Thus equipped they set out and were much surprised next day by meeting a moving village; that is to say, all the huts were placed on waggons and were being moved away. During the ten days that Rubruquis and his companions were passing through this part of the country they were very badly treated, and had it not been for their own store of biscuits, they must have died of starvation. After passing by the end of the Sea of Azov they went in an easterly direction and crossed a sandy desert on which neither tree nor stone was visible. This was the country of the Comans that Carpini had traversed, but in a more northerly part. Rubruquis left the mountains inhabited by the Circassians to the south, and after a wearisome journey of two months arrived at the camp of Prince Sartach on the banks of the Volga. This was the court of the prince, the son of Baatu-Khan; he had six wives, each of whom possessed a palace of her own, some houses, and a great number of chariots, some of them very large, being drawn by a team of twenty-two oxen harnessed in pairs. Sartach received the envoys of the King of France very graciously, and seeing their poverty, he supplied them with all that they required. They were to be presented to the prince in their sacerdotal dress, when, bearing on a cushion a splendid Bible, the gift of the King of France, a Psalter given by the Queen, a Missal, a crucifix and a censer, they entered the royal presence, taking good care not to touch the threshold of the door, which would have been considered profanation. Once in the royal presence, they sang the "Salve Regina." After the prince and those of the princesses who were present at the ceremony had examined the books, &c., that the monks had brought with them, the envoys were allowed to retire; it being impossible for Rubruquis to form any opinion as to Sartach's being a Christian, or not; but his work was not yet finished, the prince having pressed the envoys to go to his father's court. Rubruquis complied with the request, and crossing the country lying between the Volga and the Don, they arrived at their destination. There the same ceremonies had to be gone through as at the court of Prince Sartach. The monks had to prepare their books, &c., and be presented to the Khan, who was seated on a large gilded throne, but not wishing to treat with the envoys himself, he sent them to Karakorum, to the court of Mangu-khan. They crossed the country of the Bashkirs and visited Kenchat, Talach, passed the Axiartes and reached Equius, a town of which the position cannot be accurately ascertained in the present day; then by the land of Organum, by the Lake of Balkash, and the territory of the Uigurs, they arrived at Karakorum, the capital of the Mongolian empire, where Carpini had stopped without entering the town.