or Ascas, a country in Asia, tributary to the Turks, situated on the coast of the Black Sea. The people are poor, thievish, and treacherous, inasmuch that there is no trading with them without the utmost caution. Their commodities are furs, buck and tyger skins, linen yarn, boxwood, and bees-wax: but their greatest traffic is in selling their own children, and even one another, to the Turks; inasmuch that they live in perpetual distress. They are destitute of many necessaries of life, and have nothing among them that can be called a town; though we find Anacopia, Dandar, and Czekorni, mentioned in the maps. They have the name of Christians; but have nothing left but the name, any more than the Mingrelians their northern neighbours. The men are robust and active, and the women are fair and beautiful; on which account the Turks have a great value for the female slaves which they purchase from among them. Their customs are much the same as those of the Mingrelians; which see E. Long, from 39 to 43. Lat. from 43 to 45.