"Well," said Mr. Crowder, "we must get on with this. A priest with whom
I was acquainted married us, and we immediately fled from Ravenna. After a
year or two of wandering through benighted countries where even kings
and rulers could not write their names, and where reading seemed to be a
lost art, except in the monasteries, we made up our minds, if possible,
we would go from darkness into light, and so we set out on a journey to
China."

At this statement Mrs. Crowder and I looked surprised.

"I don't wonder you open your eyes," said he. "It must seem odd to you,
unless you are very familiar with the history of the period, that we
should go from Europe to China in search of enlightenment and
civilization; but that is what we did, and we found what we looked for.
As the Pope had sent an envoy to China, and as some Nestorian
missionaries had gone there, I believed that we could go.

"This journey to the Chinese province of Nan-hae occupied the greater
part of five years; but to me personally that was of no account, for I
had time enough. Although we passed through all sorts of hardships and
dangers, my wife was greatly interested in the strange things and people
she met. Sometimes we traveled by water, sometimes on horses and asses,
and very often we walked. During the last part of the journey we joined
a caravan which went through central Asia.

"At that time China was ruled by a woman, the Empress Woo. For a long
time back there had been a period of great intellectual activity in China.
Literature and the arts flourished, and while the great personages of
Europe did not know how to write, these people were printing from wooden
blocks.