I Returned From Jerusalem To Aleppo, Where I
Remained Three Months Afterwards, And Then Departed In A Caravan Bound
For Persia.
Passing the river Euphrates, the chiefest of the rivers
which irrigated the terrestrial paradise, when about four days journey
from Aleppo, I entered into Mesopotamia, or Chaldea.
Hence, in two days
journey, I reached Ur of the Chaldees, where Abraham was born, a very
delicate and pleasant city.[246] I remained here four days; and in other
four days journey reached the Tigris, which I also passed, at a place
where it was so shallow that it only reached to the calf of my leg, so
that I waded over a-foot. I then entered into the greater Armenia; and
thence into lower Media, and resided six days in its metropolis,
formerly called Ecbatana, the summer residence of Cyrus the Great, now
called Tauris. More woeful ruins of a city I never beheld, excepting
those of Troy and of Cyzicum in Natolia.
[Footnote 246: Probably Orfa in Diarbekir is here meant. - E.]
From that place I went to Cashbin, called by Strabo, Arsacia, in
higher Media, once the residence of the Tartar prince; four days journey
from the Caspian Sea. From Cashbin, I went in twenty-three days to
Ispahan in Parthia, the residence of the king of Persia; but while I
was there, he was in Gurgistan, [Georgia,] ransacking the poor
Christians of that country with fire and sword. I remained two months at
Ispahan, whence I travelled with a caravan to the eastern India, passing
four months and several days in travelling from that city, through part
of Persia proper, and a large extent of the noble and renowned India, to
the goodly city of Lahore.
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