198 Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. [N.S., XIX, 
greatest and most worthy of our house, and thou mayest par- 
take of our abundance and of the things that are found amon 
us in plenty; and, if thou wishest to return, thou shalt set 
forth enriched with our gifts. 
hou wishest to know the greatness and excellence of 
our altitude, and in which countries our power rules, under- 
stand and believe without doubting that I am Priest John, the 
and in valour and power all the Kings of the earth. Seventy 
Kings are tributary to us. am a devout Christian, oa 
everywhere we protect and support with our alms the 
Christians who are within the empire of our clemency. [P. 191) 
We wish to visit the sepulchre of Our Lord witb a great 
army, as becomes the glory of our majesty, and we wish to 
humble and eae, the enemies of the Cross of Christ and 
exalt His holy na 
Our Lgl eats dominates the three Indies* ; our domin- 
ions, beginning from Further In es — the "bod y of St. 
Thomas the Apostle reposes, adva across the desert to 
where the sun is born, and return to raiestied Babylon, near 
the tower of Babel. 
Seventy-two provinces, 8 a few of which‘ are Christian, 
h 
n 
2 
stones, smaragds, sapphires, etc.’ In another province of ours 




My br similar rt was exacted by Haiton, the Christian Ki ing 0 of Ar- 
menia, from ae aa the fourth Emperor of the Tartars in 1253. 
Histoire rsa le, ead es Ta rtares, ert Haiion, parent du Roi d Armente- 
rica Collect, de Voyages, Vol. I1).”’—Note by Layard, op. ct., 
? Medieval writers and travellers commonly divide India into three 
parts, ‘the lytic of which is very divergent and confusing. f. 
Yule’s nd Marco Polo, s.v. India. 
3 mat ‘sixty-two provinces.’ Yule’s article in Encycl. Britann., 
XIX (1885), p . 715, speaks of 72 kings teary to ‘belies John. Layat 
has ‘72 Al og) as have our notes from Assemani.(?) The passage 
quoted above from Razzius about ihe ideris sixty — 
provin comp m ‘ominent on ys Mgr. Medlycott 
(Cath, Encycl., XIV, 680b) in connection with the number of houses uilt 
r “oe his forge of the 
charter of Thomas Cananeo (from a British Museum MS. of which J have 
se “ee, ) shows correctly only 62 
‘Quarum pau 
> 
cae’ might also mean ‘ site a which.’ 
5 ‘The Indus eee — - Paradise t be compared with the 
bear 8 issuing from Paradise’ of which we oan from Mar John IflI. 
nce John de’ Marigauil (c. 1349) must have picked up in India 
