The Mongols had a long tradition of supporting merchants and commerce. Early in his career before joining the Mongolian people, the Genghis Khan had encouraged foreign merchants. The merchants provided him with information about the neighboring cultures, served as diplomats and official merchants on behalf of the Mongols, and were indispensable to provide themselves with many goods, since the Mongols produced very few things. Sometimes the Mongols gave capital to the merchants, and sent them away in an orthoq (business partnership agreement). As the Empire grew, the merchants and ambassadors who carried authorizations and proper documentation received protection and refuge while traveling through Mongolian domains. A series of well-traveled and well-maintained routes connected the lands from the Mediterranean basin to China, and facilitated surface trade, and gave rise to fantastic stories of those who traveled by what was called the Silk Road. One of the most well-known travelers from the East to the West was Marco Polo, an equivalent trip from the East to the West was told by Mongolian Chinese monk Rabban Bar Sauma, who traveled from his home in Khanbaliq (Beijing) to Europe. Some missionaries such as William of Rubruck also traveled to the Mongol court, on conversion missions, or as papal envoys, carrying correspondence between the Pope and the Mongols in attempts to form a Franco-Mongolian alliance. However, it was rare for someone to travel the entire silk route, the merchants instead displacing the products in a kind of handrails, through which luxury goods were traded from one intermediary to the next, from China to the West, with what the final prices of the goods were extravagantly high.