The Lives of Celebrated Travellers (Volume 1) (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: who could not even converse with him upon the most ordinary topic, seemed difficult, Rubruquis took his leave of the Mongol court, and leaving his companion at Karakorum, turned his face towards the west. Returning by an easier or more direct route, he reached the camp of Batou in two months. From thence he proceeded to the city of Sarai on the Volga, and descending along the course of that river, entered Dan- ghistan, crossed the Caucasus, and pursued his journey through Georgia, Armenia, and Asia Minor, to Syria. Here he discovered that, taught by misfortune or yielding to the force of circumstances, the French king had relinquished, at least for the present, his mad project of recovering Palestine. He was therefore desirous of proceeding to Europe, for the purpose of rendering this prince an account of his mission; but this being contrary to the wishes of his superiors, who had assigned him the convent of Acra for his retreat, he contented himself with drawing up an account of his travels, which was forwarded, by the first opportunity that occurred, to St. Louis in France. Rubruquis then retired to his convent, in the gloom of whose cloisters he thenceforward concealed himself from the eyes of mankind. It has been ascertained, however, that he was still living in 1293, though the exact date of his death is unknown. The work of Rubruquis was originally written in Latin, from which language a portion of it was translated into English and published by Hackluyt. Shortly afterwards Purches published a new version of, the whole work in his collection. From this version Bergeron made his translation into French, with the aid of a Latin manuscript, which Vander Aa, and the " Biographic Universelle" have multiplied into two. In all, or any of these forms, the work may still be read ...