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Updated: May 9, 2025
Rubruquis left the mountains inhabited by the Circassians to the south, and after a wearisome journey of two months arrived at the camp of Prince Sartach on the banks of the Volga.
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.
Arz-roum on the Frat or Euphrates, perhaps a corruption of Arx- romanorum; as the Turks give the name of Roum to a part of Lesser Asia; and all the eastern nations call the Constantinopolitan empire Roum to this day. Turkey, in these travels of Rubruquis, is always, to be understood as referring to the Turkish dominion in Asia Minor, of which Konieh or Iconium was the capital.
In this supposition Rubruquis was certainly mistaken, as the Seres of the ancients appear to have lived in Turkestan, Gete, and Uigur, and to have then ruled over a great track of eastern central Asia, and may have extended their commerce to northern China.
Louis, anxious to prove the truth of it, charged Rubruquis to go into the prince's own country and there make what observations he could upon the subject. In the month of June 1253, Rubruquis and his companions embarked for Constantinople. From thence they reached the mouth of the river Don on the Sea of Azov where they found a great number of Goths.
In the winter little snow fell there; but about Easter, which was that year in the latter end of April, there fell so great a snow, that the streets of Caracarum were so full, it had to be carried out in carts. The country on the Onon and Kerlon, in Daouria, or the land of the Tunguses. Forst. The Introduction of Rubruquis to Mangu-khan.
In Section XIX. of this journey, Wasilico, or Wasiley, is mentioned as duke of Russia; but who must only have been duke of some subordinate province. This submission of Russia, or of his particular dukedom, produced no fruit to the Romish see, as the Russian empire still remains what are called Greek schismatics. Travels of William de Rubruquis into Tartary, about the year 1253.
See, with Herodotus, young Greece spring up into life, or note with him how already the wondrous old Orient world is crumbling into giant decay; or go with Carpini and Rubruquis to Tartary, meet 'the carts of Zagathai laden with houses, and think that a great city is travelling towards you. 'Gaze on that vast wild empire of the Tartar, where the descendants of Jenghis 'multiply and disperse over the immense waste desert, which is as boundless as the ocean. Sail with the early Northern discoverers, and penetrate to the heart of winter, among sea- serpents and bears and tusked morses with the faces of men.
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.
From the authority of Rubruquis misunderstood, some ancient map makers have inserted the Castella Judeorum instead of Gothorum in the Crimea, and even Danville placed them in his maps under the name of Chateaux des Juifs, castles of the Jews. Forst. Of the Tartars and their Houses. They have no permanent city, and they are ignorant of the future.
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