Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 5.djvu/642

628 be slain, He also sent into the West his faithful and blessed servants, and, to enlighten, instruct, and build up in the faith.&rdquo; Whatever on the whole may be thought of the world's debt to , it is to the two , but especially to the , that we owe a vast amount of information about  , and, among other things, the first mention of Cathay. Among the many strangers who reached were (–) John de Piano Carpini (see ) and  William of Rubruk (Rubruquis) in, both  s of high intelligence, who happily have left behind them reports of their observations. Carpini, after mentioning the s of against the ', goes on to speak of that people as follows:—&ldquo;Now these ' are men, and have a  of their own. . .. They seem, indeed, to be kindly and polished folks enough. They have no, and in character of countenance have a considerable resemblance to the &rdquo; [are, as our would say], &ldquo;but are not so broad in the face. They have a peculiar. Their betters as craftsmen in every practised by  are not to be found in the whole world. Their country is very rich in, in , in and , in , and in every kind of produce tending to the support of .&rdquo; The notice of Rubruk, shrewder and more graphic, runs thus:—&rdquo;Further on is Great Cathay, which I take to be the country which was anciently called the Land of the Seres. For the best s are still got from them. . .. The lies between it and. Those Cathayans are little fellows, speaking much through the, and, as is general with all those Eastern people, their s are very narrow. They are first-rate in every kind, and their s have a  of the virtues of, and an admirable skill in  by the. . .. The common of Cathay consists of pieces of -, about a palm in length and breadth, upon which certain lines are, resembling the  of. They do their with a, such as   with, and a single  of theirs comprehends several s, so as to form a whole .&quot; Here we have not only what is probably the first an notice of , but a partial recognition of the peculiarity of , and a perception that puts to shame the perverse boggling of later critics over the identity of these Cathayans with the Seres of classic fame. But though these travellers saw Cathayans in the s of the Great ’s s, the first actual visitors of Cathay itself were the (see ), and it is to the book of Marco’s recollections mainly that Cathay owed the growing familiarity of its name in during the  and. It is, however, a great mistake to suppose, as has often been assumed, that the residence of the in that country remained an isolated fact. They were but the pioneers of a very considerable intercourse, which endured till the decay of the in Cathay, i.e., for about half a century. We have no evidence that either in the or Cathayans, i.e.,, ever reached, but it is possible that some did, at least, in the. For, during the campaigns of in  (–), and the reigns of his successors,   were employed on the  of the, and   and s could be consulted at. Many passed between the   and the s of. The former, as the great 's, still received from him their s of ; and two of their which survive in the s of  exhibit the  impressions of those s in, perhaps affording the earliest specimen of  which reached. Just as the were reaching, after an absence of quarter of a century, the forerunner of a new series of travellers was entering Southern China by way of the. This was of, another  who, already some fifty  of age, was plunging single-handed into that great ocean of  to  the  according to his lights. After years of uphill and solitary toil converts began to multiply; coadjutors joined him. The became cognizant of the harvest that was being reaped in the. It made  in  (or ), with al authority, and sent him batches of  s and s of. The spread; es and   were established at, at  or  in , at , and elsewhere; and the  flourished under the smile of the Great , as the   did for a time under the  three centuries and a half later. was followed to the, about , by mourning multitudes of and  alike. Several of the s and s who served under him have left or other  of their experience, e.g., Andrew,  of, John of , afterwards  of  in , and Odoric of , whose fame as a pious traveller won from the vox populi at his  a  which the  was fain to seal. The only narrative regarding Cathay, of which we are aware, subsequent to the time of, is that which has been gathered from the recollections of John de Marignolli, a  , who was sent by   with a mission to the Great , in return for one from that potentate which arrived at  from Cathay in , and who spent four  (–) at the  of  as  of the. These recollections are found in a singular position, dispersed incoherently over a chronicle of Bohemia which the traveller wrote by order of the, whose  he was after his return. But intercourse during the period in question was not confined to channels. also grew up, and flourished for a time even along the vast line that stretches from and  to the  of  and. The record is very fragmentary and imperfect, but many circumstances and incidental notices show how frequently the was reached by an rs in the ,—a state of things which it is very difficult to realize when we see how all those regions, when reopened to knowledge two centuries later, seemed to be discoveries as new as the  which, about the same time,  and  were conquering in the. This, probably commenced about –. Monte Corvino, writing in, says it was twelve since he had heard any news from ; the only  stranger who had arrived in all that time being a certain   (probably one of the  who got hard measure at home in those days), who had spread the most incredible  about the   and the. Yet even on his first entrance to Cathay had been accompanied by one Master  of, whom he describes as a faithful  man and a great , and who seems to have remained many  at. The letter of Andrew, of , quotes the opinion of  s at that  regarding a question of s. Odoric, who was in Cathay about –, refers for confirmation of the wonders which 