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
All the next Day we staid at _Nice_; I believe my Lodging was in the same
House where the Council of _Nice_ was heretofore celebrated. As for the
Town itself, it is seated on the Bank of the Lake _Ascanius_. The Walls
of it are almost entire, so are the Gates, which are but four, and may
all may be seen from the Middle of the Market-Place; in each of them
there were old Inscriptions in _Latin_, which shew that the Town was
repaired by _Antoninus_: which of them I do not well remember; but sure
it must be by _Antoninus_ the Emperor. There are also some Remainders of
his Baths, and whilst the _Turks_ were digging out Stones from thence
to build Houses at _Constantinople_, they found the Statue of a Soldier
in his Armour, curiously wrought, and almost entire; but they quickly
battered it with their Hammers, even in our View; and when we shewed
ourselves displeased at their rude Violence, they paid us with a Jeer,
_What_, said the Labourers, _will you bow down to worship this Statue, as
you ~Christians~ used to do to yours?_
From _Nice_ we continued our Journey to a Place called _Jenysar_. From
_Jenysar_ to _Ackbyuck_, from _Ackbyuck_ to _Bazargyck_, from _Bazargyck_
to _Bosowick_, otherwise called _Cassumbasa_, seated in the narrowest
Streights of Mount _Olympus_; for almost all our Way from _Nice_
thither, lay through the Cliff of that Mountain. At _Nice_ we lodged in
a _Turkish_ Inn, or Hospital, and just against it was a Rock, standing
on high Ground, wherein there was a square deep Trench cut, and from the
Bottom thereof there issued out a Canal, that reached to the Highway.
That Trench or Ditch, the ancient Inhabitants of that Place used, in
the Winter Time, to fill with Snow; that so the melted Snow-Water
gently dropping down into the Road, by the fore-mentioned Canal, might
quench the Thirst of parched Travellers. Such Works as these the _Turks_
count _Eleemosynary_ ones; because they are for the publick Benefit and
Advantage of Mankind.
Not far from this Place, on the Right Hand, we saw a Town, called
_Otmanlick_, borrowing its Name, (as I conceive) from _Ottoman_, the
Founder of the _Ottoman_ Family, who lived there.
From those Streights we descended into an open Campaign; and when we came
thither, we lay the first Night in our Tents, whereby the Heat did not so
much incommode us, as otherwise it would have done; the Place was called
_Chiausada_. The most remarkable Things we saw here, was a subterraneous
House, that had no Light, but only what stole in at the Roof: We saw also
that Sort of _Goats_, of whose Hair, (or Fleece, if you had rather call
it so) they make the Shagreen or watered Stuff, called Camlet. If you
would know the Nature of that Creature, I shall not entertain you with a
Flam, but give you the true Description of it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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