xpressed in the Chinese
Annals), beyond the fact that they dwelt somewhere near the Caspian,
observes that this people, after they were conquered, furnished many
excellent officers to the Mongols; and he mentions also that when the
Mongol army was first equipt for the conquest of Southern China, many
officers took service therein from among the Uighurs, Persians, and Arabs,
Kincha (people of Kipchak), the _Asu_ and other foreign nations. We find
also, at a later period of the Mongol history (1336), letters reaching
Pope Benedict XII. from several Christian Alans holding high office at the
court of Cambaluc--one of them being a _Chingsang_ or Minister of the
First Rank, and another a _Fanchang_ or Minister of the Second Order--in
which they conveyed their urgent request for the nomination of an
Archbishop in succession to the deceased John of Monte Corvino. John
Marignolli speaks of those Alans as "the greatest and noblest nation in
the world, the fairest and bravest of men," and asserts that in his day
there were 30,000 of them in the Great Kaan's service, and all, at least
nominally, Christians.[1] Rashiduddin also speaks of the Alans as
Christians; though Ibn Batuta certainly mentions the _Aas_ as Mahomedans.
We find Alans about the same time (in 1306) fighting well in the service
of the Byzantine Emperors (_Muntaner_, p. 449). All these circumstances
render Marco's story of a corps of Christian Alans in the army of Bayan
perfectly consistent with probability. (_Carpini_, p. 707; _Rub._, 243;
_Ramusio_, II. 92; _I.B._ II. 428; _Gaubil_, 40, 147; _Cathay_, 314
seqq.)

[Mr. Rockhill writes (_Rubruck_, p. 88, note): "The Alans or Aas appear to
be identical with the An-ts'ai or A-lan-na of the _Hou Han shu_ (bk. 88,
9), of whom we read that 'they led a pastoral life N.W. of Sogdiana
(K'ang-chu) in a plain bounded by great lakes (or swamps), and in their
wanderings went as far as the shores of the Northern Ocean.' (Ma Twan-lin,
bk. 338.) _Pei-shih_ (bk. 97, 12) refers to them under the name of Su-te
and Wen-na-sha (see also _Bretschneider, Med. Geog._, 258, et seq.).
Strabo refers to them under the name of Aorsi, living to the north but
contiguous to the Albani, whom some authors confound with them, but whom
later Armenian historians carefully distinguish from them (_De Morgan,
Mission_, i. 232). Ptolemy speaks of this people as the 'Scythian Alans'
([Greek: Alanoi Skythai]); but the first definite mention of them in
class