There Is Another Tartar
Governor Of Persia At Tauris, Named Argon, Who Presides Over The Tribute.
But Mangu-Khan Has Recalled Both Of These Generals To Make Way For One Of
His Brothers, As I Formerly Mentioned, Who Is To Have The Command In
Persia.
I was in the house of Bacchu, who gave me wine, while he drank
cosmos; and, although it was the best new wine, I would rather have had
cosmos, if he had offered it, being more restorative for such a half
starved wretch as I then was.
We ascended the Araxes to its head, and
beyond the mountains, where it rises, is the good city of Arsorum [10],
which belongs to the Soldan of Turkey [11]. When we departed from Bacchu,
my guide went to Tauris to speak with Argon, and took my interpreter with
him; but Bacchu caused me to be carried to Naxuam [12], formerly the
capital of a great kingdom, and the greatest and fairest city in those
parts, but the Tartars have now made it a wilderness. There were formerly
eight hundred churches [13] of the Armenians here, which are now reduced to
two very small ones, in one of which I held my Christmas as well as I
could, with our clerk Gosset. Next day the priest of this church died, and
a bishop with twelve monks came from the mountains to his funeral, for all
the bishops of the Armenians are monks, and likewise most of those
belonging to the Greeks [14].
In the city of Naxuam I met a Catalan friar, of the order of Predicants,
named Barnard, who lives with a friar of the Holy Sepulchre, resident in
Georgia, and possessing extensive lands there. We were detained in Naxuam
by the snow, till the 6th January 1255, and came in four days to the
country of Sabensa, a Curdish prince, heretofore powerful, but now
tributary to the Tartars, who destroyed all his warlike stores. Zacharias,
the father of Sabensa, possessed himself of all the country of the
Armenians, from whence he drove out the Saracens. In this country there are
many fine villages of true Christians, having churches like those of
Europe; and every Armenian has in his house, in an honourable place, a
wooden hand holding a cross, before which a lamp continually burns; and
that which we do by holy water, they do with frankincense, which they burn
every evening through every corner of the house, to drive away evil
spirits. I eat with Sabensa, and both he and his wife did me great
reverence. His son Zachary, a wise and comely young man, asked me if your
majesty would, entertain him; for though he has plenty of all things, he is
so uneasy under the Tartar dominion, that he would rather retire to a
strange country, than endure their violent exactions. These people say they
are true sons of the church, and if the Pope would send them aid, they
would bring all the neighbouring nations under subjection to the church of
Rome.
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