Sometimes We Were Constrained To Eat
Our Meat Half Boiled, Or Even Almost Raw, For Want Of Fuel, Especially When
We were benighted and obliged to pass the night in the fields, because we
could not conveniently gather horse or
Cow-dung to make a fire, and we
seldom found any other fuel, except a few thorns here and there, and a few
rare woods on the banks of some rivers. Every Saturday I remained fasting
until night, and was then constrained, to my great grief, to eat flesh, as
I could not procure any other food in the desert. In the beginning of our
journey our guide disdained us exceedingly, and seemed quite indignant at
being obliged to take charge of such base fellows as he seemed to esteem
us; but he afterwards behaved better, and often took us purposely to the
courts of rich Moals, who requested us to pray for them; and if I had been
so fortunate as to have a good interpreter, I might have been able to do
some good among these ignorant people.
Zingis, the first great khan or emperor of the Tartars, left four sons,
from whom descended many grandsons, who are daily multiplying and
dispersing over that immense waste desert, which is boundless like the
ocean. These Moals whom we visited and prayed for, were astonished when we
refused their proffered gifts of gold and silver and fine garments. They
often enquired whether the great Pope was actually 500 years old, as they
had heard from report.
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