Page:The story of geographical discovery.djvu/68

 64 and Poland, and captured Buda-Pest, 1241, It seemed as if the prophesied end of the world had come, and the mighty nations Gog and Magog had at last burst forth to fulfil the prophetic words. But Okkodai died suddenly, and these armies were recalled. Universal terror seized Europe, and the Pope, as the head of Christendom, determined to send ambassadors to the Great Khan, to ascertain his real intentions. He sent a friar named John of Planocarpini, from Lyons, in 1245, to the camp of Batu (on the Volga), who passed him on to the court of the Great Khan at Karakorum, the capital of his empire, of which only the slightest trace is now left on the left bank of the Orkhon, some hundred miles south of Lake Baikal.

Here, for the first time, they heard of a kingdom on the east coast of Asia which was not yet conquered by the Mongols, and which was known by the name of Cathay. Fuller information was obtained by another friar, named, or Rubruquis, a Fleming, who also visited Karakorum as an ambassador from St. Louis, and got back to Europe in 1255, and communicated some of his information to Roger Bacon. He says: "These Cathayans are little fellows, speaking much through the nose, and, as is general with all those Eastern people, their eyes are very narrow. . . . The common money of Cathay consists of pieces of cotton paper, about a palm in length and breadth, upon which certain lines are printed, resembling the seal of Mangou Khan. They do their writing with a pencil such as painters paint with, and a single character of theirs comprehends several letters, so as to form a whole word." He also