Once or twice we lodg'd in publick Inns, built at the King of _Persia_'s
Charge: These are fair large Buildings, built square, like a large Inn,
they have all of them large Stables, and good Forrage for the Camels and
Horses, and Apartments for perhaps two or three hundred People, and they
are call'd _Caravansera's_, as being built to entertain whole Caravans of
Travellers: On the great Roads to _Tauris_ and the Side of _Turky_ they are
all fortify'd, and are able to entertain five or six Thousand People, and
have a Stock to furnish what Number of Men can come with Provisions; nay,
it has been known, that whole armies of the _Persians_ have on their March
been furnish'd with Provisions in one of these _Caravansera's_, and that
they have kill'd 2000 Sheep for them in one Night's Time.
In this Manner we travell'd to _Ispahan_, the Capital of _Persia_, where
appearing as Merchants, and with several Camels loaden with Merchandize, we
pass'd all Possibility of Suspicion, and being perfectly easy, we continu'd
here some Time, sold our Cargoes, and would gladly have remitted the Money
to other Places, as for _Constantinople_ in particular; but we found the
_Turks_ and _Persians_ have no such Thing as an Exchange, by Bills running
between them and other Nations, no, nor between one Town and another.
We were invited here by a sudden Accident to have gone Home by the
_Caspian_ Sea and _Astracan_, so thro' _Muscovy_; but I had heard so much
of the Barbarity of the _Russians_, the dangerous Navigation of the
_Caspian_ Sea by Reason of the Calms and Shoals, the Hazard of being robb'd
by the _Tartars_ on the River _Wolga_, and the like, that I chose to travel
to _Constantinople_, a Journey through Desarts, over Mountains and Wastes,
among so many Sorts of Barbarians, that I would run any Kind of Hazards by
Sea, before I would attempt such a Thing again.
It would deserve another History to let you into all the different
Circumstances of this Journey; how well I was us'd by some, and how ill by
others; nay, how well by some _Mahometans_, how ill by some Christians: But
it shall suffice to tell you, that I am at present at _Constantinople_;
and, tho' I write this here, I do not purpose to send it to you till I come
to _Marseilles_ in _France_; from whence I intend to go and live in some
inland Town, where, as they have, perhaps, no Notion of the Sea, so they
will not be inquisitive after us.
I am, _&c._
_FINIS._
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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