[Mr. Rockhill (Rubruck, p. 130, note) writes:  “A branch of the Volga Bulgars occupied the Moldo-Vallach country in about A.D. 485, but it was not until the first years of the 6th century that a portion of them passed the Danube under the leadership of Asparuk, and established themselves in the present Bulgaria, Friar William’s ‘Land of Assan.’”—­H.C.]

NOTE 3.—­Oroech is generally supposed to be a mistake for Noroech, NORWEGE or Norway, which is probable enough.  But considering the Asiatic sources of most of our author’s information, it is also possible that Oroech represents WAREG.  The Waraegs or Warangs are celebrated in the oldest Russian history as a race of warlike immigrants, of whom came Rurik, the founder of the ancient royal dynasty, and whose name was long preserved in that of the Varangian guards at Constantinople.  Many Eastern geographers, from Al Biruni downwards, speak of the Warag or Warang as a nation dwelling in the north, on the borders of the Slavonic countries, and on the shores of a great arm of the Western Ocean, called the Sea of Warang, evidently the Baltic.  The Waraegers are generally considered to have been Danes or Northmen, and Erman mentions that in the bazaars of Tobolsk he found Danish goods known as Varaegian.  Mr. Hyde Clark, as I learn from a review, has recently identified the Warangs or Warings with the Varini, whom Tacitus couples with the Angli, and has shown probable evidence for their having taken part in the invasion of Britain.  He has also shown that many points of the laws which they established in Russia were purely Saxon in character. (Bayer in Comment.  Acad.  Petropol. IV. 276 seqq.; Fraehn in App. to Ibn Fozlan, p. 177 seqq.; Erman, I. 374; Sat.  Review, 19th June, 1869; Gold.  Horde, App. p. 428.)

[1] This Ukak of Ibn Batuta is not, as I too hastily supposed (vol. i. p.
    8) the Ucaca of the Polos on the Volga, but a place of the same name
    on the Sea of Azof, which appears in some mediaeval maps as Locac or
    Locaq (i.e. l’Ocac), and which Elle de Laprimaudaie in his
    Periplus of the Mediaeval Caspian, locates at a place called Kaszik, a
    little east of Mariupol. (Et. sur le Comm. au Moyen.  Age, p. 230.) I
    owe this correction to a valued correspondent, Professor Bruun, of
    Odessa.

[2] The word is, however, perhaps Or.  Turkish; Som, “pure, solid.” 
    (See Pavet de Courteille, and Vambery, s.v.)

CHAPTER XXIII.

HE BEGINS TO SPEAK OF THE STRAITS OF CONSTANTINOPLE, BUT DECIDES TO LEAVE
THAT MATTER.

At the straits leading into the Great Sea, on the west side, there is a hill called the FARO.—­But since beginning on this matter I have changed my mind, because so many people know all about it, so we will not put it in our description, but go on to something else.  And so I will tell you about the Tartars of the Ponent, and the lords who have reigned over them.