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
Angora was conquered by Yakúbsháh, the Prince of Kútahia of the Germián
family and by his Vezir Hezár-dínar, and then by Sultán Orkhán. If
Angora is viewed from the village of Erkiksú, which is a journey’s
distance from the north, it appears a brilliant place; for the houses
rising one behind the other, similarly to Buda on the Danube, makes it
look like a ship of transport (Maúna) which has set up its trees and
adorned its head. Buda, Ván and Angora are the three first fortresses
of the Empire: its name (Engúrí) is Persian, given from the quantity
of grapes (Engúr) which are found here. It is said to have been built
by a Byzantine Emperor, and employed forty thousand workmen for seven
years, who each day received forty nuts and a loaf apiece. It is
also called the leafy castle (Motabbak), because its different parts
cover one another like leaves of a tree, and the castle of the chains
(Selasil) because the Emperor Heraclius surrounded it with seven chains
on the birth year of the Prophet. The Mogols call it Ankra; the Tatars,
Kermen Ankra; the Germans, Constantinople (!) the Turks, Aidín Karí,
Unkúr and Ungorú. In the Imperial Registers it is spelled Ankra. It
is the seat of a Sanjak Beg in the province of Anatoli, and has been
given many times as living (Arpalik) to Vezírs of three tails. The
khass of the Páshá is two hundred and sixty three thousand four hundred
aspers, fourteen ziámets, and two hundred and fifty seven timárs, an
Alai-beg (Colonel) Cherí-beg (Captain) and Yúzbáshí (Lieutenants).
The Zaims and Timariots with the Jebelle make three thousand armed
men. The Súbashís depending from Angora are, those of the town, that
of Mertátova, of Yebánava, of Jubúkova, and of Jorba, which annually
import forty thousand piastres. The Judge is a Molla of five hundred
aspers, whose revenues may be calculated at twenty purses a year. There
are also a Sheikh-ul-islám or Muftí, a Nakíb-ul-eshraf, or head of
the Emírs, Seids and Sherífs (the relations of the Prophet), a Serdár
of the Janissaries, a Kiaya-yerí of the Sipáhís, a Náíb of the town
and a Mohtessib (provost and lieutenant of police) the commanding
officers of the Jebejí and Topjí, a Dizdár (commander of the castle)
and a garrison of an hundred men. The castle is situated on a high
mountain, mocking all assaults, rising in four natural terraces, so
that there is a distance of three hundred paces from one enclosure to
the other; the height of each wall is sixty cubits and the breadth
ten royal cubits; the foundations are all built on vaults. The castle
forms an oblong square from east to west. It has four iron-gates one
behind the other towards the west, each strengthened behind by iron
cages. These iron cages or gratings are thrown before the gates in
time of sieges, the bars are of the thickness of an arm. The gate on
the extremity of the fortress looking to the Horse market opens to the
west, on the upper part of it are suspended the arms of old knights,
and the bones of a whale.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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