of “Origens” must be looked for near the Caucasus, seeing that Schiltberger quitted it just before entering the mountains of “Setzulet”, manifestly the “Zulat”, which we are told in