654 A RAZEM-BEG, 
als ds) Co ga) : «pd 2 pi J<llll The excellent and learnéd 4bul-Hasan Al- 
mas'oudi relates, that in these mountains there 
pl J & 3} (ul) anis 73) ol) Ke Y ol Jul are three hundred towns, and the inhabitants 
of every town speak a different language, not 
resembling that of the others. The /mäâm 
the Caucasus; nor before personal inquiries are made into all unknown parts of that country which were 
known to the ancients merely by their names. Most of these names are now changed and it may be only 
guessed of some of them, in what direction they lay. The gates of Alan, Asserir, Filan-Shah and Tubasa- 
ran, for instance, since the positions of the countries or districts bearing these names are known and explained 
we think to have been in the direction to the West and North west of Derbend; because 4lans inhabited the 
northern parts of the Caucasus down to the Caspian Gates (De bello Gothico lib. IV—3,): By Serir the Arabs 
meant (if not the whole eastern Daghistan, including Derbend) the country of Zhkrün, which was situated on the 
Northwest of Derbend (see ül pl and _y>_p«). By Filan or Ghilan the author of Derbend-nameh, with some 
other geographers, meant a country on the west of Derbend, whose iuhabitants were brought from Ghilan (see 
Part I Remark 34). As to Tabasaran, to this day it is the name of a considerable portion of the mountaineers who 
occupy the western parts of Derbend. — The defile of Shabran must have been in the direction from Shabran to 
Bakû (see Olels in Part I, Remark 24) and as we have reason to believe, at the very foot of Besh-Barn 
magk where the passage between the mountain and the sea may be easily defended in time of need. 
But as to the passes of Säl or Soul, Iran Shah, Semesdji or Sedjeskhi, Carûyân or Carûman, Lieyân-Shah 
and Azigka, it has not ÿet been ascertained in what direction even they lay, in respect to the gate of Caspia. 
If we could satisfy ourselves on this head by the mere resemblance which the names of forts and towns bear 
now in different directions on the summits of the Caucasus, with the appellations here referred to, then 
we should have little or no difficulty in succeeding: but the results then would be as various as the 
points of view that might present themselves in that regard to each investigator. The defile of Soul meutioned 
in Procopius (de bello Gothico, lib. IV. 3.) by the name of réove, Reineggs supposes to have béen in Gkara- 
gkaitagk. That learned traveller says that it was a strong town which belonged to the Khazars, and that the 
remains of its walls were to be seen within a few miles to thé west of Derbend. (Reisen in den Caucasus 
T. L. p. 65, 103, 106) But [I do not remember any place so near Derbend bearing that name; nor have I 
ever heard that Gkaitagh was anciently called Soul, or Tzour, as that author asserts. — D’Ohsson thinks 
Sumsidjy to be the fort of Samtisikhe, or, as it is now pronounced Samtskhe (which signifies in the Georgian 
language the three forts). The same author supposes Lazica to have been on the frontiers of the Lazes who 
inhabited Colchis &c. (des peuples du Caucase Note VIN. I could have no objection to either of these two 
conjectures of the learned D’Ohsson, if I were sure that the reading a555Y ot in our MS. a55 3) were 
_ preferable to &5Y which we find also in many versions of Mes’oudi, Al-Idrisi and Jbnu-l-verdi. 
Mr Eichwald mistakes the iron gates constructed by Anusbirwan on the Bulwark of Derbend for the 
passes mentioned by Edrisi or correctly Idrisi (see Nouvelles annales des voyages, for March 1839 p. 181. note 2.) 
The statement of Procopius, that ihe base of the Caucasus ran in one direction to the north and west 
till it reached {lyrium and Thracia and that on the other direction it extended east and south to the passages 
of Tzûr aud Caspia, through which the Huns made their inroads into the Persian and Roman teritories &c — 
suggests the idea of Tzér being a whollÿ different passage, independent of the Caspian gate, and that it was 
one of the principal passes through which the Huns made incursions into the Roman territories, while through 
the defile of Caspia or rather Derbend they made their irruptions into Persia: upon 1his ground we may 
suppose the position of Soul or Tzur, to be at a considerable distance to the west of Derbend about 175, 
2 
