So Frequent Were These
Missions, That, In The Beginning Of The Fourteenth Century, A Work Was
Composed Which Described The Various Routes To Grand Tartary.
What was at
first undertaken from policy and fear, was afterwards continued from
religious zeal, curiosity, a love of knowledge, and other motives.
So that,
to the devastations of Genghis Khan we may justly deem ourselves indebted
for the full and important information we possess respecting the remote
parts of Asia during the middle ages.
The accounts of India and China by the two Mahomedan travellers have been
already noticed: between the period of their journey, and the embassies and
missions to which we have just alluded, the only account of the East which
we possess is derived from the work of Benjamin, a Jew of Tudela in Spain.
It is doubted whether he visited all the places he describes: his object
was principally to describe those places where the Jews resided in great
numbers.
After describing Barcelona as a place of great trade, frequented by
merchants from Greece, Italy, and Alexandria, and a great resort of the
Jews, and giving a similar character of Montpelier and Genoa, he proceeds
to the East. The inhabitants of Constantinople being too lazy to carry on
commerce themselves, the whole trade of this city, which is represented as
surpassing all others, except Bagdad, in wealth, was conducted by foreign
merchants, who resorted to it from every part of the world by land and sea.
New Tyre was a place of considerable traffic, with a good harbour: glass
and sugar were its principal exports. The great depot for the produce and
manufactures of India, Persia, Arabia, &c., was an island in the Persian
Gulf. He mentions Samarcand as a place of considerable importance, and
Thibet as the country where the musk animal was found. But all beyond the
Persian Gulf he describes in such vague terms, that little information can
be gleaned. It is worthy of remark, that nearly all the Jews, whom he
represents as very numerous in Thebes, Constantinople, Samarcand, &c., were
dyers of wool: in Thebes alone, there were 2000 workers in scarlet and
purple. After the conquest of the northern part of China by Genghis Khan,
the city of Campion in Tangut seems to have been fixed upon by him as the
seat of a great inland trade. Linens, stuffs made of cotton, gold, silver,
silks, and porcelain, were brought hither by the Chinese merchants, and
bought by merchants from Muscovy, Persia, Armenia, &c.
In the years 1245, 1246, the pope sent ambassadors to the Tartar and Mogul
khans: of these Carpini has given us the most detailed account of his
embassy, and of the route which he followed. His journey occupied six
months: he first went through Bohemia, Silesia, and Poland, to Kiov, at
that time the capital of Russia. Thence he proceeded by the Dnieper to the
Black Sea, till he arrived at the head quarters of the Khan Batou. To him
we are indebted for the first information of the real names of the four
great rivers which water the south of Russia, the Dnieper, the Don, the
Volga, and the Jaik.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 259 of 524
Words from 134891 to 135420
of 273188
