written, and of which
language they are entirely ignorant, and sing their service as our monks do
who have not learnt Latin. They are great usurers and drunkards, and some
of them who live among the Tartars, have adopted their customs, and even
have many wives. When they enter the churches, they wash their lower parts
like the Saracens, eat no flesh on Fridays, and hold their festivals on the
same days with them. Their bishops come seldom into the country, perhaps
only once in fifty years, and then cause all the little children to be made
priests, some even in the cradle; so that almost every Nestorian man is a
priest, yet all have wives, which is contrary to the decrees of the
fathers. They are even bigamists, for their priests, when their wives die,
marry again. They are all Simonists, as they give no holy thing without
pay. They are careful of their wives and children, applying themselves to
gain, and not to propagating the faith. Hence, though some of them are
employed to educate the children of the Mongal nobility, and even teach
them the articles of the Christian faith, yet by their evil lives they
drive them from Christianity, as the moral conduct of the Mongals and
Tuinians[5], who are downright idolaters, is far more upright than theirs.

[1] Forster conjectures that the original words of Rubruquis are here
corrupted, and that this passage ought to have been "beyond Tangut,"
instead of beyond Tebet or Thibet; in which case, the countries of
Langa and Solanga, may refer to that of the Lamuts and Solonians, the
ancestors of the Mantschus or Mundschurians.--Voy. and Disc. 108.

[2] In this supposition Rubruquis was certainly mistaken, as the Seres of
the ancients appear to have lived in Turkestan, Gete, and Uigur, and
to have then ruled over a great track of eastern central Asia, and may
have extended their commerce to northern China. Hence the original
name of silk was certainly either adopted from or applied to the
intermediate nation, through whom that precious commodity was
transmitted to the western nations.--Forst.

[3] A jascot is described as a piece of silver weighing ten marks, so that
the tribute is 15,000 marks daily, or about 5 1/2 millions of marks
yearly, and is equal in weight of silver, to L. 8,650,000 Sterling;
perhaps equal, in real efficacious value, to ten times that sum, and
probably superior to the yearly revenue of all the sovereigns