ngol 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 t