Narrative of Travels in Europe, Asia, and Africa, in the Seventeenth Century, Vol. IIEvliya Çelebi
History
Narrative of Travels in Europe, Asia, and Africa, in the Seventeenth Century, Vol. II
Evliya Çelebi
Caucasus, South -- Description and travel; Istanbul (Turkey) -- Description and travel; Turkey -- History
It is a great Convent of Begtáshís; more than three hundred came with
drums beating and banners flying to give us welcome: a crowd of poor
fellows all in raptures of divine love, by the prayers of whom I was
restored to health. Next day we crossed a plain for thirteen hours,
and halted three times on it. At the southern end of this field we
pitched our tents on the bank of the great river Zengí, where the
people of all the Kents of the neighbourhood, flocking together,
brought us abundance of provisions as presents, so that our servants
feasted as if they were as many Ma’adí Karbs, and our horses feasted on
trefoil and other luxuriant herbs, so that their bellies swelled like
wine-skins. The river Zengí issues on the south from the mountains of
Khárán, flows to the North, supplying water to many thousand Kents,
and then joins the Aras, which falling into the Kúr (Cyrus) runs into
the Caspian sea. We continued our journey hunting hares, and came at
the end of ten hours to the Kent Sídreghí, a Wakf of Imám Riza in the
territory of Nakhshiván. It is a flourishing Kent of about one thousand
houses surrounded with gardens. The inhabitants are all Shi’ís. The
hot-spring of Sídreghí is outside of the town close to the vineyards;
this hot-spring is covered with a large cupola, and in the large basin
the Persian youths swim like silver fishes; they amuse themselves by
disporting in the water, and singing with melodious voices. Fourteen
hours further to the east, we came to Zavieí Ahmed Beg, consisting of
five hundred houses, in the territory of Nakhshiván. Here are three
mosques, one of which was built by Zál Páshá-zadeh Ahmed, when governor
of Nakhshiván, in the style of the mosques at Constantinople. This is
the reason why the Persians called this Kent (borough) the cell (zavie)
of Ahmed Páshá; the whole borough is appropriated to the endowment of
this mosque. We passed during sixteen hours through many cultivated
Kents (boroughs) until we reached the large town Kara-bághlar, first
built by Menúchehr, it is the seat of a Sultán (Beg) in the territory
of Nakhshiván, it was wrested from the Ottomans by the Persians in the
time of Mohammed III. and laid waste by the army of Sultán Murád IV.,
so that now ruins are only to be seen. Timúr passed a winter in perfect
quietness at Karabághlar; Suleimán Khán and other commanders-in-chief
were stationed here at different times for five or six months in the
greatest affluence. This place is now recovering from the havoc made
by Sultán Murad IV., but in comparison with its former state, it is
not as an atom in the sun, nor a drop in the ocean. Our servants
counted forty minarehs, and according to the report of our Mihmándár
it consisted of ten thousand houses with gardens and vineyards, and
seventy mosques (forty of which have minarehs), a great number of
Kháns, baths and markets. The mildness of the air contributes to the
beauty of the inhabitants; the variety of fruits which abound here, is
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