Page:Notes upon Russia (volume 1, 1851).djvu/55

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INTRODUCTION.
xxvii

which travellers at that time seldom thought worth recording”; and accompanies this opinion with many examples, at pp. 295-299 of his work.

Rubruquis wrote his travels in Latin, and several copies of the original still exist.

There is a copy in manuscript in the Royal Library of Paris, in the codex No. 686, which bears the title: “Itineraria in Tartariam”.—See d’Avezac’s Plan Carpin, p. 50.

It has only been once printed in the language of the original, and that in Hakluyt’s Collection, vol. i, pp. 71-79, but from a manuscript of Lord Lumley’s, imperfect at the end.

Purchas found a perfect copy of the travels in Benet College Library at Cambridge, with the inscription: “Historia Monogallorum sive Tartarorum”.—See d’Avezac, p. 52. He translated it into English, and inserted it into his “Pilgrimes”, vol. iii, p. 1. Roger Bacon has likewise inserted extracts from Rubruquis, in his “Opus Majus”.

Bergeron translated it from this English version into French, under the title—

Voyage remarquable de Guillaume de Rubruquis, envoyé en Ambassade par le Roi Louis IX en differens parties de l’Orient, principalement en Tartarie et à la Chine, l’an de notre Seigneur 1253. Contenant des recits très singuliers et surprenans. Ecrit par l’Ambassadeur même. Le tout orné d’une Carte de voyage de tailles douces, et accompagné de Tables. Traduit de l’Anglais par le Sr. de Bergeron.

In Bergeron’s Voyages, etc., vol. i, collated, says Bergeron, with two Latin MSS.

It was again reprinted under the title: “Relation