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Updated: June 8, 2025
Here, for the first time, they heard of a kingdom on the east coast of Asia which was not yet conquered by the Mongols, and which was known by the name of Cathay. Fuller information was obtained by another friar, named WILLIAM RUYSBROEK, or Rubruquis, a Fleming, who also visited Karakorum as an ambassador from St.
The Scandinavians in the North, Iceland and Greenland Benjamin of Tudela visits Marseilles, Rome, Constantinople, the Archipelago, Palestine, Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Damascus, Baalbec, Nineveh, Baghdad, Babylon, Bassorah, Ispahan, Shiraz, Samarcand, Thibet, Malabar, Ceylon, the Red Sea, Egypt, Sicily, Italy, Germany, and France Carpini explores Turkestan Manners and customs of the Tartars Rubruquis and the Sea of Azov, the Volga, Karakorum, Astrakhan, and Derbend.
He soon returns to his retirement in his palace in the Karakorum Mountains. And he never will emerge thence!" solemnly said the Moonshee, adding in a whisper: "He may, by the grace of Buddha, be re-incarnated as the Dalai-Lama. He springs from the loins of kings. I dare not break in upon his awful silence."
Your thumb will represent the Himalayas, the forefinger the Trans-Himalaya, the middle finger the Karakorum, the third finger the Arka-tagh, and the little finger the Kuen-lun. The highest mountain ranges of the world are under your fingers; and also, as the longest finger is the middle of the five, so the Karakorum is the central range of Tibetan mountains.
For a time the central point of the Tartar conquests was the city or camping-ground of Karakorum in Central Asia. After a few generations their empire was broken in pieces. The "Golden Horde," which they had planted in Russia, on the east of the Volga, remained there for two centuries. Bagdad was held by the Mongols until 1400, when it was conquered, and kept for a short time, by Tamerlane.
All you know of the following: Machacha, Pilmo, Schebulos, Crivoscia, Basces, Mancikert, Taxhem, Citeaux, Meloria, Zutphen. The highest peaks of the Karakorum range. The number of universities in Prussia. Name the length and breadth of the streams of lava which issued from the Skaptar Jokul in the eruption of 1783. That list would oversize nearly anybody's geographical knowledge.
While at Karakorum, Rubruquis collected many interesting documents relating to the Chinese, their customs, literature, &c.; then leaving the capital of the Mongols, he returned by the same route as he had come, as far as Astrakhan; but there he branched to the south and went to Syria with a Turkish escort, which was rendered necessary by the presence of tribes bent on pillage.
For three years he was himself governor of the great city of Yangchow, which had twenty-four towns under its jurisdiction, and was full of traders and makers of arms and military accoutrements. He visited Karakorum in Mongolia, the old Tartar capital, and with his Uncle Maffeo spent three years in Tangut.
Rubruquis did his work well, and, while failing to find Prester John or to convert any of the Tartars, he penetrated to the very centre of the Mongol empire, visited Karakorum, the capital of the Great Khans, and brought back much valuable information, giving a clear, accurate, and intelligent account of the lands he had seen and the people he had met, with such news of distant China as he could obtain without actually crossing the Great Wall.
A halt for Sunday in an apricot grove in the pleasant village of Sati refreshed us all for the long marches which followed, by which we crossed the Sasir Pass, full of difficulties from snow and glaciers, which extend for many miles, to the Dipsang Plain, the bleakest and dreariest of Central Asian wastes, from which the gentle ascent of the Karakorum Pass rises, and returned, varying our route slightly, to the pleasant villages of the Nubra valley.
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