Travels to Tana and Persia : $b A narrative of Italian travels in Persia, in the 15th and 16th centuriesBarbaro, Giosofat
History
Travels to Tana and Persia : $b A narrative of Italian travels in Persia, in the 15th and 16th centuries
Barbaro, Giosofat
Iran -- Description and travel; Voyages and travels
having suffered several other inconveniences, he turned towards Tocat,
and led them at last to the city of Carpeto,[204] where he heard, to
his great comfort, that Ussun Cassano was soon to arrive. The Persian
army entered Giauas in the month of September, and carried fire and
sword through the country far and near, plundering and cutting people to
pieces, to the great terror of the inhabitants, so that every one fled
before this tempest. And passing Arsenga[205] and Tocat, he burnt the
towns and villages everywhere with the same fury, and assaulted and took
Carle, which belonged to the Caramanian.
Mustafà, the son of the Turk, who, with Acomat Pasha, was in Lulla, a
city of Caramania, being alarmed at this, fled towards Cogno:[206] and
removing his mother, sent her to Saibcacarascar,[207] four days’ journey
in the interior, towards Constantinople. But the Persians coming towards
Cogno, the Turk wrote letters to his son that he should retreat, and not
rashly seek to come to blows with the enemy, because any little victory
would raise their courage, and make them attempt anything. On account
of these letters Mustafà, who knew that his father was right, retired
to Cuteia,[208] where he found Daut[209] Pasha, Beglerbeg of Natolia,
making great assemblies of people of war. The Grand Turk then did not
think it right to linger lest his men, missing his presence, might lose
spirit and allow the enemy boldly to enter the country and to capture
the strongholds. On this account, having passed into Asia with his whole
court, he expected soon to encounter Ussun Cassano with the Persian army.
But having heard from his spies that the disturbances in those provinces
arose from a captain of Ussun Cassano’s, who, with forty thousand
horse, went plundering, burning, and slaughtering, and who just then
was marching towards Bursia[210] to burn it (the king having remained
behind with the rest of the army), the Turk despatched Mustafà with sixty
thousand of the best cavalry of the army, who moved by forced marches
towards the enemy, desirous of encountering them and of putting a stop
to such devastation. The Persian army being warned of this, commenced a
retreat, knowing themselves to be much inferior in number to the enemy;
and, as they were loaded with booty and made slow progress, four thousand
Turks who pursued at great speed under Armaut,[211] came up with them and
at once attacked, when the Persians, beginning to fight bravely, pressed
them hard, and routed them in a moment, and cut to pieces two thousand
Turks with their leader Armaut. Scarcely was this action over when
Mustafà arrived with the rest of his men, who, closing in one squadron,
attacked the Persians fiercely; while the latter, on their side, resisted
not less courageously. Both parties bore themselves bravely for many
hours, and it is thought that anyhow the victory would have been on
the side of the Persians, if they had not first fought with those four
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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