From Naxuam We Travelled In Fifteen Days Into The Country Of The Soldan Of
Turkey, To A Castle Called Marseugen, Inhabited By Armenians, Curgians, And
Greeks, The Turks Only Having The Dominion.
From that place, where we
arrived on the first Sunday of Lent, till I got to Cyprus, eight days
before the feast of St John the Baptist, I was forced to buy all our
provisions.
He who was my guide procured horses for us, and took my money
for the victuals, which he put into his own pocket; for when in the fields,
he took a sheep from any flock he saw by the way, without leave or
ceremony. In the Feast of the Purification, 2d February, I was in a city
named Ayni, belonging to Sabensa, in a strong situation, having an hundred
Armenian churches, and two mosques, and in it a Tartar officer resides.
At this place I met five preaching friars, four of whom came from Provence,
and the fifth joined them in Syria. They had but one sickly boy who could
speak Turkish and a little French, and they had the Popes letters of
request to Sartach, Baatu, and Mangu-khan, that they might be suffered to
continue in the country to preach the word of God. But when I had told them
what I had seen, and how I was sent back, they directed their journey to
Tefflis, where there were friars of their order, to consult what they
should do. I said that they might pass into Tartary with these letters, but
they might lay their account with much labour, and would have to give an
account of the motives of their journey; for having no other object but
preaching, they would be little cared for particularly as they had no
ambassador. I never heard what they did afterwards.
On the second Sunday in Lent we came to the head of the Araxes, and passing
the mountains, we came to the Euphrates, by which we descended eight days
journey, going to the west, till we came to a castle named Camath or Kemac,
where the Euphrates trends to the south, towards Halapia, or Aleppo. We
here passed to the north-west side of the river, and went over very high
mountains, and through deep snow, to the west. There was so great an
earthquake that year in this country, that in one city called Arsingan, ten
thousand persons are said to have perished. During three days journey we
saw frequent gaps in the earth, which had been cleft by the convulsion, and
great heaps of earth which had tumbled down from the mountains into the
vallies. We passed through the valley where the soldan of the Turks was
vanquished by the Tartars, and a servant belonging to my guide, who was in
the Tartar army, said the Tartars did not exceed 10,000 men, whereas the
soldan had 200,000 horse. In that plain there broke out a great lake at the
time of the earthquake, and it came into my mind, that the earth opened her
mouth to receive yet more blood of the Saracens.
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