A whale had been driven on shore, one hundred yards long, with two heads, one at the tail end, the other of the size of a cupola. In the upper jaw it had one hundred and fifty teeth, each a yard long, ears like an elephant, and eyes of the size of a round table, and covered with beaver’s hair. The inhabitants of Bakú, Derbend and Shamákhí flocked together to see it. Khoja Sarúkhán, a voyager in the Caspian Sea, told me that this kind of whale was common in that sea; there are certainly many strange creatures and animals in that sea which are not to be found elsewhere; the shore is covered with bones and carcasses of strange kinds with square and pentagon heads, and an immense number of extraordinary fish. According to the reports of sailors, the circumference of the Caspian Sea is twenty-four thousand miles; it has no islands like the Black Sea and White Sea, wherein two thousand and forty islands are reckoned, forty of which are great ones, like Cyprus, Creta, Rodos, &c. with large towns and rivers. The conflict of the waves of the Caspian Sea is stronger than those of the Black Sea; it is bounded on the west by the Russian provinces; and on the east by the country of the Uzbegs, Kalmúks, and Cossacks. In winter-time the Kalmúk Tátárs pass over the ice of lakes and rivers which are frozen for the space of seven months, committing depredations in the Russian provinces, and carrying a great number of prisoners away. On the western side its extremity is at Derbend, and south to it, in the district of the Avárs, which is comprehended by a gulf on the frontier of Dághistán, is the castle of Terek on the river of the same name. Its length from north to south is four thousand miles, and its depth three hundred cubits; thousands of boats and vessels carry on trade, but they are all afraid of Russian Chaiks, with whom they fight; the vessels are not large ships like those of the White, Black and Red Sea, but small boats of reeds with small guns; there are no men of war or great Caravellas like those of the White Sea, which are necessary to meet the vessels of the Franks in the Archipelago and Mediterranean; such great means of defence are not required on the Caspian, as there are only Cossack boats to be met with.