Chersonesus imployed in an ambassage from Lewis the French King (waging
warre as then against the Saracens in the Holy land) vnto one Sartach a
great duke of the Tartars, which Sartach sent him forthwith vnto his father
Baatu, and from Baatu he was conducted ouer many large territories vnto the
Court of Mangu-Can their Emperour. Both of them haue so well played their
parts, in declaring what befell them before they came at the Tartars, what
a terrible and vnmanerly welcomming they had at their first arriuall, what
cold intertainment they felt in traueiling towards the great Can, and what
slender cheere they found at his Court, that they seeme no lesse worthy of
praise then of pitie. But in describing of the Tartars Countrey, and of the
Regions adiacent, in setting downe the base and sillie beginnings of that
huge and ouerspreading Empire, in registring their manifolde warres and
bloody conquests, in making relation of their herds and mooueable Townes,
as likewise of their food, apparell and armour, and in setting downe their
vnmercifull lawes, their fond superstitions, their bestiall liues their
vicious maners, their slauish subiection to their owne superiours, and
their disdainfull and brutish inhumanitie vnto strangers, they deserue most
exceeding and high commendation. Howbeit if any man shall obiect that they
haue certaine incredible relations; I answere, first that many true things
may to the ignorant seeme incredible. But suppose there be some particulars
which hardly will be credited; yet thus much I will boldly say for the
Friers, that those particulars are but few, and that they doe not auouch
them vnder their owne names, but from the report of others. Yet farther
imagine that they did auouch them, were they not to be pardoned as well as
Herodotus, Strabo, Plutarch, Plinie, Solinus, yea & a great many of our new
principall writers, whose names you may see about the end of this Preface;
euery one of which hath reported more strange things then the Friers
between the both? Nay, there is not any history in the world (the most Holy
writ excepted) whereof we are precisely bound to beleeue ech word and
syllable. Moreouer sithens these two iournals are so rare, that Mercator