Page:Christianity in China, Tartary, and Thibet Volume I.djvu/421

MISSIONARIES IN TARTARY. 409 vation not less abundant than those of China. This important Christian community had nourished on the confines of Mongolia in the province of Hi, a depend- ancy of Turkestan. Before reaching these distant coun- tries, there are frightful deserts to be traversed, and the Moussour mountains and their glaciers to be crossed. These gigantic mountains are, in fact, formed of masses of ice, heaped one upon another, so that travellers can only cross them by cutting steps as they go; but on the other side of these Moussour mountains the country is magnificent, the climate temperate, and the soil adapted to every kind of cultivation. It was among the popula- tions of these great valleys that the Franciscans had succeeded in propagating Christianity. The chief of the mission was Friar Richard of Burgundy, bishop of lli-Balik, who, on going to assume his office, chose some learned and zealous collaborators from his own order. We may mention Pascal of Vittoria (in Spain), Francis of Alexandria, and Raymond Ruffa of the same town ; these three were priests: but there were also two lay- brothers, Peter Martel of Narbonne, and Lawrence of Alexandria, as well as a black, called John of India, who had for a long time served as interpreter to the Arch- bishop of Pekin. These zealous apostles did not content themselves with residing and preaching in the towns ; they were continually traversing the vast extent of Tar- tary, dwelling, like the nomadic populations of those regions, in huts upon wheels, which carried them across immense tracts of country tO wherever the spiritual wants of neophytes and the probability of conversions seemed to require their presence. Having no fixed ha- bitation, they followed these pastoral tribes, and adopted their vagabond way of life ; stopping with them at their