Asiatic Quarterly Review (Full Title: The Imperial and Asiatic Quarterly Review, and Oriental and Colonial Record): Volume XIII, No. 26 [‎510v] (145/238)

358 China, the Avars, and the Franks.
Wisigoths d’Espagne, auxquels il donna un Roi ; dans
celles des Lombards d’ltalie, etc., etc. . . . Enfin ce fut
sur la terre des Francs que les Bulgares fugitifs vinrent
chercher un asile. ... La France romaine fut vaincue
par la France teutoniqued
The only national designation to be then found in
Europe, except that of “ Roman, was thus Frank.
The Emperors Maurice, Phocas, Constantine III., and
Constans were all murdered, and Patriarchs for the Latin
Church had only just been established in the Eastern
Empire, which circumstance soon led to a schism. We have
it on historical record that the Nestorian Olopen came from
Ta-ts‘in; that the same Olopen is confused with a Persian ;
that Ta-ts‘in was the later Fuh-lin ; and that a King (appa
rently “ Patriarch ”) of Fuh-lin sent a mission a few years
after Olopen came to China. We have Ytieh-pan totally
disappearing from China; and Avars, a century later,
suddenly appearing face to face with Franks in Europe.
If this is not sound circumstantial evidence, what is ?
I have endeavoured to obtain confirmatory evidence
from Arabic scholars in England, but as these efforts have
not been very successful, I have during the past two years
caused careful inquiry to be made by a relative now resident
in Egypt. At last a learned Syrian has been discovered by
him at Assouan, and this Syrian gentleman, of whom I
know no more than that his name is Shakoor Bey, has
replied in writing, categorically, to a number of my questions
placed before him, without in the least knowing for what
purpose these questions were put, or who put them. This
is the sum of his replies : “ The Caliph Omar (632-644) in
his conquests spoke of Europeans as ‘ A 1 Room,’ which
term includes ‘ Afrangh.’ In narrating his exploits the Arab
writers style Europeans ‘ Afrangh.’ The General Kotaiba,
in his Turkestan conquests and fights with the Turks sixty
years later, speaks of Europeans as ‘ Roum ’ or ‘ Afrangh ’;
of Turks as ‘Tourk;’ of Chinese as ‘Sineeyien’; of Persians
as ‘Firs;’ of Greeks as ‘Roum.’ In modern Egypt the vulgar