A.D. 



1558. 



The river of 

 Gama. 



Nagay Tar- 

 tars. 



flora's. 



THE ENGLISH VOYAGES 



any such resort thither, or at Cazan, or at any place 

 about it, from Mosco unto Mare Caspium. 



Thus proceeding forward the 14. day, we passed 

 by a goodly river called Cama, which we left on our 

 left hand. This river falleth out of the countrey 

 of Permia into the river of Volga, and is from Cazan 

 15. leagues : and the countrey lying betwixt the 

 said Cazan and the said river Cama on the left 

 hand of Volga is called Vachen, and the inhabitants 

 be Gentiles, and live in the wildernesse without house 

 or habitation : and the countrey on the other side of 

 Volga over against the said river Cama is called the 

 land of Cheremizes, halfe Gentiles, halfe Tartars, and 

 all the land on the left hand of the said Volga from 

 the said river unto Astracan, and so following the 

 North and Northeast side of the Caspian sea, to a land 

 of the Tartars called Turkemen, is called the countrey of 

 Mangat or Nagay, whose inhabitants are of the law 

 of Mahomet, and were all destroyed in the yeere 1558, 

 at my being at Astracan, through civill warres among 

 them, accompanied with famine, pestilence, and such 

 plagues, in such sort that in the said yeere there were 

 consumed of the people, in one sort and another, above 

 one hundred thousand : the like plague was never seen 

 in those parts, so that the said countrey of Nagay 

 being a countrey of great pasture, remaineth now un- 

 replenished to the great contentation of the Russes, 

 who have had cruel warres a long time together. 



The Nagayans when they flourished, lived in this 

 maner : they were divided into divers companies called 

 Hords, and every Hord had a ruler, whom they obeyed 

 as their king, and was called a Murse. Towne or 

 house they had none, but lived in the open fields, 

 every Murse or King having his Hords or people 

 about him, with their wives, children and cattell, who 

 having consumed the pasture in one place, remooved 

 unto another : and when they remoove they have houses 

 like tents set upon wagons or carts, which are drawen 



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