Cathay about the country from Chinese books and from conversation with people of all walks of life. During his first 15 years in China (1583–1598) Matteo Ricci formed a strong suspicion that Marco Polo's "Cathay" is simply the "Tatar" (i.e., Mongol) name for the country he was in, i.e. China. Ricci supported his arguments by numerous correspondences between Marco Polo's accounts and his own observations: Most importantly, when the Jesuits first arrived to Beijing 1598, they also met a number of "Mohammedans" or "Arabian Turks" – visitors or immigrants from the Muslim countries to the west of China, who told Ricci
SS Cathay (1924) overloaded escorts and brought the survivors to Freetown without further incident. On 5 February 1942, the "SS Cathay" was returned to P&O and refitted as a troopship by the Bethlehem Steel Corporation at Brooklyn; it entered service again on 30 April of the same year. The "SS Cathay" was part of Operation Torch, which consisted of British and American troops invading French North Africa. It disembarked troops west of Algiers at the beginning of Operation Torch on 8 November 1942. While the "SS Cathay" was returning to the port of Bougie, Algeria from Algiers on 11 November 1942, it was