The weight of
each saumah is 5 ounces" (II. 414). Mas'udi also says: "The Russians
have in their country a silver-mine similar to that which exists in
Khorasan, at the mountain of Banjhir" (i.e. Panjshir; II. 15; and see
supra, vol. i. p. 161). These positive and concurrent testimonies as to
Russian silver-mines are remarkable, as modern accounts declare that no
silver is found in Russia. And if we go back to the 16th century,
Herberstein says the same. There was no silver, he says, except what was
imported; silver money had been in use barely 100 years; previously they
had used oblong ingots of the value of a ruble, without any figure or
legend. (Ram. II. 159.)
But a welcome communication from Professor Bruun points out that the
statement of Ibn Batuta identifies the silver-mines in question with
certain mines of argentiferous lead-ore near the River Mious (a river
falling into the sea of Azof, about 22 miles west of Taganrog); an ore
which even in recent times has afforded 60 per cent. of lead, and 1/24 per
cent. of silver. And it was these mines which furnished the ancient
Russian rubles or ingots. Thus the original ruble was the saumah of
Ibn Batuta, the sommo of Pegolotti. A ruble seems to be still called by
some term like saumah in Central Asia; it is printed soom in the
Appendix to Davies's Punjab Report, p. xi. And Professor Bruun tells me
that the silver ruble is called Som by the Ossethi of Caucasus.[2]
Franc.-Michel quotes from Fitz-Stephen's Desc. of London (temp. Henry
II.): -
"Aurum mittit Arabs ...
Seres purpureas vestes; Galli sua vina;
Norwegi, Russi, varium, grysium, sabelinas."
Russia was overrun with fire and sword as far as Tver and Torshok by Batu
Khan (1237-1238), some years before his invasion of Poland and Silesia.
Tartar tax-gatherers were established in the Russian cities as far north
as Rostov and Jaroslawl, and for many years Russian princes as far as
Novgorod paid homage to the Mongol Khans in their court at Sarai. Their
subjection to the Khans was not such a trifle as Polo seems to imply; and
at least a dozen Russian princes met their death at the hands of the
Mongol executioner.
[Illustration: Mediaeval Russian Church. (From Fergusson.)]
NOTE 2. - The Lac of this passage appears to be WALLACHIA. Abulfeda calls
the Wallachs Aulak; Rubruquis Illac, which he says is the same word as
Blac (the usual European form of those days being Blachi, Blachia), but
the Tartars could not pronounce the B (p. 275). Abulghazi says the original
inhabitants of Kipchak were the Urus, the Olaks, the Majars, and the
Bashkirs.
Rubruquis is wrong in placing Illac or Wallachs in Asia; at least the
people near the Ural, who he says were so-called by the Tartars, cannot
have been Wallachs. Professor Bruun, who corrects my error in following
Rubruquis, thinks those Asiatic Blac must have been Polovtzi, or
Cumanians.
[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.