After They Had Spent A Twelvemonth At The Court Of This Prince There Broke
Out A Great War Between Barca And Alau, The Lord Of The Tartars Of The
Levant, And Great Hosts Were Mustered On Either Side.[NOTE 3]
But in the end Barca, the Lord of the Tartars of the Ponent, was defeated,
though on both sides there was great slaughter.
And by reason of this war
no one could travel 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;[NOTE 4] 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.[NOTE 5]
NOTE 1. - + Barka Khan, third son of Juji, the first-born of Chinghiz,
ruled the Ulus of Juji and Empire of Kipchak (Southern Russia) from 1257
to 1265. He was the first Musulman sovereign of his race. His chief
residence was at SARAI (Sara of the text), a city founded by his brother
and predecessor Batu, on the banks of the Akhtuba branch of the Volga. 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, Aas (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," etc. Pope John XXII., on the
26th February 1322, defined the limits of the new Bishopric of Kaffa,
which were Sarai to the east and Varna to the west.
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."
["Mesalek-al-absar (285, 287), says Sarai, meaning 'the Palace,' was
founded by Bereke, brother of Batu. It stood in a salty plain, and was
without walls, though the palace had walls flanked by towers. The town was
large, had markets, madrasas - and baths. It is usually identified with
Selitrennoye Gorodok, about 70 miles above Astrakhan." (Rockhill,
Rubruck, p. 260, note.) - H. C.]
Several sites exhibiting extensive ruins near the banks of the Akhtuba
have been identified with Sarai; two in particular.
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