Cathay Sentence Examples

He died on the journey in March 1607; and thus, as one of the brethren pronounced his epitaph, " seeking Cathay he found heaven."

Maps of the 16th and 17th centuries often show Cambaluc in an imaginary region to the north of China, a part of the misconception that has prevailed regarding Cathay.

At his suggestion a voyage was undertaken for the discovery of a north-east passage to Cathay, with Sir Hugh Willoughby as captain-general of the fleet and Richard Chancellor as pilotmajor.

One important object of English maritime adventurers of those days was to discover a route to Cathay by the north-west, a second was to settle Virginia, and a third was to raid the Spanish settlements in the West Indies.

The conception of the north-western route to Cathay now leads the story of exploration, for the first time as far as important and sustained efforts are concerned, towards the Arctic seas.

The dominions of the latter extended across central Asia to northern India, but were dismembered by the attacks of the Kitans, whence the name Cathay.

Nicolaus Germanus, a monk of Reichenbach, in 1466 prepared a set of Ptolemy's maps on a new projection with converging meridians; and Paolo del Pozzo Toscanelli in 1474 compiled a new chart on a rectangular projection, which was to guide the explorer across the western ocean to Cathay and India.

The geographical ideas which prevailed at the time Columbus started in search of Cathay may be most readily gathered from two contemporary globes, the one known as the Laon globe because it was picked up in 1860 at a curiosity shop in that town, the other produced at Nuremberg in 1492 by Martin Behaim.1 The Laon globe is of copper gilt, and has a diameter of 170 mm.

The substance of that knight's alleged travels in India and Cathay is stolen from Odoric, though amplified with fables from other sources and from his own invention, and garnished with his own unusually clear astronomical notions.

This personage was a prince of the Khitai or Khitaian dynasty of Liao, which had reigned over northern China and the regions beyond the Wall during a great part of the 10th and 11th centuries, and from which came the name Khitai (Cathay), by which China was once known in Europe and still is known in Russia.

He took the title of Gur Khan or Kor Khan, said to mean "universal" or "supreme" khan, and fixed at Balasaghurl, north of the T'ian Shan range, the capital of his empire, which became known as that of Kara-Khitai (Black Cathay).

Yule's Cathay and the Way Thither, p. 173 seq., and in Marco Polo (2nd ed.), i.

The title khan was assumed by Jenghis when he became supreme ruler of the Mongols; his successors became known in Europe as the Great Khans (sometimes as the Chams, &c.) of Tatary or Cathay.

Friar Odoric of Pordenone is supposed to have reached Lhasa c. 1328, travelling from Cathay; but this visit is doubtful.

He next appears in " Cambaliech " or Peking, and wrote letters (of January 8, 1305, and February 13, 1306), describing the progress of the Roman mission in the Far East, in spite of Nestorian opposition; alluding to the Roman Catholic community he had founded in India, and to an appeal he had received to preach in " Ethiopia " and dealing with overland and oversea routes to " Cathay," from the Black Sea and the Persian Gulf respectively.

The British traders had already pushed far into the Atlantic before Columbus discovered America; fired by the success of the great navigator they continued their adventures, hoping like him to discover a short north-west passage to Cathay and Japan.

After the discovery of southern China by European navigators Cathay was erroneously believed to be a country to the north of China, and it was the desire to reach it that sent the English adventurers of the 16th century in search of the north-east passage.