We
Bought Likewise A Tent, Which Was Of Very Great Convenience And Comfort
To Us, And We Furnished Ourselves With Sufficient Provisions, And Beans
For The Horses, To Serve 40 Days.
We had also among us 33 camels laden
with merchandise, paying two ducats for every camels load, and,
according to the custom of the country, they furnish 11 camels for every
10 bargained and paid for.
We likewise had with us three men to serve
us during the journey, _which are used to go for five Dd._[174] a man,
and are bound to serve for that sum all the way to Aleppo.
[Footnote 174: Such is the manner in which the hire of these servants is
expressed in Hakluyt. Perhaps meaning 500 pence; and as the Venetian
_sol_ is about a halfpenny, this will amount to about a guinea, but it
does not appear whether this is the sum for each person, or for all
three. - E.]
By these precautions we made the journey over the desert without any
trouble, as, whenever the camels stopt for rest, our tent was always the
first erected. The caravan makes but small journeys of about 20 miles
a-day, setting out every morning two hours before day, and stopping
about two hours after noon. We had good fortune on our journey as it
rained, so that we were never in want of water; yet we always carried
one camel load of water for our party for whatever might happen in the
desert, so that we were in no want of any thing whatever that this
country affords. Among other things we had fresh mutton every day, as we
had many shepherds along with us taking care of the sheep we had bought
at Babylon, each merchant having his own marked with a distinguishing
mark. We gave each shepherd a _medin_, which is twopence of our money,
for keeping and feeding our sheep by the way, and for killing them;
besides which the shepherds got the heads, skins, and entrails of all
the sheep for themselves. We six bought 20 sheep, and 7 of them remained
alive when we came to Aleppo. While on our journey through the desert,
we used to lend flesh to each other, so as never to carry any from
station to station, being repaid next day by those to whom we lent the
day before.
From Babylon to Aleppo is 40 days journey, of which 36 days are through
the desert or wilderness, in which neither trees, houses, nor
inhabitants are anywhere to be seen, being all an uniform extended plain
or dreary waste, with no object whatever to relieve the eye. On the
journey, the pilots or guides go always in front, followed by the
caravan in regular order. When the guides stop, all the caravan does the
same, and unloads the camels, as the guides know where wells are to be
found. I have said that the caravan takes 36 days to travel across the
wilderness; besides these, for the two first days after leaving Babylon
we go past inhabited villages, till such time as we cross the Euphrates;
and then we have two days journey through among inhabited villages
before reaching Aleppo.
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