It was not without good reason, no doubt, that the monk-envoy made up his mind to leave the country he had hoped either to evangelize or to find already as orthodox as his own, and ruled by a great Christian potentate. Such perseverance as he showed throughout his journey was not likely to be daunted by slight obstacles; but finding the object of his mission as far from attainment as when he first entered Tartary, he at last reluctantly left the field. Only one European besides himself had ventured so far--Friar Bartholomew of Cremona; but even he shrank before a renewal of the hardships of mountain and desert travel, and chose rather to stay behind with Master William, the hospitable goldsmith, till some more convenient opportunity should present itself of returning to his own country. Rubruquis accordingly started alone, with a servant, an interpreter, and a guide; but though he had asked for leave to go on Whitsunday, the permission was delayed till the festival of S. John Baptist, the 24th of June. The khan made him a few trifling presents, and gave him a complimentary letter to the King of France; but no definite results were obtained. The homeward journey was long and tedious, and the only provision made for the sustenance of the party was a permission from the khan to take a sheep “once in four days, wherever they could find it.” Sometimes they had nothing to eat for three days together, and only a little cosmos to drink, and more than once, having missed the stations of the wandering tribes whom they had reckoned on meeting, even the supply of cosmos was exhausted. About two months after his departure from Karakorum, Rubruquis met Sartach, the great chief who had sheltered him for some time on his way to the river Don. Some belongings of the mission having been left in Sartach’s care, the envoy asked him to return them, but was told they were in charge of Baatu, Rubruquis’ other friend and protector. Sartach was on his way to join Mandchu-Khan, and was of course surrounded by the two hundred houses and innumerable chests which belonged to the establishment of a Tartar patriarch. If this was not exactly civilization, it was companionship, and the envoy must have been glad of a meeting which replenished his exhausted stores and suggested domestic comfort and abundance. More rough travelling on horseback, more experiences of hunger and cold (for the autumn was already coming on), more fording of rivers, and the monk found himself at Baatu’s court. It was the 16th of September--a year after he had left the chieftain to push on to the court of the Grand-Khan. Here he was joyfully and courteously received, and recovered nearly all his property; but as the Tartars had concluded that the whole embassy must have perished long ago, they had allowed some Nestorian priest, a wanderer under the protection now of Sartach, now of Baatu and other khans, to appropriate various Psalters, books, and ecclesiastical vestments.