Page:Christianity in China, Tartary, and Thibet Volume I.djvu/177

RECEPTION IN THE CAMP OF BATOU. 1G5 not to touch the threshold with their feet as they went in. This is, even to the present day, a matter to be attended to in entering a Mongol tent. Batou, the eldest prince of the family of Tchinguiz- khan, who was next in power to the Grand Khan, was a shrewd man, full of stratagem in war, cruel in action, and dreaded even by his own people. There was a grand display of luxury and magnificence in his camp ; guards and officers of every grade ; beautiful tents taken from the king of Hungary ; tables covered with vases of gold and silver; and, during the repasts, musicians singing or playing on instruments. A dais, or red pa- rasol, was borne over his head ; no one addressed him but on their knees ; in short, all the ceremony of an imperial court was observed. Batou was seated on a kind of elevated divan, with one of his wives beside hiin. The members of his family, and the principal chiefs, were seated in the middle of the tent; and behind them on the ground reposed persons of an inferior rank, men on the right, and women on the left. The missionaries were obliged to kneel down, and they then presented their letters, and begged that some interpreter might translate them. The letters of Innocent IV., dated from Lyons the 3rd of the Nones of March, 1245, were addressed to the kino; and the nation of the Tartars. In one of them, after having briefly explained the principal dogmas of the Christian religion, — the redemption of the human race effected by the sacrifice of the Son of God, His re- surrection, and His ascension, preceded by the appoint- ment of a vicar on earth who is charged with the care of souls and the keys of the kingdom of heaven, — the M 3