The Nāṣirī Generations 258.9.2

258.9.2

Petis de la Croix gives another account, however — but does not quote his authority — in which it is stated that the Alans were Tattars of Daghistan, but, in the account above, the Mughals, who doubtless knew best, styled them aliens and strangers, and did not by descent consider them, in any way, connected with themselves, who were “Turks.” “They devastated their country,” he says, “so that the Mughals might not obtain anything, and this enraged them so, that they surprised and ruined their chief city, Tarku, and took Terki [Mosdok of the present day], the chief city of the Cherkassians, who were in alliance with them, and also with the Kalimak Tartars”! According to that account, it was to these last—the Khifchak of my authorities—that the Mughals sent envoys claiming them as kinsmen, and that, by favour of the Kal-imaks, they crossed the Atil or Wolga, and entered Rus. P. de la Croix has here brought in events which happened when Juji Khan subsequently went into Khifchak, mentioned farther on, from a totally opposite direction, as the country of the Kal-imaks sufficiently indicates. The pro-Mughal writers narrate that, after the defeat of the Rus, as I have narrated above, Jabah [Yamah] and Swidae [Sahudah] set out to rejoin the Chingiz Khan, and, having done so, laid their spoils before him; and that they completed their expedition within the prescribed period of three years, in which case they must have rejoined him before the fourth month of 620 H. [= June 1223 A.D.].