Marco always applies to the Mongol Khans of Persia the title of “Lords of the East” (_Levant_), and to the Khans of Kipchak that of “Lords of the West” (_Ponent_). We use the term _Levant_ still with a similar specific application, and in another form _Anatolia_. I think it best to preserve the terms _Levant_ and _Ponent_ when used in this way. [Robert Parke in his translation out of Spanish of Mendoza, _The Historie of the great and mightie kingdome of China_ ... London, printed by I. Wolfe for Edward White, 1588, uses the word _Ponent_: “You shall understande that this mightie kingdome is the Orientalest part of all Asia, and his next neighbour towards the _Ponent_ is the kingdome of _Quachinchina_ ... (p. 2).”—H. C.] NOTE 4.—UCACA or UKEK was a town on the right bank of the Volga, nearly equidistant between Sarai and Bolghar, and about six miles south of the modern Saratov, where a village called _Uwek_ still exists. Ukek is not mentioned before the Mongol domination, and is supposed to have been of Mongol foundation, as the name Ukek is said in Mongol to signify a dam of hurdles. The city is mentioned by Abulfeda as marking the extremity of “the empire of the Barka Tartars,” and Ibn Batuta speaks of it as “one day distant from the hills of the Russians.” Polo therefore means that it was the frontier of the Ponent towards Russia. Ukek was the site of a Franciscan convent in the 14th century; it is mentioned several times in the campaigns of Timur, and was destroyed by his army. It is not mentioned under the form Ukek after this, but appears as _Uwek_ and _Uwesh_ in Russian documents of the 16th century. Perhaps this was always the Slavonic form, for it already is written _Uguech_ (= Uwek) in Wadding’s 14th century catalogue of convents. Anthony Jenkinson, in Hakluyt, gives an observation of its latitude, as _Oweke_ (51° 40′), and Christopher Burrough, in the same collection, gives a description of it as _Oueak_, and the latitude as 51° 30′ (some 7′ too much). In his time (1579) there were the remains of a “very faire stone castle” and city, with old tombs exhibiting sculptures and inscriptions. All these have long vanished. Burrough was told by the Russians that the town “was swallowed into the earth by the justice of God, for the wickednesse of the people that inhabited the same.” Lepechin in 1769 found nothing remaining but part of an earthen rampart and some underground vaults of larger bricks, which the people dug out for use. He speaks of coins and other relics as frequent, and the like have been found more recently. Coins with Mongol-Arab inscriptions, struck at Ukek by Tuktugai Khan in 1306, have been described by Fraehn and Erdmann.