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. From that place, where we
arrived on the first Sunday of Lent, till I got to Cyprus, eight days
before the feast of St John the Baptist, I was forced to buy all our
provisions. He who was my guide procured horses for us, and took my money
for the victuals, which he put into his own pocket; for when in the fields,
he took a sheep from any flock he saw by the way, without leave or
ceremony. In the Feast of the Purification, 2d February, I was in a city
named Ayni, belonging to Sabensa, in a strong situation, having an hundred
Armenian churches, and two mosques, and in it a Tartar officer resides.

At this place I met five preaching friars, four of whom came from Provence,
and the fifth joined them in Syria. They had but one sickly boy who could
speak Turkish and a little French, and they had the Popes letters of
request to Sartach, Baatu, and Mangu-khan, that they might be suffered to
continue in the country to preach the word of God. But when I had told them
what I had seen, and how I was sent back, they directed their journey to
Tefflis, where there were friars of their order, to consult what they
should do. I said that they might pass into Tartary with these letters, but
they might lay their account with much labour, and would have to give an
account of the motives of their journey; for having no other object but
preaching, they w