without peril of being taken; thus it was at least on the road by which the Brothers had come, though there was no obstacle to their travelling forward. So the Brothers, finding they could not retrace their steps, determined to go forward. Quitting Bolgara, therefore, they proceeded to a city called UCACA, which was at the extremity of the kingdom of the Lord of the Ponent; and thence departing again, and passing the great River Tigris, they travelled across a Desert which extended for seventeen days' journey, and wherein they found neither town nor village, falling in only with the tents of Tartars occupied with their cattle at pasture.5 His NOTE 1.-Barka Khan, third son of Jújí the first-born of Chingiz, ruled the Ulus of Juji and Empire of Kipchak (Southern Russia) from 1257 to 1265. He was the first Musulman sovereign of his race. chief residence was at SARAI (Sara of the text) a city founded by his brother and predecessor Bátú, on the banks of the Akhtuba branch of the Wolga. In the next century Ibn Batuta describes Sarai as a very handsome and populous city, so large that it made half a day's journey to ride through it. The inhabitants were Mongols, Aás (or Alans), Kipchaks, Circassians, Russians, and Greeks, besides the foreign Moslem merchants who had a walled quarter. Another Mahomedan traveller of the same century says the city itself was not walled, but, "The Khan's Palace was a great edifice surmounted by a golden crescent weighing two kantars of Egypt, and encompassed by a wall flanked with towers," &c. Sarai became the seat of both a Latin and a Russian metropolitan, and of more than one Franciscan convent. It was destroyed by Timur on his second invasion of Kipchak (1395-6), and extinguished by the Russians a century later. It is the scene of Chaucer's half-told tale of Cambuscan: "At Sarra, in the Londe of Tartarie, There dwelt a King that werried Russie." Several sites exhibiting extensive ruins near the banks of the Akhtuba have been identified with Sarai; two in particular. One of these is not far from the great elbow of the Wolga at Tzaritzyn: the other much lower down, at Selitrennoi Gorodok or "Saltpetre-Town," not far above Astracan. The upper site exhibits by far the most extensive traces of former population, and is declared unhesitatingly to be the sole site of Sarai by M. Gregorieff, who carried on excavations among the remains for four years, though with what precise results I have not been able to learn. The most dense part of the remains, consisting of mounds and earthworks, traces of walls, buildings, cisterns, dams, and innumerable canals, extends for about 7 miles in the vicinity of the town of Tzarev, but a tract of 66 miles in length and 300 miles in circuit, commencing from near the head of the Akhtuba, presents remains of like character, though of less density, marking the ground occupied by the villages which encircled the capital. About 2 miles to the N.W. of Tzarev a vast mass of such remains, surrounded by the traces of a brick rampart, points out the presumable position of the Imperial Palace. M. Gregorieff appears to admit no alternative. Yet it seems certain that the indications of Abulfeda, Pegolotti, and others, with regard to the position of the capital in the early part of the 14th century, are not consistent with a site so far from the Caspian. Moreover, F. H. Müller states that the site near Tsarev is known to the Tartars as the "Sarai of Janibek Khan." Now it is worthy of note that in the coinage of Janibek we repeatedly find as the place of mintage, New Sarai. Is it not possible, therefore, that both the sites which we have mentioned were successively occupied by the Mongol capital; that the original Sarai of Batu was at Selitrennoi Gorodok, and that the New Sarai of Janibek was established by him or one of his immediate predecessors on the upper Akhtuba ? (Four Years of Archæological Researches among the Ruins of Sarai [in Russian], by M. Gregorieff [who appears to have also published a pamphlet specially on the site, but this has not been available]; Historischgeographische Darstellung des Stromsystems der Wolga, von Ferd. Heinr. Müller, Berlin, 1839, 568-77; Ibn Bat. II. 447; Not. et Extraits, XIII. i. 286; Pallas, Voyages; Cathay, 231, &c.; Erdmann, Numi Asiatici, pp. 362 seqq.) NOTE 2.-BOLGHAR, our author's Bolgara, was the capital of the region sometimes called Great Bulgaria, by Abulfeda Inner Bulgaria, and stood a few miles from the left bank of the Wolga, in latitude about 54° 54', and 90 miles below Kazan. The old Arab writers regarded it as nearly the limit of the habitable world, and told wonders of the cold, the brief summer nights, and the fossil ivory that was found in its vicinity. This was exported, and with peltry, wax, honey, hazel-nuts, and Russia leather, formed the staple articles of trade. The last item derived from Bolghar the name which it still bears all over Asia. Bolghar seems to have been the northern limit of Arab travel, and was visited by the curious (by Ibn Batuta among others) in order to witness the phenomena of the short summer night, as travellers now visit Hammerfest to witness its entire absence. Russian chroniclers speak of an earlier capital of the Bulgarian kingdom, Brakhimov near the mouth of the Kama, destroyed by Andrew, Grand Duke of Rostov and Susdal, about 1160; and this may have been the city referred to in the earlier Arabic accounts. The fullest of these is by Ibn Fozlán, who accompanied an embassy from the Court of Akhtu Versh binskoye Zaritzin e hiulgia Zaplavno ૪' artyka Tzarev cholobooching Map to illustrate the Geographical Position of the CITY of SARAI. 10 20 30 40 10 Akhtubaovladimirovka Sarepa Cherniyar River Volgo 480 Enotayevsk Kalmuk Steppe Piver Astrakhan Baghdad to Bolghar, in A.D. 921. The King and people had about this time been converted to Islam, having previously, as it would seem, professed Christianity. Nevertheless a Mahomedan writer of the 14th. century says the people had then long renounced Islam for the worship of the Cross. (Not. et Extr. XIII. i. 270.) Bolghar was first captured by the Mongols in 1225. It seems to have perished early in the 15th century, after which Kazan practically took its place. Its position is still marked by a village called Bolgari, where ruins of Mahomedan character remain, and where coins and inscriptions have been found. Coins of the Kings of Bolghar, struck in the 10th century, have been described by Fraehn, as well as coins of the Mongol period struck at Bolghar. Its latest known coin is of A.H. 818 (A.D. 1415-16). A history of Bolghar was written in the first half of the 12th century by Yakub Ibn Noman, Kadhi of the city, but this is not known to be extant. Fraehn shows ground for believing the people to have been a mixture of Fins, Slavs, and Turks. Nicephorus Gregoras supposes that they took their name from the great river on which they dwelt (Bouλya). The severe and lasting winter is spoken of by Ibn Fozlan and other old writers in terms that seem to point to a modern mitigation of climate. It is remarkable, too, that Ibn Fozlan speaks of the aurora as of very frequent occurrence, which is not now the case in that latitude. We may suspect this frequency to have been connected with the greater cold indicated, and perhaps with a different position of the magnetic pole. Ibn Fozlan's account of the aurora is very striking:-"Shortly before sunset the horizon became all very ruddy, and at the same time I heard sounds in the upper air, with a dull rustling. I looked up and beheld sweeping over me a fire-red cloud, from which these sounds issued, and in it movements as it were of men and horses; the men grasping bows, lances, and swords. This I saw, or thought I saw. Then there appeared a white cloud of like aspect; in it also I beheld armed horsemen, and these rushed against the former as one squadron of horse |