Note (6) — 36.—The countries in which I have been, that belong to Tartary.

(6.) “Vulchat.”—In saying that “Vulchat”, intended for Solkhat, was the capital of “Ephepstzach” or Kiptchak, Schiltberger may not have been aware that this latter name included the whole of South Russia and the Crimea, of which, Solkhat, afterwards Esky Crim, actually became the chief town. Neumann believes the author to have made a mistake, which may have arisen from the fact that in his time there were many princes, as has already been shown, who disputed the sovereignty; and a large portion of Kiptchak may have recognised the authority of one or the other of those princes who had taken up his residence at Solkhat, as for instance, the “viel empereur” to whom De Lannoy (Voy. et Ambass., 42) was accredited as the ambassador of Vithold in 1421, and who died at an unfortunate moment, because the knight leaves us in ignorance of his name. I believe that ruler to have been Ydegou, in the absence of any proof of Hammer’s statement (Gesch. d. G. H., 352), that Vithold’s old ally was the chief of an independent state on the shores of the Black Sea so late as the year 1423.—Bruun.