Page:Christianity in China, Tartary, and Thibet Volume I.djvu/234

222 CHRISTIANITY IN CHINA, ETC permission from his father, Batou, and that he would have them sent to his court. The missionaries were, therefore, obliged to go to the Tartar encampment on the Volga ; and Kubruk was surprised to see that it covered as much space as a great city with its suburbs, to the distance of three or four leagues, and contained a multitude of people. In its centre was the dwelling of the prince, with the entrance towards the south, and it was not allowed that any yourtas should be placed before it in that direction, but they were all ranged to the right and left of the royal residence, and from east to west. The tents of Batou's sixteen wives were all on the left, and about a stone's throw from one another. Around these dwellings were those of a great number of women and girls, who at- tended on the wives of the prince, as well as small huts for storing up their goods ; and these were covered with felt smeared with suet or sheep's milk, to keep off the rain. All these little houses were fixed on wheeled trucks, to which horses or oxen could be harnessed when the camp was to be shifted ; and the extremely level character of the ground in these immense plains facilitates this mode of transport. The monks were conducted to the court of Batou, who had had an immense tent pitched, as his wooden mansion could not contain his court. " We were warned again," says Rubruk, " not to touch the tent ropes, for they were regarded in the same light as the threshold of the house. We stood there in our robes, barefoot, and bareheaded, about the length of a miserere, and the whole assembly preserved a profound silence. Friar John of Piano Carpini had been there before us.