Travels into Turkey: Containing the most accurate account of the Turks, and neighbouring nations, their manners, customs, religion, superstition, policy, riches, coins, &c. — John Shaqi
Travels into Turkey: Containing the most accurate account of the Turks, and neighbouring nations, their manners, customs, religion, superstition, policy, riches, coins, &c.Busbecq, Ogier Ghislain de
History
Travels into Turkey: Containing the most accurate account of the Turks, and neighbouring nations, their manners, customs, religion, superstition, policy, riches, coins, &c.
Busbecq, Ogier Ghislain de
Turkey -- Description and travel -- Early works to 1800
Afterwards, we continued our Journey, for many Days, through the
pleasant, and not unfruitful, Valley of _Bulgaria_; all the Time we were
in that Country, we had little other Bread, but only Cakes bak’d under
Ashes upon the Hearth, which they call _Togatch_. The Women and Maids
sell them, for they have no Bakers in those Parts; and when they perceive
any Guests a-coming, that are likely to pay for what they have, presently
they knead a little Dough, with Water, without any Leaven, and lay it
upon Tiles, under the Ashes, and so bring it out piping hot, and sell
them for a very small Matter; other Victuals is also very cheap there, a
good Weather-sheep may be bought for thirty-five Aspers; a Chicken and
a Hen for an Asper, a sort of Coin with them, of which fifty make but a
Crown.
I must not omit to acquaint you with the Habit of these _Bulgarian_
Women. They commonly wear nothing but a Smock or Shift, made of no finer
Linnen-thread, than that we make Sacks of. And yet, these course Garments
are wrought by them, with several sorts of strip’d Needle-work, after a
homely Fashion: With this lose party-coloured Habit they mightily pleased
themselves, so that when they saw our Shifts, made of the finest Linnen,
yet they wondered at our Modesty, that we could be contented to wear them
without various Works of divers Colours wrought in them.
But that which I most of all admired in them, was the Tower, which they
wore on their Heads, for such was the Form of their Hats. They were made
of Straw, braided with Webs over them. The Figure of them differs from
the Hats Women wear in our Country, for ours hang down on the Shoulders,
and the lowest Part of it is the broadest, and so it rises as it were
into a Pyramid at top; but theirs is narrowest below, and so rises up
like a top, almost nine Inches above the Head; but that Part of it that
looks upwards, towards the Sky, is both very capacious, and also very
open, so that it seems made to take in Rain, as ours are to shelter us
against them; but in that Space, interjacent between their upper and
lower Part, their hang Pieces of Coin, little Pictures or Images, small
Parcels of painted Glass, or whatever is resplendent, though never so
mean, which are accounted very ornamental among them.
Those kind of Hats makes them look taller, and also more Matron-like,
though they are easily blown off their Heads, by a blast of Wind, or by
any light Motion they fall off themselves.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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