}

been comprised in the great empire of the Mongols. There are but a few principal points in the geography of central Asia in which the authentic information of the present day coincides exactly with the statements of the Venetian traveller. The unfortunate circumstances which prevented his publishing a more methodical account of his travels have cast a shade over his fame, and have deprived the scientific world of a part of the labours of this great man.

The kind treatment which the first catholic missionaries in China experienced from the Mongol emperors may possibly have been, in some measure, due to the respect entertained for the memory of Marco Polo, who had left that country but a very short time before the missionaries arrived in it. The humble labours of these pious men exhibit, occasionally, a degree of patience and persevering industry which are quite as astonishing as the brilliant success and activity of Marco Polo. The missionary who first reached Cambalu or Pekin was, perhaps, the most remarkable of the whole series.

John de Montecorvino, a Minorite friar, was despatched by pope Nicholas IV., in 1288, to preach the faith in the East. He first visited the Persian court bearing a letter to king Argun from the sovereign pontiff. He then went to India, where he remained thirteen months in company with a merchant named Leucolongo, and one Nicolas de Pistoia, a monk of the order of preachers: this last died there, and was buried in one of the churches of St. Thomas.

In India Montecorvino baptized about a hundred persons; then continuing his journey to the East, with his companion, the merchant Leucolongo, he came to Cathay, that is to say, to northern China, and delivered to the sovereign of the Tatars the letters of the pope inviting him to embrace Christianity. But that prince paid no attention to the disinterested counsel of the pontiff, although at the same time he manifested indulgence, or even partiality, to Christians, and particularly to the Nestorians, who had multiplied exceedingly in his

reign, and who persecuted with the utmost rancour every Christian sect that differed from their own. The Italian friar suffered much from their opposition, and on several occasions very narrowly escaped being made the victim of their animosity. Eleven years he carried on alone this unequal struggle: at the end of that time he was joined by one Arnold, a Franciscan from Cologne.

Montecorvino had spent six years in building a church in the city of Cambalu. He had succeeded in erecting a steeple or belfry, furnished with three bells, which were rung every hour to summon the Neophytes to prayer. He had baptized about six thousand persons, and might have converted thirty thousand if he had not been so much thwarted by the Nestorians. He had, moreover, purchased a hundred and fifty children under eleven years of age, and who were still without religion; instructed them in the Christian faith; taught them Greek and Latin; and composed for their use books of prayers, hymns, and other religious effusions.*

Montecorvino expected to derive still greater advantages from having converted a Mongol prince of the tribe of Keraïtes, whom he called George, and to whom the relations of the middle age sometimes apply the name of Prester John. A great number of the vassals of this prince, hitherto attached to Nestorianism, followed his example. They embraced the catholic faith, and remained steadily attached to it till the death of George, which took place in 1299; but on this event they yielded to the seductions of their countrymen who had adhered to the Nestorian sect; and Montecorvino obliged to remain near the grand khan, was unable to make any effectual effort to prevent their defection.

A grand source of affliction to our indefatigable monk was the want of assistance in his apostolic labours, and his not having received for twelve years any authentic intelligence respecting the court of Rome; concerning which an Italian surgeon, who arrived in Tatary about

Abel Remusat. Nouv. Mel, ii. 193.

1303, had spread abroad the most singular rumours. In consequence of this desertion John wrote a letter in 1305, dated from Khan-balikh, and addressed to the religious of his order, in which he entreated them to send him, among other assistance, choir books, psalters, and legends of the saints.

In this letter, John de Montecorvino says that he had made himself complete master of the Tatar language, meaning the Mongol; that he had translated into that tongue the Psalms and the New Testament; he had caused them to be carefully transcribed in the proper character of that language; he read, wrote, and preached in the Mongol tongue; and if king George had lived a little longer, a complete translation of the Latin office would have been diffused through all the dominions of the Grand Khan.

In another letter, written the following year, John mentions the kindness with which he was treated by the Grand Khan; the honours done to him as the envoy of the pope; and of a new instance of imperial favour, in the permission he received to build a second church, not a stone's throw from the palace, and so near even to the chamber of the khan, that that prince could distinctly hear the voices of those who celebrated the service. Doubts might be raised with respect to the veracity of these assertions, if the Chinese historians did not all agree as to the favourable reception given by the Mongol emperors to priests of every persuasion; their courts being filled at all times with shamanists from India and lamas from Thibet; with whom the Nestorian Christians, and, perhaps, even the catholics themselves, appear to have been frequently confounded. Even his account of the conversion of the Keraïte prince might be considered as a fiction calculated to enhance the merit of his services; but it is perfectly in accordance with the relations of Oriental writers, who state, in fact, that there were many Christians among the Keraïtes, and

* Wadding. Annal. Script. Min. vi. p. 69.

name several princesses of that nation who openly professed the Christian religion.

At the end of some years, John at length received the reward of his long services. In 1314 pope Clement V. erected in his favour the archiepiscopal see of Khan-balikh, or Pekin, and sent to his assistance Andrew of Perugia and some others, whom he created bishops and the suffragans of Khan-balikh. Great prerogatives were

accorded to that see, as well on account of the great influence it might have in extending the Christian religion through the remotest countries of the East, as from the great merit of the person who was first installed in the dignity. John received, for himself and his successors, the right to create bishoprics, to govern all the churches of Tatary, under the single condition of acknowledging the spiritual supremacy of the popes, and to receive from them the pallium, or archiepiscopal vestment.

The pontifical decree which contains these regulations incloses also a recommendation to the new archbishop to have the mysteries of the Old and New Testament painted in all his churches, so as to captivate the eyes of the barbarians, and thus lead them to the worship of the true God. This was said in allusion to a passage of one of John's letters, in which he mentioned his having caused the stories of the Scriptures to be painted for the instruction of the simple, with explanations written beneath them in Latin, Tarsic, and Persian letters, so that all the world might read them. By Tarsic characters he means those of the Uigur, whose country was at that time frequently called Tarse, from a Tatar word signifying infidel, and which appears to have been successively applied in Tatary to the followers of Zoroaster and to the Nestorian Christians.

John de Montecorvino died about 1330, and was succeeded in the archbishopric of Khan-balikh by a Franciscan named Nicholas. But from accident or other causes, the sees of Clement V. were soon entirely forgotten.

CHAP. VII.

ODERIC OF PORTENAU.

ITINERARY OF PEGOLETTI.-CARAVAN JOURNEYS.-GINTARCHAN.

-SARA.SARACANCO.-ORGANCI.-OLTRARRA.-ARMALECCO.

CAMEXU. GAMALECCO.-ODERIC OF PORTENAU.-TREBIZOND. -MOUNT ARARAT.-TOWER OF BABEL.-CHALDEANS.

MAR

TYRDOM OF FOUR FRIAKS.-ODERIC COLLECTS THEIR BONES. — WORKS MIRACLES. FOREST PEPPER.FAIR OF JAG

OF

GERNAUT.-VOLUNTARY TORTURES.-CANNIBALS IN LAMOURI. -WEALTH OF JAVA. SAGO TREES. AMULETS FOUND IN CANES. SHOALS OF FISH.-CHARACTERISTICS OF THE CHINESE. MODE OF FISHING IN CHINA. FEASTS OF THE

IDOLS. VALLEY OF THE DEAD. THE GRAND LAMA.- SIR JOHN MANDEVILLE.

HIS TRAVELS

FABULOUS. RIVERS OF ROCKS.-ISLANDS OF GIANTS.-LAMBS OF TATARY.-GROWTH OF DIAMONDS. PALACE OF PRESTER JOHN.

POLICY, commerce, and religion, those three great incentives to all bold enterprises,continued during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries to direct the eyes of Europeans towards the centre of Asia. The victories of Tamerlane, who checked for a moment the formidable progress of the Ottoman Turks, fixed the attention and the hopes of the Christian world. The caravan routes over Asia appear to have been much more frequented in those ages than is commonly supposed. The new channels of commerce through Egypt, and afterwards by the Cape of Good Hope, caused those routes to be gradually abandoned, and at last to be almost forgotten. A brief account of the course usually pursued by the merchants is preserved to us in the Itinerary of Francisco Balducci Pegoletti, an Italian merchant who travelled in Asia in 1335. The only portion of his work which has a direct connection with the history of geography is the chapter entitled "A Guide for the Route from Tana to Cathay with Merchandise, and back again."

"In the first place," says Pegoletti, " from Tana or Asoph, to Gintarchan or Astracan, is five-and-twenty days'