Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

I.

vantage, or from motives of mere curiofity. BOOK Benjamin, a Jew of Tudela, in the kingdom of Navarre, poffeffed with a fuperftitious veneration for the law of Mofes, and folicitous to vifit his countrymen in the east, whom he hoped to find in such a state of power and opulence as might redound to the honour of his fect, fet out from Spain in the year 1160, and travelling by land to Conftantinople, proceeded through the countries to the north of the Euxine and Cafpian feas, as far as Chinese Tartary. From thence he took his route towards the south, and after traverfing various provinces of the farther India, he em barked on the Indian ocean, vifited feveral of its islands, and returned at the end of thirteen years by the way of Egypt, to Europe, with much information concerning a large district of the globe, altogether unknown at that time to the western world", The zeal of the head of the Christian church co-operated with the fuperftition of Benjamin the Jew, in discovering the interior and remote provinces of Afia. Christendom having been alarmed with accounts of the rapid progress of the Tartar arms under Zengis Khan, Innocent IV. who entertained most exalted ideas concerning the plenitude of

↑ Bergeron Recueil des Voyages, &c, tom.i. p. 1.

All

his,

1246.

I.

BOOK his own power, and the fubmiffion due to his injunctions, fent father John de Plano Carpini, at the head of a miffion of Franciscan monks, and father Afcolino, at the head of another of Dominicans, to enjoin Kayuk Khan, the grandfon of Zengis, who was 'then at the head of the Tartar empire, to embrace the Christian faith, and to defift from defolating the earth by his arms. The haughty descendant of the greatest conqueror Afia had ever beheld, aftonifhed at this strange mandate from an Italian priest, whofe name and jurisdiction were alike unknown to him, received it with the contempt which it merited, though he difmiffed the mendicants who delivered it with impunity. But, as they had penetrated into the country by different routes, and followed for fome time the Tartar camps, which were always in motion, they had opportunity of vifiting a great part of Afia. Carpini, who proceeded by the way of Poland and Ruffia, travelled through its northern provinces as far as the extremities. of Thibet. Afcolinó, who feems to have landed fomewhere in Syria, advanced through its fouthern provinces, into the interior partsof Perfia °.

Q

Hakluyt, i. 21. Bergeron, tom. i.

Not

I.

1253

Nor long after, St. Louis of France contri- BOOK buted farther towards extending the knowledge which the Europeans had begun to acquire of those distant regions. Some defigning impostor, who took advantage of the flender acquaintance of Chriftendom with the state and character of the Afiatic nations, having informed him that a powerful Khan of the Tartars had embraced the Christian faith, the monarch listened to the tale with pious credulity, and instantly resolved to fend ambaffadors to this illuftrious convert, with a view of inciting him to attack their common enemy the Saracens in one quarter, while he fell upon them in another. As monks were the only perfons in that age who poffeffed fuch a degree of knowledge as qualified them for a fervice of this kind, he employed in it father Andrew, a Jacobine, who was followed by father William de Rubruquis, a Francifcan. With respect to the progrefs of the former, there is no memorial extant. The journal of the latter has been published. He was admitted into the presence of Mangu, the third Khan in fucceffion from Zengis, and made a circuit through the interior parts of Afia, more extenfive than that of any European who had hitherto explored them".

Hakl. i.71. Recueil des Voyages par Bergeron, tom. i.

To

[merged small][merged small][ocr errors]

To those travellers, whom religious zeal fent forth to vifit Afia, fucceeded others who ventured into remote countries, from the prospect of commercial advantage, or from motives of mere curiofity. The firft and moft eminent of thefe was Marco Polo, a Venetian of a noble family. Having engaged early in trade, according to the custom of his country, his aspiring mind wifhed for a fphere of activity more extenfive than was afforded to it by the established traffic carried on in thofe ports of Europe and Afia, which the Venetians frequented. This prompted him to travel into unknown countries, in expectation of opening a commercial intercourfe with them, more fuited to the fanguine ideas and hopes of a young adventurer.

As his father had already carried fome European commodities to the court of the great Khan of the Tartars, and had difpofed of them to advantage, he reforted thither. Under the protection of Kublay Khan, the most powerful of all the fucceffors of Zengis, he continued his mercantile peregrinations in Afia upwards of twenty-fix years; and, during that time, adyanced towards the eaft, far beyond the utmost boundaries to which any European traveller had ever proceeded. Inftead of following the course of Carpini and Rubruquis, along the vast unpeopled

3

[ocr errors]

peopled plains of Tartary, he paffed through BOOK the chief trading cities in the more cultivated parts of Afia, and penetrated to Cambalu, or Peking, the capital of the great kingdom of Cathay, or China, fubject at that time to the fucceffors of Zengis. He made more than one voyage, on the Indian ocean, he traded in many of the islands, from which Europe had long received fpiceries and other commodities, which it held in high estimation, though unacquainted with the particular countries to which it was indebted for thofe precious productions; and he obtained information concerning feveral countries, which he did not vifit in perfon, particularly the island Zipangri, probably the fame now known by the name of Japan. On his return, he astonished his contemporaries with his defcriptions of vaft regions, whose names had never been heard of in Europe, and with fuch pompous accounts of their fertility, their populoufness, thier opulence, the variety of their 'manufactures, and the extent of their trade, as rofe far above the conception of an uninformed age.

[ocr errors]

ABOUT half a century after Marco Polo, Sir John Mandeville, an Englishman, encouraged by

Viaggi di Marco Polo. Ramuf. ii. 2. Bergeron, tom. ii.

VOL. I.

E

his

1322.

« ZurückWeiter »