reached on the 1st May, 1339, and there the party halted till midsummer. They then sailed across the Black Sea to Caffa, and travelled thence to the Court of Uzbek, Khan of Kipchak, no doubt at Sarai. The winter of 1339 was passed there ; and, supposing the party to start about May and to take the usual commercial route by Urghanj, they would get to Armalec (or Almalig), the capital of the Chagatai dynasty or Middle Empire", about September. The stay of the mission at Almalig was prolonged. They did not quit it till 1341, and perhaps not till near the end of that year. They must also have spent some considerable time at Kamil,l so that probably they did not arrive at Peking till about May or June 1342. It was, however, almost certainly within that year ; for both Wadding's notice, and a curious entry in the Chinese Annals, agree in naming it.2
The time spent by Marignolli at Cambalec extended to three or four years, after which he proceeded through the empire to the port of Zayton, where there were houses of his Order. He sailed from Zayton for India on the 26th December, either in 1346 or 1347, probably the latter. Of this voyage unluckily he says not one word, except to record his arrival at Columbum (Quilon) in Malabar, during the following Easter week. He remained with the Christians of Columbum upwards of a year, and then, during the south-west monsoon of 1348 or 1349, set sail for the Coromandel Coast to visit the shrine of Thomas the Apostle. After passing only four days there he proceeded to visit Saba, a country which he evidently means to be identified with the Sheba of Scripture, and which he finds still governed by a queen.
As this Saba and its queen offer the most difficult problem in all the disjointed story of Marignolli's wanderings, and as his notices of it are widely dispersed, I will bring together the substance of all in this place, hoping that some critic may have learning and good luck enough to solve a knot which I have given up in something like despair.
1. See Marignolli's Recollections of Travel, infra, near the end.
2 Wadding, vii, p. 258, and note, infra, on the horses conveyed to the Khan by Marignolli.
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