110 CHRISTIANITY IN CHINA, ETC. Tartar prince received baptism with two hundred thou- sand of his subjects ; and these, according to Mares*, are the circumstances in which the event took place. There was, at the north-west of the Great Wall of China, beyond the Desert of Gobi, a considerable tribe of Tartars, name Keraites. One day, the sovereign of these numerous hordes was engaged in hunting, and having pursued the yellow sheep and wild yaks for a long time amongst steep mountains covered with snow, he happened to lose his way, He sought for a long time to recover the right track, but in vain ; he only wandered about in the midst of these solitudes where there was no trace of human habitation, and had at last stopped quite discouraged and overcome by a vague feeling of terror, when suddenly a mysterious personage appeared to him, and uttered these words, — " If thou wilt believe in Jesus Christ, I will rescue thee from this peril, and show thee thy way." The King of the Keraites, vividly struck by this apparition, promised to embrace Christianity, which already counted numerous partisans among his subjects. Upon this promise the mysterious personage served him as a guide, and after having brought him back to the right way, suddenly vanished. The prince of the Keraites having returned to his camp, hastened to relate to his courtiers what had hap- pened to him, and expressed to them his determination to accomplish his vow. There were at that time in the country many Christian merchants who had come from the West, and he had them summoned, and demanded
- Marcs in Vita Bar-Tobi. This Nestorian patriarch died in
999.
