It was during winter that the envoy arrived at the court or encampment of Mandchu-Khan. He says that it was at the distance of twenty days’ journey from Cataya, or Cathay (China), but it is difficult to say exactly where that was. Here Rubruquis found a number of Nestorian priests peacefully living under the khan’s protection, and among them one who had only arrived a month before the Franciscan friar, and said he had come, in consequence of a vision, to convert the khan and his people. He was an Armenian from the Holy Land. Our missionary describes him thus in his terse, direct way, which has this advantage over the long-winded and minute descriptions of our day, that we seem to see the man before us: “He was a monk, somewhat black and lean, clad with a rough hair-coat to the knees, having over it a black cloak of bristles, furred with spotted skins, girt with iron under his hair-cloth.” Mandchu-Khan was tolerant and liberal, and rather well disposed than otherwise to the Christian religion. His favorite wife, whom he had lately lost, had been a Christian, and so was his first secretary, but both Nestorian Christians. The khan, or his servants--who doubtless expected to be propitiated with the usual gifts if they could only succeed in wearying out the patience of the new-comers--made the envoy wait nine days for an audience. The Tartars thought it strange that a king’s ambassador should come to court bare-foot; but a boy, a Hungarian captive, again gave the required and often-repeated explanation. Before entering the large hall, whose entrance was closed by curtains of gayly-painted felt, the monks were searched, to see if they carried any concealed arms; and then the procession formed, the Christian missionaries entering the khan’s presence singing the hymn _A Solis ortus cardine_. The khan, like the lesser chieftains Rubruquis had already met, was seated on a “bed” or divan, dressed “in a spotted skin or fur, bright and shining.” The multitudinous bowings and prostrations in use at the Chinese court were very likely exacted, though the envoy says in general terms that “he had to bend the knee.” Such simplicity is, however, very far from the ceremonious Oriental ideal of homage, and it was not then, as it is now, esteemed an honor to receive Frankish envoys in the Frankish manner. Mandchu first offered his guests a drink of fermented milk, of which they partook sparingly, not to offend him; but the interpreter soon made himself unfit for his office by his indulgence in his favorite beverage. Rubruquis stated his mission with modest simplicity. In his quality of ambassador he might have resented the delay in receiving him; he might have complained of the familiarity and want of respect with which he had been often treated, and of the advantage taken of his gentleness and ignorance of the language to plunder him; but he was more than a king’s messenger. He was intent upon preaching the