(2.) “Bassaw.”—This is the Slave name for the city of Kronstadt in Transylvania, the chief city in Burzelland. It is situated near the river Burtzel or Burzel, a name given, according to some geographers (Vosgien, _Dict. Géog._, i, 157), to the territory through which it flows. This name may, however, owe its origin to Bortz, a Coman chief, who is mentioned in a Brief of Pope Gregory IX., dated 1227, addressed to the archbishop of Gran: “Nuper siquidem per litteras tuas nobis transmissas accepimus quod I. Ch. d. ac d. n. super gentem Cumanorum clementer respiciens, eis salvationis ostium aperuit his diebus. Aliqui enim nobiles gentis illius cum omnibus suis per te ad baptismi gratiam pervenerunt, et quidem princeps Bortz nomine de terra illorum cum omnibus sibi subditis per ministerium tuum fidem desiderat suspicere Christianam.” (Theiner, _Vet. Mon. Hist. Hung._, i, 86.) This prince did certainly seek a refuge in Transylvania, as did many of his countrymen, upon the irruption of the Mongols into Kiptchak. We have it upon the authority of Mussulman writers, that among the eleven Coman tribes settled in this country, were the Bourtch-oglon; evidently subject to the princes Bourtchevitch mentioned in Russian annals (Berezin, _Nashestvye Mongolov_, ix, 240).—BRUUN. CHAPTER XXIX. (1.) “Kallacercka.”—The author does not here allude either to Galata, as Jirecek (_Gesch. d. Bulgaren_, 324) supposes, or to Callatis, as believed by Fallmerayer, but rather to the castle of Kaliakra, the ruins of which are still visible on the headland of that name. It is the Τιριστρία ἄκρα of the ancients, marked Caliacra in the charts of the 14th century, and known as Γαλιάγρα in the _Acta Patriarch. Constant._, i, 52, 272. Evliya Effendi (_Travels_, etc., 70–72) having been shipwrecked near the coast of Kilghra, when on his voyage from Balaklava to Constantinople, in 1643, was hospitably entertained by the dervishes of the monastery, near the castle which was then in existence. In 1406, this territory belonged to Mirtcha (Jirecek, 346); but ten years later he ceded his possessions south of the Danube to his suzerain lord, the Sultan Mahomet I.—BRUUN. (2.) “Salonikch.”—Schiltberger may have touched at Salonica when upon his voyage to Egypt, referred to in chap, xxvi, note 4—performed, in all probability, on board of an Italian vessel from Caffa, upon which occasion he passed the island of Imbros, described in chap. 58. There is no evidence whatever that he went to Salonica after his return from Asia to Constantinople, nor is it at all probable that he stopped there when being carried away into slavery after the battle of Nicopolis, notwithstanding that the town belonged to the Turks and not to the Greeks (Zinkeisen, _Gesch. d. O. R._, i, 287). Bajazet would scarcely have selected so circuitous a route for sending captives to Broussa.