308
Travels in Europe and Asia.
June,
“In order not to lose time, and to make that road the easier for those that shall follow them, they go first to Constantinople, where they will find father Beauvollier, my companion of mission, who will be the bearer of the king's letters to the sha of Persia, and who will conduct this apostolical company to Trebizond, to Erzerum, to Irivan, and to Schamaki. They will tarry some time in all those cities, there to get new formation, and to establish good correspondencies, as also to leave two or three of their company there to serve, towards the conversion of the people of the country, and to give instructions to the missionaries that shall henceforward go that way. From thence they are to repair to Ispahan, which is the metropolitan of Persia, where they shall desire the sha's protection, and deliver our monarch's letters to him, whose recommendation and zeal will be very material for the solid establishment of our design. From Ispahan they will repair to Samar- kaud, or to Bokara, there to make the like establishment, while father Gri- maldi, who has been chosen by the emperor of China to succeed the late father Verbiest in his place of president of the tribunal of the mathematics, will use his utmost endeavors to facilitate their design in China. They may likewise in that journey learn the language of the Chinese Tartars. They are also in hopes to meet in their way from Bokara to Peking, among the Chinese Tartars, some of those that have been converted in coming to the court of Peking. This road has been chosen preferably to that of the Mus- covites, both for the reasons set down in my book, and because father Grimaldi is always diffident of those schismatics, and dreads their appearing too much in China to the shame of Christianity, which they disgrace by their ignorance and brutality.
"Our superiors design to send yearly some missionaries who shall follow the same road, and stop at Constantinople, at Trebizond, at Erzerum, at Iri- van, and at Schamaki, in the room of those who shall be sufficiently acquaint- ed with the languages to continue the voyage of China. The Persian tongue will also be of use to them, since it may serve to convert the Chinese-Maho. metans, whose conversion St. Francis Xavier did not neglect. It is much easier to bring them to the true faith, than those who are under the Turk's dominion. They may likewise usefully employ themselves during their jour ney in bringing back the Greeks to the church of Rome, which some of them are pretty well inclined to, as it appears particularly by what I have related of the Armenians, and by the relation from Julfa, which I have annexed to this book. Julfa is a suburb of Ispahan, and one of the chief establishments of the Armenians in Persia.
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"Those missionaries will likewise have the advantages of being versed in the apostolical functions at their arrival in China, by the essays they shall have made by the way, and by the experience they shall have acquired. They will consequently be in a condition to labor effectually at their first arrival into China, which could not be expected from those who have hither- to been sent there by sea.
"Although these precautions seem to be very good, we are sensible at the