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.
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.
We remained in Sebasta, Siwas, or Sivas, a town of the Lesser Armenia, in
the Easter week, and on the succeeding Sunday we came to Caesaria of
Capadocia, now called Kaisarea. In about fifteen days, making short
journeys, we came to Konieh or Iconium. This delay arose in part from the
difficulty of procuring horses, but chiefly because the guide chose to
stop, often for three days together in one place, to negotiate his own
affairs; and though much dissatisfied, I durst not complain, as he might
have slain me and our servants, or sold us for slaves, and there was none
to hinder it.
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