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Haitho, of whom some account will be found in the succeeding chapter of this work. Of certain disputes between Rubruquis and the Saracens and Idolaters, at the Court of Mangu-khan, respecting Religion. Next day I was brought to the court, and some of the chief secretaries of the khan came to me, one of whom was a Moal, who is cup-bearer to the khan, and the rest were Saracens.
Forster asserts that Haitho met with Rubruquis, who was then on his return home; but we have already seen, in the account of the travels of Rubruquis, that the two travellers did not meet. In the year 1305, when he must have become very old, Haitho became a monk of the Praemonstratensian order at Episcopia in Cyprus.
So for as was travelled by Rubruquis, and in the route which he pursued on the north of the Alak mountains, this observation is quite correct to longitude 100° E. But what he here adds respecting Kathay, is directly contradictory to the fact; as all the rivers beyond Caracarum run in an easterly direction.
When Rubruquis and his companions reached Karakorum, they found that the great khan was not in his capital, but in one of his palaces which was situated on the further side of the mountains which rise in the northern part of the country.
These are but the subsidiaries; for as you may remember, my dear Kitty, that I have said before, we can never keep the system quite right unless we place just in the centre of the great ganglionic system, whence the nerves carry its influence gently and smoothly through the whole frame, The Saffron Bag!" Rubruquis, sect. xii.
With Carpini and Rubruquis closes the list of celebrated travellers of the thirteenth century, but we have the brilliant career of Marco Polo now before us, whose travels extended over part of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.
His journey into the east took place in the same year in which Rubruquis was on his return; and while at the court or leskar of Sartach, he was of material service to two of the attendants of Rubruquis, who had been left at that station; and who but for his interference must have perished by famine, or would have been reduced to slavery.
It is exceedingly difficult, or rather impossible, to trace the steps of the travels of Rubruquis, for want of latitudes, longitudes, and distances, and names of places.
These Polo brothers were the first Europeans that the Great Khan had ever seen; but before this time, Friar Plano Carpini, in 1246, and Friar William Rubruquis, in 1253, had penetrated into Mongolia on some errand not now distinctly understood, but far enough to learn that a great and civilized country existed somewhere in the eastern extremity of Asia.
This town, says Rubruquis, was surrounded with walls of earth, and had four gates in the walls. The principal buildings it contained were two mosques and a Christian church. While in this city, the monk made many interesting observations on the surrounding people, especially upon the Tangurs, whose oxen, of a remarkable race, are no other than the Yaks, so celebrated in Thibet.
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