It Is Usually Identified With Selitrennoye Gorodok, About 70 Miles Above Astrakhan." (Rockhill, Rubruck, P. 260, Note.) - H. C.]

Several sites exhibiting extensive ruins near the banks of the Akhtuba have been identified with Sarai; two in particular.

One of these is not far from the great elbow of the Volga at Tzaritzyn: the other much lower down, at Selitrennoye Gorodok or Saltpetre-Town, not far above Astrakhan.

The upper site exhibits by far the most extensive traces of former population, and is declared unhesitatingly to be the sole site of Sarai by M. Gregorieff, who carried on excavations among the remains for four years, though with what precise results I have not been able to learn. The most dense part of the remains, consisting of mounds and earth-works, traces of walls, buildings, cisterns, dams, and innumerable canals, extends for about 7-1/2 miles in the vicinity of the town of Tzarev, but a tract of 66 miles in length and 300 miles in circuit, commencing from near the head of the Akhtuba, presents remains of like character, though of less density, marking the ground occupied by the villages which encircled the capital. About 2-1/2 miles to the N.W. of Tzarev a vast mass of such remains, surrounded by the traces of a brick rampart, points out the presumable position of the Imperial Palace.

M. Gregorieff appears to admit no alternative. Yet it seems certain that the indications of Abulfeda, Pegolotti, and others, with regard to the position of the capital in the early part of the 14th century, are not consistent with a site so far from the Caspian.

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