This Present Summer, That
Nation Which Is Called Tartars, Leaving Hungary, Which They Had Surprised
By Treason, Laid Siege, With Many Thousand Soldiers, To The Town Of
Newstadt, In Which I Then Dwelt, In Which There Were Not Above Fifty Men At
Arms, And Twenty Cross-Bow-Men, Left In Garrison.
All these observing from
certain high places the vast army of the enemy, and abhorring the beastly
cruelty of
The accomplices of Antichrist, signified to the governor the
hideous lamentations of his Christian subjects, who, in all the adjoining
provinces, were surprised and cruelly destroyed, without any respect of
rank, fortune, age, or sex. The Tartarian chieftains, and their brutishly
savage followers, glutted themselves with the carcasses of the inhabitants,
leaving nothing for the vultures but the bare bones; and strange to tell,
the greedy and ravenous vultures disclaimed to prey on the remains left by
the Tartars. Old and deformed women they gave for daily sustenance to their
cannibals: The young and beautiful they devoured hot, but smothered them
shrieking and lamenting under their forced and unnatural ravishments; and
cutting off the breasts of tender virgins to present as dainties to their
leaders, they fed themselves upon their bodies.
Their spies having descried from the top of a high mountain the Duke of
Austria, the King of Bohemia, the Patriarch of Aquileia, the Duke of
Carindiia, and as some say, the Earl of Baden, approaching with a mighty
power towards them, the accursed crew immediately retired into the
distressed and vanquished land of Hungary, departing as suddenly as they
had invaded, and astonishing all men by the celerity of their motions. The
prince of Dalmatia took eight of the fugitives, one of whom was recognized,
by the Duke of Austria as an Englishman, who had been perpetually banished
from England for certain crimes. This man had been sent twice as a
messenger and interpreter from the most tyrannical king of the Tartars to
the king of Hungary, menacing and fortelling those mischiefs which
afterwards happened, unless he would submit himself and his kingdom to the
yoke of the Tartars. Being urged by our princes to confess, the truth, this
man made such oaths and protestations, as I think might have served to make
even the devil be trusted.
He reported of himself, that presently after his banishment, being then
about thirty years of age, and having lost all he possessed at dice in the
city of Acon[2] he set off from thence, in the middle of winter, wearing
nothing but a shirt of sacking, a pair of shoes, and a hairy cap; and,
being shaven like a fool, he uttered an uncouth noise, as if he had been
dumb, and wandered about through many countries in search of food. At
length, through fatigue, and change of air and diet, he fell grievously
sick in Chaldea, insomuch that he was weary of his life. Being compelled to
remain there a long time to recover his strength, and having some learning,
he began to write down the words he heard spoken, and in a short time made
himself so much master of the language, as to be reputed a native; and in
this manner he attained expertness in many languages.
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