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.
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