Page:Christianity in China, Tartary, and Thibet Volume I.djvu/191

179 THE DOMINICAN EMBASSY TO PERSIA. 179 have sunk immediately under the hardships and pri- vations attendant on such an expedition. He had for a successor in the see of Antivari, " Bro- ther Lawrence," of Portugal, who had also performed a mission to the Mongols. We have said that after the Council of Lyons, Innocent the Fourth sent off an embassy to Persia at the same time as the one to Tartary, and that while the Franciscans were making their way to the court of the Grand Khan, in Central Asia, the Brothers Anselm, Simon de St. Quentin, Alexander, and Alberic, monks of the order of St. Dominic, had received orders to proceed to Persia, to the nearest Tartar camp. This legation, pursuing its route along the southern shore of the Caspian Sea, arrived, in the month of August, 1247, at the post of the general Baidjou. The Mongol chief was encamped with his hordes at Chowarezem, near the castle of the Sitians, — a name probably eor- rupted, — but, according to Friar Anselm, situated fifty-nine days' journey from St. Jean d'Acre. The Dominicans, having expressed a desire to be admitted to Baidjou, in order to acquit themselves of their com- mission, that chief's officers demanded who they were. Friar Anselm, the chief person of the embassy, replied in the name of all, " I am the legate of the Pope, whom Christians regard as superior to all other men." At these words the Tartars burst forth indignantly, " Why do you talk with that pride, saying that your pope is above all other men ? Do you not know that our Khan is the Son of Heaven, and that Baidjou is his lieutenant ? Their names must be known through the whole world." N 2