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 this defeat, the Turk became very apprehensive, and
determined to lead his army back to his country by the shortest route;
and, to console his soldiers, besides their usual pay, he gave them
another advance, making them a present of the former one which he had
given at his departure. Also he liberated all his slaves that were in the
camp, on the condition that none should abandon him, but should serve him
like the other troops, who are not slaves, and who can do what they like
with their own; he made many other concessions to the captains. The army
having started, we marched along the bank of the river, and the Persians
did the same on the other side, not attempting to cross, but keeping on
their guard, seeing that the Turkish army was still larger than theirs;
nevertheless, as was afterwards reported, Ussuncassano was incited by
his sons and the other commanders to cross the river and attack us, as
we were in flight in consequence of the defeat we had sustained, many
consultations being held about it. At the end of about ten days the
Turkish forces, having turned away from the river, with the city of
Baybret[386] on their right, among the mountains which separate Greater
and Lesser Armenia, took their way towards the north-west, entering
a valley on the route to Trebizond. At the second halt we made after
entering the valley, at the end of August, at the fourteenth hour of the
day, behold the Persians appeared on the mountains on our right.[387]
Then the Turk faced round towards the enemy, and gained the heights, but
first fortified the camp, leaving the brother of the ruler of Scandeloro,
named Eustraf, to guard it and the baggage-waggons. All the arrangements
being made, he marched by the mountains towards the enemy, placing Daut
Bassa Beglerbeg of Natolia, with his whole column, and all those of
Romania who remained from the first rout in the van, Bajesit, the Grand
Turk’s eldest son, being on the right of his father, and Mustafa, the
second, on the left. Thus marching over mountains and rocky ground, we
arrived at a valley on the other side of which the Persians were drawn
up, with a very extended line, opposite which the Grand Turk had his men
arrayed. Then both sides sounded a countless number of naccare, drums,
and other warlike instruments, the noise and din being so great that one
had to hear it to imagine it. The slopes of the valley where the armies
fronted each other were easy of ascent and descent; it was a quarter of a
mile wide and rather long, in a wild situation among mountains.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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