_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.

At the straits leading into the Great Sea, on the west side, there is a
hill called the FARO.--But since beginning on this matter I have changed
my mind, because so many people know all about it, so we will not put it
in our description, but go on to something else. And so I will tell you
about the Tartars of the Ponent, and the lords who have reigned over them.

CHAPTER XXIV.

CONCERNING THE TARTARS OF THE PONENT AND THEIR LORDS.

The first lord of the Tartars of the Ponent was