324 NATURAL HISTORY OF 



of the Greek empire, their dominions extended from 

 the sea of Aral to the river Bogue. Their capital 

 was Baliangar, or Attel, at the mouth of the Volga, 

 and they having formed a portion of the Hunnic em- 

 pire, and probably absorbed the Haiatili, appear to 

 have built cities in Hungary, doubtless by colonists, 

 or by establishing ventas. 



THE Hungarians, or Magyar Toorkees, seem to have 

 issued from the same Ouralian quarter, and were, with 

 the last mentioned, formidable to the Khalifs of 

 Persia, about the close of the seventh century. By 

 the end of the ninth, they found themselves esta- 

 blished in their present abode, where they incorpo- 

 rated the remnant of ancient Huns, still left in Pan- 



* The Byzantine writers view the Huns and Turks as 

 the same ; and indeed, the names, Huns, Hungarians, Unni 

 Occidentales, Onoguri, Ugri, Ungri, Ongri, are all the 

 same, or tribes of the same people. The Avari or Abares 

 may have had a greater Caucasian element in their na- 

 tional origin. In the whole of the high region west of the 

 Caspian, to the Euxine and eastern coast of the Mediter- 

 ranean, as far as the Hellespont, it is difficult, if not im- 

 possible, to separate distinctly, the Finnic from the pure 

 Germanic and Celtic nations. Long before the historic age, 

 they absorbed a Melanic nation, which Herodotus called 

 the Colchian in his time. The Pelasgi and Dorians were 

 perhaps Lesghi, and tribes that went into Thynia, from 

 the coast of Thrace, only completed a circle of emigration 

 round the Euxine. 



