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Updated: May 8, 2025
The great central plain of Tangut, then traversed by the imperial horde of the Mongals, and now by the Eluts and Kalkas, must be prodigiously elevated above the level of the ocean. The information here seems corrupted, or at least is quite incorrect. Kathay or northern China is due east, or east south-east from the great plain to the south of Karakum.
But as they remained some time at the residence of Kublai-khan, one year may be allowed for that circumstance; and this first journey may therefore be allowed to have occupied nine years in all. Kublai-khan reigned supreme emperor of the Mongals from 1259 to 1294, in which last year he died at eighty years of age.
They have also lives of the fathers, and houses in which they pray at stated times, built like churches; they are even said to have saints, to worship one God, to venerate the Lord Jesus Christ, and to believe eternal life; but they are not baptised . They have no beards, and they partly resemble the Mongals in their features.
The soothsayers are the priests of the Mongals, and whatever they command to be done is performed without delay. I shall describe their office, as I learnt it from the goldsmith and others.
The object of this mission or embassy seems to have been as follows: A prodigious alarm was excited in Europe, by the victorious and destructive progress of the Mongals or Tartars; who, under the command of Tuschi-khan, and of Batu-khan, the son of Tuschi, advancing through Kipzhak, Russia, Poland, and Hungary, all of which they had most horribly ravaged and laid waste, had penetrated even into Silesia; while by the eastern side or the Caspian, penetrating through Transoxiana and Persia, under the command of Zagatai-khan, likewise a son of Zingus, and Holagu-khan, a nephew of Zagatai, they had made their appearance on the banks of the Euphrates and Tigris.
The largest town of Kumania is Sara or Saray, which was large and of great renown, but has been ravaged, and almost entirely destroyed by the Tartars, who took it by storm. It is obvious, that Haitho here describes that part of the empire of the Mongals which was subject to Baatu-khan. The Euxine or Black Sea, he calls the Great Sea.
Wherefore, having heard of the fame of, the Mongals, I desired to come to them; and hearing that Sartach had become a Christian, I directed my journey to him, and my sovereign the king of the French sent him letters containing good words of friendship, testifying what men we were, and requesting we might be permitted to remain with the people of Moal That Sartach had sent us to Baatu, and he had ordered us to Mangu-khan, whom we had entreated and still do entreat to suffer us to stay."
The strangely ill-told story of the copper images, by which the Mongals were scorched with wild-fire, may refer to the actual employment either of cannon or rockets against the Mongals in this invasion. Of Monstrous Men like Dogs, and of the Conquest of Burithabeth.
He afterwards went to Poitou in France, where he dictated in French to Nicholas Salconi, a history of the events which had occurred in the east from the first commencement of the conquests of the Tartars or Mongals, including the reigns of Zingis-khan and his successors, to Mangu-khan inclusively; and a particular narrative of the history of his own country, Armenia Minor, from the reign of Haitho I. to that of Leon II. both inclusive.
The whole of that country, together with the country between the Wolga and Ural rivers, often bore the name of Kumania. But the destructive conquests of the Mongals, has in all ages broken down the nations of those parts into fragments, and has induced such rapid and frequent changes as to baffle all attempts at any fixed topography, except of lakes, rivers, and mountains.
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