the Kungurats, who certainly had their
seat in the vicinity named, so these may possibly be connected with the
Karaunahs. The same author says that the Tuman of the Karaunahs formed the
_Inju_ or _peculium_ of Arghun Khan.

Wassaf calls them "a kind of goblins rather than human beings, the most
daring of all the Mongols"; and Mirkhond speaks in like terms.

Dr. Bird of Bombay, in discussing some of the Indo-Scythic coins which
bear the word _Korano_ attached to the prince's name, asserts this to
stand for the name of the Karaunah, "who were a Graeco-Indo-Scythic tribe
of robbers in the Punjab, who are mentioned by Marco Polo," a somewhat
hasty conclusion which Pauthier adopts. There is, Quatremere observes, no
mention of the Karaunahs before the Mongol invasion, and this he regards
as the great obstacle to any supposition of their having been a people
previously settled in Persia. Reiske, indeed, with no reference to the
present subject, quotes a passage from Hamza of Ispahan, a writer of the
10th century, in which mention is made of certain troops called
_Karaunahs_. But it seems certain that in this and other like cases the
real reading was _Kazawinah_, people of Kazvin. (See _Reiske's Constant.
Porphyrog._ Bonn. ed. II. 674; _Gottwaldt's Hamza Ispahanensis_, p. 161;
and _Quatremere_ in _J. A._ ser. V. tom. xv. 173.) Ibn Batuta only once
mentions the name, saying that Tughlak Shah of Dehli was "one of those
Turks called _Karaunas_ who dwell in the mountains between Sind and
Turkestan." Hammer has suggested the derivation of the word _Carbine_ from
_Karawinah_ (as he writes), and a link in such an etymology is perhaps
furnished by the fact that in the 16th century the word _Carbine_ was used
for some kind of irregular horseman.

(_Gold. Horde_, 214; _Ilch._ I. 17, 344, etc.; _Erdmann_, 168, 199, etc.;
_J. A. S._, B. X. 96; _Q. R._ 130; _Not. et Ext._ XIV. 282; _I. B._ III.
201; _Ed. Webbe, his Travailes_, p. 17, 1590. Reprinted 1868.)

As regards the account given by Marco of the origin of the Caraonas, it
seems almost necessarily a mistaken one. As Khanikoff remarks, he might
have confounded them with the Biluchis, whose Turanian aspect (at least as
regards the Brahuis) shows a strong infusion of Turki blood, and who might
be rudely described as a cross between Tartars and Indians. It is indeed
an odd fact that the word _Karani_ (vulgo _Cranny_) is commonly applied in
India at this day to the mixed race sprung from