Chapter XXII

DESCRIPTION OF ROSIA AND ITS PEOPLE. PROVINCE OF LAC.

Rosia is a very great province, lying towards the north. The people are Christians, and follow the Greek doctrine. There are several kings in the country, and they have a language of their own. They are a people of simple manners, but both men and women very handsome, being all very white and [tall, with long fair hair]. There are many strong defiles and passes in the country; and they pay tribute to nobody except to a certain Tartar king of the Ponent, whose name is TOCTAI; to him indeed they pay tribute, but only a trifle. It is not a land of trade, though to be sure they have many fine and valuable furs, such as Sables, in abundance, and Ermine, Vair, Ercolin, and Fox skins, the largest and finest in the world [and also much wax]. They also possess many Silver-mines, from which they derive a large amount of silver.{1}

There is nothing else worth mentioning; so let us leave Rosia, and I will tell you about the Great Sea, and what provinces and nations lie round about it, all in detail; and we will begin with Constantinople.—First, however, I should tell you of a province that lies between north and north-west. You see in that region that I have been speaking of, there is a province called LAC, which is conterminous with Rosia, and has a king of its own. The people are partly Christians and partly Saracens. They have abundance of furs of good quality, which merchants export to many countries. They live by trade and handicrafts.{2}

There is nothing more worth mentioning, so I will speak of other subjects; but there is one thing more to tell you about Rosia that I had forgotten. You see in Rosia there is the greatest cold that is to be found anywhere, so great as to be scarcely bearable. The country is so great that it reaches even to the shores of the Ocean Sea, and ’tis in that sea that there are certain islands in which are produced numbers of gerfalcons and peregrine falcons, which are carried in many directions. From Russia also to OROECH it is not very far, and the journey could be soon made, were it not for the tremendous cold; but this renders its accomplishment almost impossible.{3}

Now then let us speak of the Great Sea, as I was about to do. To be sure many merchants and others have been there, but still there are many again who know nothing about it, so it will be well to include it in our Book. We will do so then, and let us begin first with the Strait of Constantinople.

NOTE 1.—Ibn Fozlan, the oldest Arabic author who gives any detailed
account of the Russians (and a very remarkable one it is), says
he “never saw people of form more perfectly developed; they were
tall as palm-trees, and ruddy of countenance,” but at the same
time “the most uncleanly people that God hath created,” drunken,
and frightfully gross in their manners. (_Fraehn’s Ibn Fozlan_,
p. 5 _seqq._) Ibn Batuta is in some respects less flattering; he
mentions the silver-mines noticed in our text: “At a day’s distance
from Ukak[1] are the hills of the Russians, who are Christians.
They have red hair and blue eyes; ugly to look at, and crafty to
deal with. They have silver-mines, and it is from their country
that are brought the _saum_ or ingots of silver with which buying
and selling is carried on in this country (Kipchak or the Ponent of
Polo). 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.

NOTE 2.—The _Lac_ of this passage appears to be WALLACHIA. Abulfeda
calls the Wallachs _Aulák_; 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
_Urús_, 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.)

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[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 mediæval
maps as _Locac_ or _Locaq_ (_i.e._ _l’Ocac_), and which Elie de
Laprimaudaie in his Periplus of the Mediæval 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 _Vámbéry_, s.v.)