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story unintentionally suggests. The Jewish influence in Khazarin wiis due to the encouragement given by the Chugans lo llebrew merchants. Of the Jewish port of Tamutarkha more will be said presently; and we may notice the Jewishi population at Jundār, a town in the Caucasus, which was governed in the ninth century by a relation of the Chagan, who is said to live prayed impartially with the Moslems on Frislay, with the Jews on Saturday, iind with the Christians on Sunday

Somewhat later in the eighth century a princess of the Khazar's muutied the Saraccu governor of Armenin, and there . was prence on the southern frontier till the reign of Jurun ulRashid.' In A.1). 798 another marriage alliance was allranged between it daughter of the Chagan and one of the powerful family of the Barmeciiles. The lady died in Albania on the way to her bridal, and the oflicers who were in charge of her l'eported to her father their suspicion that she had been poisoned. The suggestion infuriated the Chagan, and in the following year the Khazars invaded Armenia, by the Gates of Derlund, and returned with an immense booty in captives.” Then Harun's son, Mamun, carried his arins victoriously into the land of the Khazars.

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§ 2. The Subjects unil Veighbours of the khazars The Khazar's had never succeeded in extending their lordship over their neighbours the Alans, whose territory extended from the Caucasus to the banks of the river Kubin and was bounded on the west by the Euxine. The Alans, who

huvo survived to the present dny under the name of thu Ossotians, were a mainly pustoral people; their army consisted in cavalry; and they had a fortress, which was virtually impregnable, at the so-called Alan-gate of the Caucasus or l'ass of Dariel.' We are told that the habitations of the people were so close together that when a cock crowed in one place ho was unswered by all the cocks in the rest of the kingdom. At some time before the tenth century the king adopted Christinnity, but the mass of his subjects remained henthen." lo received his Christianity from Constantinople, and the Emperors approprinted to him the special title of causiastes.' Between the Alans and the Khazars were the habitations of tho SARIRS, it heathen people whose name does not come into thu annals of Byzantium."

North of the Aluns, between the rivers Kulan ind Don, the territory of the Khazars extended to the shores of the Maeotic lake,' and at the mouth of that water they possessed the important town of Tamatarkla, the modern Taman, which had arisen close to the ancient l'hanngoria, over against the city of Bosporos on the other side of the straits. The conmercial importance of Tamatarkha, which had a large Jewish population, will claim our attention presently. Bosporos itself, the ancient Pantikapaion, was under the control of the Khazar's, and the Tetraxite (ioths, who occupied the greater part of the Crimert, were subject to their sway. The Gothic capitil, Doras, had been taken by the Khazars before A.D. 787, and in the following years the Goths, under the leadership of their bishop, had made in attempt to throw off the yoke of their powerful nciglibours."

i For descriptions of the Alans, seo + Of the Sarirs an account is preCumizi in Blu Rusta, 193-194, and served by Ibu Rustu and Gurdizi (187 Masudi (Sprenger), 134 8:19. Cp. Mar. 899.), derived from their common ninth. quart, op. cit. 101 sily. The King's

century source. title was bayhayar (Ibn R.) or kür. • This country had been the habita. kuruluj (Mas.). Arabic writers call the tion of the Utigurs -- the ralaid Alans Nandar, or Pilash (?), with the BovAgapia of Theophanes and Nicesecond part of which Marquart connects phorus. Cp. Marquart, op. cit. 503. the Georgian name Uusi (=Old Russian After the sixth century we hear Busi), whence the mollern Ussctiili. nothing more of this people, but their

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North of the Don and extending to the banks of the Dnieper were the tents and hunting-grounds of the MAGYARS or llungarians. The continuous history of this Finnishı people, who lived by hunting and fishing,' begins in the ninth century, and if we think we can recognise it under other names in the days of Attila and the early migrations, our conclusions are more or less speculative. It is, however, highly probable that the Magyars had lived or wandered for centuries in the regions of the Volgi, hal bowed to the sway of the great Hun, and had been affected by the manners of their Turkish neigh.bours. They spoke i tongue closely akin to those of the

finns, the Ostyaks, the Voguls, and the Samoyeds, but it is likely that even before the ninth century it had been modified, in its vocabulary, by Turkish influence.' A branch of the people penetrated in the eighth century south of the Caucasus, and settled on the river Cyrus, east of Tillis and west of Partav, wliere they were known to the Armenians liy the name of Sevordik or “Black children." ; These Black Hungarians, in the ninth century, destroyed the town of Shamkor, and the governor of Armenia repeopleıl it with Khazars who had been converted to Islam (1.1). 854-855).

On the northern shore of the Sea of Azov, and extending towards the Dnieper, was the land of the Inner or Black BULGARIANS," which thus lay between the Magyars and the

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Goths. The lower Dnieper seems to have formed the western boundary of the Khazar Empire, but their intluence extended up that river, over some of the Eastern Slavg. The Slavs round Kiev' paid at one time tribute to the Chagan, who perhaps ensured them against the depredations of the Magyars.

On the contral Volga was the extensive territory of the BURDAS," who were subject to the Khazars, and formed a barrier against the Outer Bulgarians, their northern neighbo!!r's, whose dominion lay on the Volga and its tributary the Kama, including the modern province of Kasıın."

If the Burdas served the Khazars as a barrier against the northern Bulgarians, they were also useful in helping to hold the l’ATZINAKS in check. This suvage people possessed a wide dominion between the Volyn and the Ural; their neighbour's were, to the north-west the Burdūs, to the north the Kipchukis, to the east the Uzes, to the south-west the Khazars. It would seem that some of their hordles pressed carly in the ninth century, west of the Volga, into the busin of the Don, ind became the formidable neighbours of the most easterly Slavonic tribes.

§ 3. The Russians and their Commerce Such, in the early part of the ninth century, was the general chart of the Turkish Empire of the Khazars, their clients, and their neighbours. Before we consider the import of this primitive world for the foreign policy of the Roman Empire, it is necessary to glunce at yet another people, which was destined in the future to form the dominant state in the region of the Euxine and which, though its home still lay beyond the horizon of Constantinople and Itil, was already known to those cities by the ways of commerce.

The RUSSIANS or Rūs were Scandinavians of Eastern Sweden who, crossing the Baltic and sailing into the Gulf of Finland, had settled on Like Ilmen, where they founded the island town, known as Novgorod, the Tolmgard of Icelandic Saga, at the point whero the river Volkhov issues from the northern waters of the lake.' They were active traders, and they monopolized all the tratlic of north-eastern Europe with the great capitals of the south, Constantinople, Baghdad, and Itil. Their chief wares were the skins of the castor and the black fox, swords, and men. The Slavs were their natural prey ; ? they lised to plunder them in river expeditions, and often carry them off, to be transported and solul in southern lands. Many of the Slavs used to purchase immunity by entering into their service. The Russians did not till the soil, and consequently had no property in land; when a son was born, his father, with a drawn sword in his hand, addressed the infant: “I leave thee no inheritance; thou shalt have only what thou winnest by this sword.” They were, in fact, a settlement of