"You Shall
Understande That This Mightie Kingdome Is The Orientalest Part Of All
Asia, And His Next Neighbour Towards The Ponent Is The Kingdome Of
Quachinchina ...
(P. 2)." - H. C.]
NOTE 4. - UCACA or UKEK was a town on the right bank of the Volga, nearly
equidistant between Sarai and Bolghar, and about six miles south of the
modern Saratov, where a village called Uwek still exists. Ukek is not
mentioned before the Mongol domination, and is supposed to have been of
Mongol foundation, as the name Ukek is said in Mongol to signify a dam of
hurdles. The city is mentioned by Abulfeda as marking the extremity of
"the empire of the Barka Tartars," and Ibn Batuta speaks of it as "one day
distant from the hills of the Russians." Polo therefore means that it was
the frontier of the Ponent towards Russia. Ukek was the site of a
Franciscan convent in the 14th century; it is mentioned several times in
the campaigns of Timur, and was destroyed by his army. It is not mentioned
under the form Ukek after this, but appears as Uwek and Uwesh in
Russian documents of the 16th century. Perhaps this was always the
Slavonic form, for it already is written Uguech (= Uwek) in Wadding's
14th century catalogue of convents. Anthony Jenkinson, in Hakluyt, gives
an observation of its latitude, as Oweke (51 deg. 40'), and Christopher
Burrough, in the same collection, gives a description of it as Oueak,
and the latitude as 51 deg. 30' (some 7' too much). In his time (1579) there
were the remains of a "very faire stone castle" and city, with old tombs
exhibiting sculptures and inscriptions. All these have long vanished.
Burrough was told by the Russians that the town "was swallowed into the
earth by the justice of God, for the wickednesse of the people that
inhabited the same." Lepechin in 1769 found nothing remaining but part of
an earthen rampart and some underground vaults of larger bricks, which the
people dug out for use. He speaks of coins and other relics as frequent,
and the like have been found more recently. Coins with Mongol-Arab
inscriptions, struck at Ukek by Tuktugai Khan in 1306, have been described
by Fraehn and Erdmann.
(Fraehn, Ueber die ehemalige Mong. Stadt Ukek, etc., Petersb. 1835;
Gold. Horde; Ibn Bat. II. 414; Abulfeda, in Buesching, V. 365; Ann.
Minorum, sub anno 1400; Petis de la Croix, II. 355, 383, 388;
Hakluyt, ed. 1809, I. 375 and 472; Lepechin, Tagebuch der Reise, etc.,
I. 235-237; Rockhill, Rubruck, 120-121, note 2.)
NOTE 5. - The great River Tigeri or Tigris is the Volga, as Pauthier
rightly shows. It receives the same name from the Monk Pascal of Vittoria
in 1338. (Cathay, p. 234.) Perhaps this arose out of some legend that
the Tigris was a reappearance of the same river. The ecclesiastical
historian, Nicephorus Callistus, appears to imply that the Tigris coming
from Paradise flows under the Caspian to emerge in Kurdistan. (See IX.
19.)
The "17 days" applies to one stretch of desert. The whole journey from
Ukek Bokhara would take some 60 days at least. Ibn Batuta is 58 days from
Sarai to Bokhara, and of the last section he says, "we entered the desert
which extends between Khwarizm and Bokhara, and which has an extent of 18
days' journey." (III. 19.)
CHAPTER III.
HOW THE TWO BROTHERS, AFTER CROSSING A DESERT, CAME TO THE CITY OF BOCARA,
AND FELL IN WITH CERTAIN ENVOYS THERE.
After they had passed the desert, they arrived at a very great and noble
city called BOCARA, the territory of which belonged to a king whose name
was Barac, and is also called Bocara. The city is the best in all
Persia.[NOTE 1] And when they had got thither, they found they could
neither proceed further forward nor yet turn back again; wherefore they
abode in that city of Bocara for three years. And whilst they were
sojourning in that city, there came from Alau, Lord of the Levant, Envoys
on their way to the Court of the Great Kaan, the Lord of all the Tartars
in the world. And when the Envoys beheld the Two Brothers they were
amazed, for they had never before seen Latins in that part of the world.
And they said to the Brothers: "Gentlemen, if ye will take our counsel, ye
will find great honour and profit shall come thereof." So they replied
that they would be right glad to learn how. "In truth," said the Envoys,
"the Great Kaan hath never seen any Latins, and he hath a great desire so
to do. Wherefore, if ye will keep us company to his Court, ye may depend
upon it that he will be right glad to see you, and will treat you with
great honour and liberality; whilst in our company ye shall travel with
perfect security, and need fear to be molested by nobody."[NOTE 2]
NOTE 1. - Hayton also calls Bokhara a city of Persia, and I see Vambery
says that, up till the conquest by Chinghiz, Bokhara, Samarkand, Balkh,
etc., were considered to belong to Persia. (Travels, p. 377.) The first
Mongolian governor of Bokhara was Buka Bosha.
King Barac is Borrak Khan, great-grandson of Chagatai, and sovereign of
the Ulus of Chagatai, from 1264 to 1270. The Polos, no doubt, reached
Bokhara before 1264, but Borrak must have been sovereign some time before
they left it.
NOTE 2. - The language of the envoys seems rather to imply that they were
the Great Kaan's own people returning from the Court of Hulaku. And Rashid
mentions that Sartak, the Kaan's ambassador to Hulaku, returned from
Persia in the year that the latter prince died. It may have been his party
that the Venetians joined, for the year almost certainly was the same,
viz. 1265. If so, another of the party was Bayan, afterwards the greatest
of Kublai's captains, and much celebrated in the sequel of this book.
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