chapter 25

, where the author stayed when on his journey from Derbent to Joulad. That city of “Origens”, however, was also at an “Edil”, so that Schiltberger may possibly have confounded its name of Ornas, Arnatch, or Andjaz, with Ourjenj, equally situated on an “Edil” (in this instance not the Terek but the Oxus); the possessions of his iron lord extending from the neighbourhood of one river to that of the other.—BRUUN.

(2.) “A city called Haitzicherchen, which is a large city.”—Hadjy-tarkhan was situated on the right bank of the Volga, a few miles above the modern Astrahan, and near Itil, capital of the kingdom of the Khozars, an ancient city that had already disappeared in the time of Rubruquis, 1253, when Hadjy-tarkhan itself, it would appear, had scarcely begun to exist. Ibn Batouta (1331) notes having sojourned at the last-named place upon the occasion of his journey from Soudagh to Saraï; and Pegolotti says that travellers tarried there when on their way to China. The name appears as Azitarcan in the Catalan atlas, 1375, in which work, and in the splendid map of the brothers Pizzigani, we also find “Civitat de ssara”, or “Civitas Regio d’Sara”, the city of New Sarai, destroyed by Timour, and mentioned by Schiltberger. Its ruins are still to be seen near the town of Tzaref on the Akhtouba, an arm of the Volga. There was, however, the other Saraï, spoken of by Aboulfeda, Ibn Batouta, and Pegolotti, the remains of which are visible, also on the Akhtouba, but at a distance of two hundred miles to the south of Tzaref, and near Seliterny-gorodok, where numerous coins of the khan Uzbek have lately been found by a professor of the University of Kazan. No such coins have ever been picked up at Tzaref, which is not surprising, seeing that it was Janibek, the son of Uzbek, who transferred his residence from Saraï to the new city of that name, as Colonel Yule has already shown in one of his notes to Marco Polo (i, 6), and as I have since sought to prove in an article that was published at Kieff in 1876 (_Troudy 3go. Archeo. Syezda_).

Although old Saraï was depopulated by the plague in 1347–48, and new Saraï was destroyed by Timour, both cities recovered from those calamities, and in the later map of the world, by Fra Mauro, they appear near a tributary on the left bank of the Volga, but at a considerable distance from each other. The northernmost is known to the Russians as Great Saraï.

Previously to selecting old Saraï for his residence, the khan Barka was at Bolgar, the ancient capital of the kingdom of the Bolgars on the Volga, which had been subdued in 1236 by his brother and predecessor Batou, the “terrible Batou” of the Russians, surnamed by the Tatars, Saïn—The Good. An indigent Russian village stands on the site of the city, in the midst of ruins which impress the traveller by their extent; an impression I received when engaged in the Fourth Archæological Congress (1877), the members of which started upon their excursion from Kazan, and descending the river to Spassky-zaton, visited the locality distant seven miles in a direct line from the river. Considering the importance of these ruins, the large extent of ground they cover, the prodigious quantity of ancient oriental coins and other antiquities that are being continually recovered; considering, also, the testimony of Arabian authors and travellers on the commercial relations of the ancient Bolgars of the Volga, the question has frequently arisen—Why should that people have preferred to establish themselves at so great a distance from the river, after the manner of the inhabitants of the “city of the blind”, instead of selecting a more advantageous site? The enigma has been solved by Professor Golovkinsky (_Sur la formation permienne du bassin Kama-Volgien_, etc., in the _Mém. de la Soc. Minér. de St. Pétersbourg_, tom. i; and _Anciens débris de l’homme au Gouv^t. de Cazan_, in the _Travaux de la réunion des Natur. de Russie_, St. Pétersbourg, 1868), formerly of the University of Kazan, now Rector of that at Odessa. The distinguished geologist shows, that the Volga and the Kama have been subjected to great changes in their course above their junction; that to a comparatively recent period, the eastern bank of the bed where the two rivers united, was close to the height upon which is the village of Bolgar, and that this ancient bed is to be traced to an arm of the Kazanka called the Boulak, and to the lake Kaban, both of which flow through the city of Kazan, and through a

## partly dried up marsh near the said village.—BRUUN.

(3.) “a city called Bolar, in which are different kinds of beasts.”—These were probably furred animals, furs having been from all time the staple of commerce at Bolgar (whose locality is now established), at Saraï and Astrahan. Schiltberger leads us to the supposition that those cities had recovered from the state of desolation in which they were left by Timour.—BRUUN.

(4.) “Ibissibur.”—In