CHAPTER LVI

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(1.) “the Winden tongue, which they call Arnaw.”—Schiltberger was not wrong in saying that the Venede tongue was known to the Turks as the Arnaut; at least it appears in Pianzola (_Grammatica_, _Dizionario_, etc.) that the country called by the Italians, Illirice, was identical with the Slavonia of the Greeks and the Arnaut of the Turks. This is no place for solving the question, why the Turks should have designated two people of different origin by the same name; but the circumstance serves to support the opinion of several authors (Köppen, _Krymsky Sbornyk_, 1837, 226) that the Turks were not in the habit of calling people of any distinct nationality by the name of Arnaut, but rather all those who, being the subjects or brothers-in-arms of the Arianite family, had distinguished themselves in their struggles with them; such, for instance, as the Slaves and Albanians or Skipetars, among whom was George Castriota of Slave descent (Jirecek, _Gesch. d. Bulgaren_, 268). His biographer (Barletius, _Vita Scanderbegi_, etc., apud Zinkeisen, _Gesch. d. O. R._, i, 776) thus expresses himself in allusion to Topia, the compatriot of the Scanderbeg of the Turks. “Hic est ille Arianites qui apud Macedones (Slaves) et Epirotas (Albanians) cognomento Magnus et dictus et habitus est”, ... etc.—BRUUN.

(2.) “the Yassen tongue, which the Infidels call Afs.”—The As, Yasses—the Alains, Alans of antiquity, are the Ossets of to-day, a people inhabiting a strip of territory in the middle of the great mountain range of the Caucasus, and who are believed to be the only connecting link between the Indo-Persian branch and the European branch of the great Indo-Germanic race. The population in 1873 was estimated at 65,000, of which number, it was supposed, 50,000 were Christians; the remainder being Mahomedans and Pagans, or a mingling of the three (_The Crimea and Transc._, i, 296, ii, 2).

An unpretending sketch of this interesting people, twice alluded to by the author (in