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He followed a more southerly route than Carpini, skirting the northern shores of the Black Sea, the Caspian, and the Sea of Aral, and then passing northward to Karakorum. Returning he crossed the Caucasus and passed through Persia and the lands of the Turks, finally reaching the Mediterranean through Syria.
Linens, stuffs made of cotton, gold, silver, silks, and porcelain, were brought hither by the Chinese merchants, and bought by merchants from Muscovy, Persia, Armenia, &c. In the years 1245, 1246, the pope sent ambassadors to the Tartar and Mogul khans: of these Carpini has given us the most detailed account of his embassy, and of the route which he followed.
The Latin of Vincentius Beluacensis appears to have been translated from the French original of Carpini, from the following circumstance: What is here translated their other baggage is, in the Latin, alias res duriores; almost with certainty mistakenly rendered from the French leurs autres hardes. How the Tartars ought to be resisted.
Carpini gives the following account of the interview: "When we arrived we saw a large assembly of dukes and princes who had come from all parts with their attendants, who were on horseback in the neighbouring fields and on the hills.
From this second narrative it appears, that Vincentius had received an account of the journey of the second mission from Simon de St Quintin, a minorite friar belonging to the party; and that he had worked up along with this, the whole of the narrative which had been separately published by Carpini of his journey; which indeed forms by far the larger and more interesting portion of the work published by Vincentius.
They crossed the country of the Bashkirs and visited Kenchat, Talach, passed the Axiartes and reached Equius, a town of which the position cannot be accurately ascertained in the present day; then by the land of Organum, by the Lake of Balkash, and the territory of the Uigurs, they arrived at Karakorum, the capital of the Mongolian empire, where Carpini had stopped without entering the town.
The Travels of John de Plano Carpini and other Friars, sent about the year 1246, as ambassadors from Pope Innocent IV, to the great Khan of the Moguls or Tartars. In the collection of early Voyages, Travels, and Discoveries, by Hakluyt, published originally in 1599, and reprinted at London in 1809 with additions, there are two separate relations of these travels.
After passing by the end of the Sea of Azov they went in an easterly direction and crossed a sandy desert on which neither tree nor stone was visible. This was the country of the Comans that Carpini had traversed, but in a more northerly part.
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.
The prince was seated on his throne in the midst of his courtiers and officers in a magnificent tent made of fine linen. He had the reputation of being a just and kind ruler of his people, but very cruel in war. Carpini and Stephen were placed on the left of the throne, and the papal letters, translated into a language composed of Tartar and Arabic, were presented to the prince.
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