de Jean du Plan de Carpin_, 114) tells us that this city was taken by the Mongols in 1221, upon the occasion of their irruption into the territory of the Comans and Russians, a city apparently identical with Ornas, “civitas Ornarum”, inhabited by Russians, Alans, and other Christians, but belonging to the Saracens. It was completely destroyed by the hordes of Batou, before their invasion of the country of the Russians and Turks (Turcorum, Taycorum, and Tortorum), as we learn from Giovanni dal Piano di Carpine and his travelling companion. It is to be regretted that, whilst admitting the identity of this city under its various denominations, authors are unable to agree as to its site. Karamsin, D’Avezac, and Kunik are in support of Thunmann’s theory, that it was Tana, the modern Azoff. Others, Leontief (Propilei, iv), for instance, are in favour of Frachn’s (Ibn Foszlan, 162) opinion that the Oruntia of Alberic, the Ornas of Giovanni dal Piano di Carpine, and the Arnatch of the Russian chroniclers, were all identical with the Ourjenj of Khorasan. I did at one time support these views, but have since sought to prove (_Sitzungsberichte d. Kön. Bay. Akad._, 1869, ii, 276 _et seq._) that the city in question was equidistant from Azoff and Ourjenj, or, in other words, that it coincided with “Origens”, situated, as we read in the text, on the “Edil”, a great river, viz., the Terek. It is pretty clear that “Origens”, and Ornatch or Arnatch of the Russians, are corruptions of Anjadz or Anjak, which, according to Khanikoff (_Mémoire sur Khâcâni_, vi, v) was a port in the Caspian Sea near Astrahan, of which the people of the eastern provinces near the Caspian might have availed themselves for the purpose of penetrating into Southern Russia.