f _India_? In reply to
this, Professor Bruun adduces a variety of quotations which he considers
as showing that the term _India_ was applied to some Caucasian region.

My own conviction is that the report of Otto of Freisingen is not merely
the _first mention_ of a great Asiatic potentate called Prester John, but
that his statement is the whole and sole basis of good faith on which the
story of such a potentate rested; and I am quite as willing to believe, on
due evidence, that the nucleus of fact to which his statement referred,
and on which such a pile of long-enduring fiction was erected, occurred in
Armenia as that it occurred in Turan. Indeed in many respects the story
would thus be more comprehensible. One cannot attach any value to the
quotation from the Annalist in Pertz, because there seems no reason to
doubt that the passage is a mere adaptation of the report by Bishop Otto,
of whose work the Annalist makes other use, as is indeed admitted by
Professor Bruun, who (be it said) is a pattern of candour in controversy.
But much else that the Professor alleges is interesting and striking. The
fact that Azerbeijan and the adjoining regions were known as "the East" is
patent to the readers of this book in many a page, where the Khan and his
Mongols in occupation of that region are styled by Polo _Lord of the_
LEVANT, _Tartars of the_ LEVANT (i.e. of the East), even when the
speaker's standpoint is in far Cathay.[8] The mention of _Ani_ as
identical with the Ecbatana of which Otto had heard is a remarkable
circumstance which I think even Oppert has overlooked. That this Georgian
hero _was_ a Christian and that his name _was_ John are considerable
facts. Oppert's conversion of Korkhan into Yokhanan or John is anything
but satisfactory. The identification proposed again makes it quite
intelligible how the so-called Prester John should have talked about
coming to the aid of the Crusaders; a point so difficult to explain on
Oppert's theory, that he has been obliged to introduce a duplicate John in
the person of a Greek Emperor to solve that knot; another of the weaker
links in his argument. In fact, Professor Bruun's thesis seems to me more
than fairly successful in _paving the way_ for the introduction of a
Caucasian Prester John; the barriers are removed, the carpets are spread,
the trumpets sound royally--but the conquering hero comes not!

He does very nearly come. The almost royal power and splendour of the
Orbelians