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Isfahan
Source: Olearius

Ere we leave the city of Ispahan [=Isfahan], which is now the metropolis of the whole kingdom of Persia, it will not be amiss [if] I gave the reader an account of what I found therein worthy my observations during our abode there for the space of five months, and to give here such a description thereof as he must expect to be so much the more full and particular inasmuch as there is not any author who hath hitherto written of it, hath done it with exactness enough to satisfy even a mean curiosity.

[I have omitted a paragraph on the history of the name ‘Isfahan’.]

This city lies in the province of Erak [=Iraq] or Heirack[1], which is the ancient Parthia, in a spacious plain, having on all sides at about three or four leagues[2] distance a high mountain which compasses it like an amphitheater, at thirty-two degrees, twenty-six minutes latitude, and eighty-six degrees, forty minutes longitude; and I have observed, that the needle declined there seventeen degrees from the north towards the west.  It hath, toward the south and south-west side, the mountain of Demawend[3]; and on the north-east side, towards the province of Masanderan [=Mazandaran], the mountain of Jeilak-Perjan.  The author of the French book, entitled Les Estats & Empires, puts it in the province of Chuaressen [=Khurasan]: but he is mistaken, for Khurasan is a province of the Usbeques, Tartars, at 43. degrees latitude, and lies at a great distance from that of Iraq.

If you take in all its suburbs it will be found that it is above eight German leagues in compass, in so much that it is as much as a man can do to go about it in one day.  The city hath twelve gates, whereof there are but nine open; above eighteen thousand houses, and about five-hundred thousand inhabitants.[4]  The walls of it are earth, low and weak, being below two fathoms, and above but a foot thick, and its bastions are of brick but so poorly flanked that they do not anyway fortify the city, no more than does the ditch which is so ruined that both summer and winter a man may pass over it dry-foot.  F. Bizarro, and some others affirm that the walls are of chalk; but I could find no such thing, unless it were that in the castle, which hath its walls distinct from those of the city, there are some places which look as if they were whitened or done over with chalk or lime.

The Allahverdi-khan Bridge Source: Sanson

The river Sendurat [=Zayanda-rud] which rises out of the adjacent mountain Demawend runs by its walls on the south and south-west side, on which side is the suburbs of Tzulfa [=Julfa].  Before it comes into the city it is divided into two branches, one whereof falls in the park called Hasartzebib [=Hazarjarib], where the king keeps all sorts of deer, and from the other there is drawn a current of water which passes by channels under ground into the garden of Tzarabagh [=Charar Bagh]. This river supplies the whole city with water, there being hardly a house into which it comes not by pipes, or so near, as that it is no great trouble to them to fill their cisterns of it, which they call haws and burke; though besides this convenience of the river they have wells, the water whereof is as good as that of the river.  Allawerdi-Chan[5], sometime governor of Shiras [=Shiraz], built at his own charge the fair stone bridge which is between the garden of Charar Bagh and the city upon this river, which is as broad in that place as the Thames is at London.

Shah Abbas [r. 1588-1629] had a design to bring into the river of Zayanda-rud that of Abkures [=Kuhrang] which rises on the other side of the same mountain of Demawend; and whereas to bring these two rivers into the same channel there was a necessity of cutting the mountain, he employed, for the space of fourteen years together, above a thousand pioneers at that work.  And though they met with extraordinary difficulties, not only in that they had to do with pure rock which in some places was above two hundred foot deep, but also in regard the mountain being covered with snow for near nine months of the year; they had but three to work in, yet had he the work constantly carried on with such earnestness, that all the khans and great lords sending their work-men thereto, upon their own charges, there was in a manner no doubt made of the success of that great enterprise, since there remained to do but the space of two hundred paces when Shah Abbas died, leaving the consummation of the imperfect work to his successor, who hath as yet done nothing therein.

If Ali, the patron and great saint of the Persians, had lived in that time he might have done Shah Abbas a very great kindness by opening that rock at one blow with his sword and so made way for the river, as he sometime did, according to the relations of the Persians, in the Province of Karabach [=Qarabagh], where he made a passage for the river Aras through the mountain which he opened with his sword and which upon that occasion is to this day called Ali eressi, that is, the Straights of Ali.

The city of Isfahan was twice destroyed by Tamerlane; once, when he took it from the king of Persia; and the other when the said city would have revolted from him, and become subject to its lawful Prince.  Jos. Barbaro, who traveled into Persia in the year 1471 says that about twenty years before, Chotza, who he calls Giausa, King of Persia, desirous to punish this city for its rebellion, commanded his soldiers not to come thence, unless they brought with them the heads of some of the inhabitants of Isfahan; and that the soldiers, who met not every day with men, cut off women’s heads, shaved them, and so brought them to Chotza, and that by this means the city was so depopulated that there were not people enough left to fill the sixth part of it.  It began to recover itself under Shah Ismael II [r. 1576-77] but indeed it was Shah Abbas by translating the seat of his empire from Caswin [=Kazvin] to this city, brought it to the height it is now in, not only by adorning it with many fair, both public and private structures, but also by peopling it with a great number of families which he brought along with him out of several other provinces of the kingdom.

But what contributes most to the greatness of this city is the metschids, or mosques, the market places, the bazaars, the public baths and the palaces of great lords that have some relation to the court; but especially the fair gardens, whereof there is so great a number that there are many houses have two of three and hardly an but hath at least one.

The expenses the Persians are at in their gardens is that wherein they make greatest ostentation of their wealth.  Not that they much mind the furnishing of them with delightful flowers as we do in Europe; but these they slight as an excessive liberality of nature, by whom their common fields are strewed with an infinite number of tulips and other flowers; but they are rather desirous to have their gardens full of all sorts of fruit trees and especially to dispose them into pleasant walks, of a kind of place or poplar, a tree not known in Europe, which the Persians call tzinnar. These trees grow up to the height of the pine and have very broad leaves, not much unlike those of the vine.  Their fruit hath some resemblance to the chestnut while the outer coat is about it; but there is no kernel within it so that it is not to be eaten.  The wood thereof is very brown and full of veins, and the Persians use it in doors and shutters for windows, which being rubbed with oil look incomparably better that anything made of wall-nut tree, nay indeed than the root of it which is now so much esteemed.

All things in their gardens are very delightful but above all their fountains.  The basins, or receptacles, of them are very large and most of marble or free-stone.  There are belonging to them many channels of the same stone which convey the water from one basin to the another and serve to water the garden.  Persons of quality, nay indeed many rich merchants, build in their gardens summer houses or a kind of gallery or hall which is enclosed with a row of pillars whereto they add at the four corners of the main structure so many withdrawing rooms, or pavilions where they take the air, according to the wind then reigning.  And this they take so much delight in, that many time these summer houses are handsomer built and better furnished than those wherein they ordinarily live.  ‘Tis true, their great-men’s houses and palaces are very magnificent within; but there is not anything so ugly without in regard most of their houses are built only of earth or brick baked in the sun.

Their houses are in a manner square and most have four stories, accounting the ground-room for one.  They call the cellar, and such places belonging to a house as are under ground, sirsemin; the ground-rooms of the house, chane; the first story, kuschk; the second, tzauffe; and the third, kesser; and they call the open halls, eiwan.  Their windows are commonly as big as their doors, and in regard their buildings are not very high; the frames ordinarily reach up to the roof.  They have not yet the use of glass, but in winter they cover the frames of their windows, which are made like lattices, with oiled paper.

There is also little wood in Persia, I mean in most of its provinces that not being able to keep any great fire they make use of stoves, but they are otherwise made than those of Germany.  In the midst of their low-rooms they make a hole in the ground of about the compass of an ordinary kettle which they fill with burning coals or charcoal, and put over it a plank or little low table covered with a large carpet.  Sitting according to their custom, upon the ground, they thrust their feet under the table and draw the carpet over their body up to the breast so as that the heat is thereby kept in.  Some may pass away the night also thus accommodated and so they procure a very natural heat with little fire, and they imagine it to be the more wholesome in that it troubles not the head, which in the mean time hath the benefit of a fresh and healthy air.  They call [these] kind of stoves, tenuer, and that the brain might not be offended by vapors, which charcoal commonly sends up into the head, they have certain passages and conduits under ground through which the air draws them away.  Persons of mean quality, and such as are saving, dress their meat with these tenuers and make use of them instead of an oven, and bake bread and cakes over them.  There is not a house in Isfahan but hath its court which a man must cross ere he comes into the house.

They say that heretofore, the streets of Isfahan were so broad that twenty horse might have rid a-breast in any of them.  But now, especially since the city began to be repeopled in the time of Shah Abbas, they husbanded their ground better, especially in the heart of the city near the Maidan [=Maydan] and the bazaar, insomuch that the streets are become so narrow that if a man meets a mule-driver, whom they call charbende, that is, a servant to look to the asses, who many times drives twenty or more before him, he must step into some shop and stay there till they be all passed by.  All the streets abutting upon the Maydan are very narrow, but the Maydan, or marketplace, though it hath shops all about it, is so large that I cannot imagine there is any in Europe comes near it.

This marketplace is seven hundred foot long, and two-hundred and fifty broad[6].  All the houses about the Maydan are of equal height and all built of brick having their shops vaulted: where you have on the side towards the king’s palace: goldsmiths, lapidaries, and druggists; and opposite to them, those merchants who see all sorts of stuffs of silk, wool, and cotton, and the taverns where they tipple and sell all sorts of provisions.  All these houses are two stories high and have all their eiwans, or open halls.  The market-place is planted all about with a kind of trees, called scimscad, which is somewhat like box, but they are much higher and the branches being perpetually green they are so cut that the shops are to be seen between the trees and make a very delightful prospect.  But it is not one of the least ornaments of their Maydan that [of] the rivulet, which runs at the foot of these trees in a channel of free stone, raised two foot from the ground all about the market-place.

Tradesmen do not work at all themselves, but have their slaves and apprentices who do all the main work at their houses, while the master’s business is only to sell his commodities in shops appointed for that purpose at the Maydan in a great vaulted gallery built with arches, or in the streets abutting upon it where every trade hath its particular quarter assigned it, or haply in a street appointed for that particular commodity and where they permit not the selling of any other.  The observance of which order, in regard the Persians are very neat in all they do, makes so delightful a show that I have not seen anything like it.  At the end of this gallery there are two balconies covered over head opposite one to the other where their music, which consists in timbrels, hawboys [?], and other kind of instruments which they call kerenei, is to be heard every night at sunset, as also when the king, either going out of the city or coming into it, passes through the Maydan.  They have this kind of music in all the cities of Persia which are governed by a khan and they say Tamerlane first introduced that custom which hath been observed ever since.

The king’s palace is upon the Maydan.  The Persians call it Dowlet-Chane or Der Chane Schach and there lie before the gate several great pieces [i.e., canons] of all sizes, but most such as require 36 or 48 pound bullet, very rough cast, without carriages and lying upon beams so as that no use can be made of them.  Nicholas Hem, a Hollander who traveled into Persia in the years 1623 and 1624, says that these pieces were brought thither from Ormus, and that they secure the avenues of the place; but as I said before it is impossible they should be discharged.  Nay, the palace itself hath no fortifications and is compassed only by a high wall.  In the day time there are but three or four upon the guard and in the night there are fifteen at the gate, and about thirty within the king’s apartment.  These last are all persons of quality and sons of khans of whom some stand sentry, and the rest walk the round, and they all lie upon the ground in the open air.  This guard hath its kischiktzi, or particular captain, who every night delivers the king a list of their names who are upon the guard, that he may know whom he may confide in and by what persons he is served.

Over the first gate there is a great square structure which hath large windows on all sides, and we were told that within it was carved all over and gilt.  The other principal apartments of this great palace are the tab chane, which is a spacious hall where the king treats all the great lords of his court and entertains them at dinner upon the day of their Naurus, which is the first day of their year; the divan chane[7] which is the ordinary place where all appeals are tried and where the king commonly gives audience to the ambassadors of foreign princes, as we said elsewhere, which is done, partly upon this accompt, that this edifice having a great court adjoining to it, into which it looks, the king may have the convenience of showing the ambassadors some of his best horses and his other pieces of magnificence as he did at our first audience.  The haram chane which is a hall wherein the cassaha [=khassa], that is the king’s concubines, who are always shut up in several apartments, have their meetings to dance before him and to divert him with their musicians who are all eunuchs;[8]  the deka, or the place of the king’s ordinary residence where he lodges and eats with his lawful wives.  All these halls have belonging to them several chambers, closets, galleries, and other necessary apartments for the lodging and divertissement of so powerful a prince and so great a number of ladies who are all with him within the same palace, wherein there is not any considerable apartment but hath its particular garden.

The Palace Gate Source: Sanson

At the entrance of the King’s palace, and about forty paces from the outer gate, on the right hand side there is another gate which gives a privilege to the whole place and makes the sanctuary we spoke of before, called by the Persians Alla-Capi [=Ali Qapu, or Sublime Porte], that is, God’s gate.  All those who stand in fear of imprisonment, whether upon a civil or criminal accompt, find here an assured sanctuary and refuge, even against the king’s displeasure, and may live there till they are reconciled to their adversaries, if they have to do with private men, or obtained their pardon of the king, provided they have wherewithal to submit.  Murderers and assassins participate of the same privilege; but the Persians have so great an aversion for theft, as accounting it a base and infamous crime, as it really is, that they permit not thieves, if they do come in, to stay there many days.  At the time of our travels, we found in this sanctuary a sultan who having either through misfortune or his own ill conduct lost the king’s favor, and being in fear of losing his life, was got in thither with all his family and lived in tents which he had set up in the garden.

Behind the king’s palace lies the castle, which they call Taberik Kale.  It serves for a citadel, which is the signification of the word kale, and it is fortified with a rampier and several bastions of earth, which being very sharp above, Nicholas Hem (whom I have found in all things else the most exact of any that have written of the city of Isfahan) took them for towers.  The king does not live in it, but there is a governor who hath the command of it, and a strong garrison within it which is kept there for the security of the treasure, the arms, and ammunition of war, that are within it, though all the artillery consists only in some field-pieces.

On the other side of the Maydan, in a by-street, there is another sanctuary which is called Tschehil Sutun [=Chihil Sutun], upon occasion of the forty beams which prop the roof of the structure, and which all rest upon one pillar, which stands in the middle of the metschid, or mosque.  Into this sanctuary there got a great number of the inhabitants of Isfahan when Tamerlane punished the rebellion of this city.  For though he had no great sentiments of piety, yet did he discover a certain respect for the places he accounted sacred; and accordingly he spared all those who took refuge in the mosque, but ordered all the rest to be cut up in pieces and commanded the walls of the court belonging to it to be pulled down.  But Shah Ishmael had them built up again, and made the place a sanctuary.[9]

Towards the south part of the Maydan stands that rich and magnificent mosque which Shah Abbas began and was almost finished when he died: but Shah Safi had the work carried on at the time of our being there, causing the walls to be done over with marble.  It is dedicated to Mededi, who is the twelfth Imam, or saint, of the posterity of Ali, for whom Shah Abbas had so particular a devotion that he was pleased to build several other mosques after the same model (though much less) at Tauris and other places, in honor of the same saint, wherein he made use of the marble which he had brought from Eruan, which is as white as chalk, and smoother than any looking glass.  But the marble which was spent in the building of the great meschid at Isfahan, is brought from the mountain of Elwend.  The Persians would have it believed that Mehedi is not dead but lies hid in a grot, near Kufa, and that he shall come out thence, some time before the day of judgement, and ride Duldul, Ali’s horse, upon whom he is to go all over the world to convert people to the religion of Muhammad.  Whence this mosque is called Metzid Mehedi Sahebeseman.

To go from the Maydan to this mosque, a man must pass through a great court paved with free-stone at the end where there is, under a tree, a fair cistern wherein those who go to do their devotions in the mosque wash and purify themselves.  Behind this tree there is a pair of stairs by which you go up to the square place, which is much less than the fore-said court, and thence there is it is but a little further to the mosque.  John de Laet[10], taking it from Nicholas Hem, affirms that there is a pair of stairs of thirteen steps to get up to the mosque and that those stairs are cut out of one pierce of marble; but there is no such thing.  The portal is of white marble, and at least as high as that of the Meschaick Chodabende in Sulthania.  The door is covered all over with plates of silver which are gilt in several places.

As you pass through the door you enter into a great court round about which there is a vaulted gallery and in the middle of it a great cistern of free-store built eight square and full of water. Above this gallery there is another, not so high as this, which upper gallery hath, towards the hejat, or court, a row of marble pillars, which in some places are gilt.  A man must cross this court to go into the mosque wherein are the mederab and the cathib, that is, the altar and the pulpit, according to their way.  As you come in you pass under a vault of extraordinary height, done over with glittering stones some blue, some gilt.  It is a vast structure having many niches and chapels which are all upheld by marble pillars.[11]  But the most remarkable thing in all this emerat, is that all the walls, as well those of the gallery, which is in the court, as of the mosque itself, are of marble, (which is most of in white and extremely well polished) but is five or six foot in length and breadth, and they are so neatly put one into the other, that, the junctures being in a manner imperceptible, a man cannot but admire the art of the workman and acknowledge that the workmanship is not to be imitated.  The meherab, or the alter, is all of one piece of marble having on each side a pillar of the same stone, which is also all of one piece.  Besides this mosque, which is the chiefest in all the city and the most sumptuous of any in the whole kingdom, there are in Isfahan many others, but they are much less and there is a too great a number of them for us to undertake to give here a more particular description thereof.

In the midst of the Maydan there stands a high pole, much after the manner of those that are set up in several cities of Europe, to shoot at the parrot, but, instead of a bird, they set on top of it a little melon, an arpus, or an apple, or haply a trencher with money upon it; and they always shoot at it on horseback and that riding in full speed.

The king himself is sometimes pleased to make one, among the inhabitants, when they are at that sport, or sends some of his chiefest lords to do it; and commonly there are very considerable sums laid.  The money which falls down with the trencher belongs to the king’s foot-men and he who carries away the prize is obliged to make a feast for all the company; nay for the king himself if so be he hath shot among them.  They play there also at a certain game, which the Persians call Kuitskaukan, which is a kind of mall or cricket; but they play at this also on horse-back and strike the bowl to the end riding in full speed.  They also often exercise themselves at the tzirid, or javelin; there we have described elsewhere.  And in regard the Persians hath the best horses in the world, and that the Persians are very curious about them, they many times lay wagers on their swiftness, and ride them between the two pillars which are at both ends of the Maydan.  When the king is only a spectator of the sport, he sits in a little wooden lodge, called scanescin, which is at one of the Maydan, set on four wheels, for the more convenient removal of it from one place to the other.

On the other side of the Maydan, over against the great mosque, are the wine taverns and other drinking-houses whereof we spoke before.  There are several kinds of them.  In the scire  chanes, they sell wine; but those who have the least tenderness for their reputation will not come into those places which are infamous and the common receptacles of a sort of people who divert themselves there with music and the dancing of some of their common drabs, who having, by their obscene gestures, excited the brutalities of the spectators, get them into some corner of the house or draw them along into some public places, where they permit the commission of these abominations as freely as they do that of ordinary sins.

In the Tsia Chattai Chane, they drink thè, or tea, which the Persians call tzai, though the tzai, or the cha are probably but a kind of thè, and the chattai, in as much as it is brought them from chattai: we shall have occasion to speak more of it hereafter.  They are only persons of good repute who drink of this, and frequent these houses, where in the intervals of their drinking they spend the time at a certain game somewhat like our Tick-Tack, but they commonly play at chess, at which they are excellent and go beyond the Muscovites, whom I dare affirm to be the best gamesters at chess of any in Europe.  The Persians call this game Sedrentz, that is, Hundred-cares, in regard those who play at it are to apply all their thoughts thereto; and they are great lovers of it, inasmuch as from the word Shah, whence it hath its name, they would have it believed it is of their invention.  Some years since, there was published in Germany, a great volume, upon the game of chess, wherein the author, too easily crediting Olaus Magnus[12], would have it believed that the ancient Goths and Swedes put those to play at chess who were suitors to their daughters, that by their management of that game, which hath no dependence on fortune, they might discover the judgement and disposition of their pretend sons in law.  But these are only fables as is also what is related of one Elamaradab, King of Babylon.  The governor of this prince was so tyrannical, as the story at least would have it, that no body thinking it false, to represent to him the dangers whereto his cruelties exposed the state and his own person, one of the lords of his council, named Philomester, invented the game of chess, which instead of openly opposing the sentiments of the tyrant, discovered to him the duty of a prince towards his family and subjects, by showing him the removals of the several pieces, by the representation of two kings, encamped one against the other, with their queens, their officers and soldiers; and that this wrought a greater impression on the king than all the other remonstrance that could have been made to him.

The Cahwa Chane are those places where they take tobacco, and drink of a certain black water, which they call cahwa [=coffee]: but we shall treat of both hereafter in this very book when we shall have occasion to speak of the Persians manner of life.  Their poets and historians are great frequenters of these places and contribute much to the divertisement of the company.  These are seated in a high chair in the midst of the hall, whence they entertain their auditors with speeches and tell them satirical stories, playing in the mean time with a little stick with the same gestures and after the same manner as those on who show tricks of legerdemain among us.

Near these taverns of drinking-houses are the shops of surgeons and barbers, between which trades there is a great difference in Persia, as there is within these few years in France.  The former, whom they call tzerrach, only dress wounds and hurts; and the others, named dellak, only trim unless they sometimes are employed about circumcision.  These barbers are much taken up, for there is not a man but is shaved, as soon as any hair begins to appear; but there is not, on the other side, any who carries not this razor about him, for fear of getting the pox, which they are extremely afraid of, because it is very common among them and very contagious.

As you go to the Maydan, on the same side and turning on the right hand, you come to the bazaar, or true market-place, and in the midst of the market-place [there is] the kaiserie, or kind of open cloister where are sold all the richest stuffs and commodities that the kingdom affords.  Over the gate of the structure, there is a striking clock made by an Englishman named Fesly, in the time of Shah Abbas: and in regard, that then there were few lords that had watches the Persians looked on the motions of that work as a thing miraculous and supernatural.  This English clock-maker had met with the same fate as Rodolf Stadler, and had been cut into pieces by the friends of a Persian, whom he had killed and the clock had been out of order ever since his death.[13]

The Bazaar Source: Chardin

This market-place consists of several streets, covered over head, and is so full of shops, and those shops so full of all sorts of merchandises, that there is nothing, though ever so rare in the world, which is not to be had here and at a very reasonable rate.  For indeed there is nothing dear at Isfahan but wood and provisions inasmuch as there is no forest near it nor meadows for the feeding of cattle.

Of all the shops I saw at Isfahan, I was not pleased so much with any as that of a druggist who lived in the Maydan on the left hand as you go to the Metzid, by reason of the abundance of the rarest herbs, seeds, roots and minerals it was furnished with.  The root tzinae (not chinæ) which the Persians call bich tzini, and rhubarb, which they call rawentzini, and is brought thither from Chinæ, and great Tartary, were not worth here above three Abbas’s, or a crown the pound.

There is not any nation in all Asia, not indeed almost of Europe, who sends not its merchants of Isfahan, whereof some sell by wholesale and other by retail by the pound and the ell[14].  There are ordinarily about twelve thousand Indians in the city, who have (most of them) their shops near those of the Persians in the Maydan, and their merchandises in the caravansaries, where they have their habitations and their store-houses.  Their stuffs are incomparably fairer and their commodities of greater value than those of Persia; inasmuch as, besides the musk and amber grease, they bring thither great quantities of pearls and diamonds.  I observed that most of these Indosthans [=Indians], had, upon the nose, a mark of saffron, about the breadth of a man’s finger; but I could never learn what that mystery signified.  They are all Mahumetans [=Muslims] of pagans: they burn the bodies of their deceased friends and kindred, and in that ceremony the use only the wood of the Mesch-Mesch, or apricot-tree.  But of these, a particular account will be given in the travels of Mandelslo into the Indies.  Besides these Indians, there is at Isfahan a great number of Tartars from the provinces of Khurasan, Chattai, and Bukhar; Turks, Jews, Armenians, Georgians, English, Dutch, French, Italians and Spaniards.

The city is supplied with provisions out of the other provinces of the kingdom.  Out of that of Kirman, there are brought, in the winter time, fat sheep, and, in summer, lambs, which are sold, at Isfahan, at nine or ten Abbas’s a piece: for the very skin is worth five or six, upon the account of the fur, which is very precious there.  The province of Kilan [=Gilan] furnished it with rice; and those of Kendeman, Tasum, Ebarku, and Jeschi, though they lie at a great distance, with wheat and barley.  Wood and charcoal are sold here by the pound, the wood near half a penny, and the charcoal a penny a pound, in regard they are forced to bring it from Mazandaran and Jeilak-Perjan.

[I have transposed a section on money to further down.]

The great trade of the city of Isfahan hath obliged the king to build there a great number of caravansaries.  These are spacious store-houses, built four-square and enclosed of all sides with a high wall for the security of foreign merchants who have their lodgings in them, as also for that of the commodities they bring thither.  They are two or three stories high and have within, many conveniences, courts, chambers, halls, and galleries.

Among other public structures, we may well take notice of the two monasteries of Italian and Spanish monks which are in the most northernly quarters of the city and about a thousand paces distant one from the other.  One is the convent of the Augustine monks whereof we have spoken before; but the other is inhabited by certain Carmelites, who are Italians, and though they were but ten in all, yet one may boldly affirm that those of this order have not another convent in any part of Europe.  Their prior’s name was F. Tinas, and he was, at our being there, very ancient, a good man, and of free disposition, as were also the other monks, who live among the infidels much more orderly than they do elsewhere.  We are obliged to acknowledge their civilities, especially those among us who having the advantage of the Latin tongue could converse with them.  We never visited them but they treated us with a collation and dismissed us extremely obliged to them for their kindness, as in other things, so particularly, in the instructions they gave us how we ought to behave ourselves during our abode in Persia.  They presented M. Hierome Imhof (a senator of Nuremberg, and one of the chief gentlemen belonging to the embassy, who is now in Germany, in a court much different from that of Shah Safi) with a very fair Italian and Persian lexicon which he promises to publish with the Latin, since by him added to the other two languages.  They did me, in particular, the favor, to afford me refuge in their convent, to protect me against the persecutions of the Ambassador Brugman, and to get my letters conveyed into Germany, with much safety and speed.[15]

At the time of our being there they were also beginning to build a convent for certain French Caupcins, who had bought a place for that end within a quarter of a league of the monastery of the Augustines.  They were but three in all, who seemed to be very good people and had attained some learning.  They had finished the chapel and were then upon the dormitory, which had adjoining to it a kitchen-garden and a vineyard, with much likelihood they would not give over building with that.

The Skull Tower Source: Sanson

Between this last monastery and that of the Carmelites, are the king’s stables, near which there is a pretty high tower, which is all built of earth and the horns of stags and ahus.  They say that Shah Tamasp I [r. 1524-1576], having killed two thousand of those beasts at one hunting, employed their horns in that building in memory of so remarkable a defeat, and that he therewith made that tower which they call keleminar.

The parts adjacent to the city, are not unsuitable to the sumptuousness of its structures, and the greatest of so famous a metropolis.  The king’s gardens, which they call Charar Bagh, is no doubt one of the noblest in all the world.  It is above half a league in a perfect square and the river Zayanda-rud, which hath spacious walks on both sides of it, divides it into a cross, so as that it seems to make four gardens of it.  At one of its extremities towards the south there is a little mountain divided into several alleys which have on both sides steep precipices, in regard that the river, which they have brought up to the top of the mountain, does thence continually fall down by channels into basins which are cut within the rock.  The channels were about three foot broad and were cut upon every side so as that the water falling directly down, and with a great noise into the basin, extremely delighted both the ear and the eyes.  No basin but the water fell into it and upon every alley there was a basin of white marble which forced the water into diverse figures.  All the water about the garden fell at last into a pond which in the midst of it cast up water forty foot high.  This pond had at the four corners of it so many larger pavilions whereof the apartments were gilt within and done with foliage, there being a passage from one to another by walks, planted with tzinnar trees, whereof there being millions, they made the place the most pleasant and delightful of any in the world.

The fruit trees are not to be numbered, and there are of all sorts which Shah Abbas, who began this garden, had sent for not only out of all the provinces of the kingdom, but also out of Turkey and the Indies.  Here you have all sorts of apples, pears, almonds, apricots, peaches, pomegranates, citrons, oranges, chestnuts, walnuts, filberts, gooseberries, etc., besides a great many not known in Europe.  We saw there a kind of grape which they call hallague, of the bigness of a mans thumb, which had no stone [=seed], but the skin and meat firm and of admirable taste.  This garden is kept by ten master-gardeners who have each of them ten men to work under them; and there is this further convenience in it, that when the fruits are fit to eat, they permit any that have a mind to go into it and to eat what they please of the fruits, paying four kasbeki, or two pence a piece; but they are forbidden to carry any away.

The city hath, on all sides, very large suburbs, which they call abath, whereof the fairest and most considerable is that which is called Julfa, wherein there are twelve churches and above three-thousand houses, equal in point of building to the best in the city.  The inhabitants of this quarter are Armenians, Christians, and most of them merchants and rich men, whom Shah Abbas brought out of great Armenia, and planted in this place.  They pay the king but two hundred tumans, by way of tribute, which amount to about thousand livers, which sum their daroga, who in our time, was called Chosrou Sulthan, and the Calanter, Seferas-beg, are obliged to bring into the king’s coffers.

On the other side of the river Zayanda-rud, lies the suburbs of Tabrisabath, where live those who were translated thither out of the province of Tauristhan by Shah Abbas; upon which accompt, it is sometimes called Abbasabath.

The suburbs of Hasenabath is the ordinary habitation of the Tzurtzi, that is to say the Georgians, who are also Christians, and most of them merchants and wealthy men, as the Armenians, as well by reason of the trade they drive within the kingdom, as in all other places abroad.  They delight much in making voyages, especially to the Indies and into Europe, insomuch that most of the merchants who come to Venice, Holland, and other places, and who are there called Armenians, are of this nation.  Not that the Christians, whether Armenians, Georgians, or others, are not permitted to live within the city; but their living in there remote quarters proceeds from the desire they have to settle themselves in a place where they might live quietly and enjoy the freedom of their conscience.  For the Persians do not only suffer them to inhabit any where, since they have a particular quarter assigned them within the city of Isfahan behind the Metzit Mehedi, in a place which they call Nessera; but they have also an affection for them, as well upon accompt of the advantage they make by trading with them and consequently the cultivation of vineyards.  But the Persians, who are so given to wine, that it were impossible they should forbear it, imagine they commit no great sin in the drinking of wine, though it be done even to excess, provided their vineyards are dressed by Christian.  The Armenians are expert enough at all things requisite to the ordering of the vines, but they understand nothing of the making or preserving of wine.  They are no lovers of white wine, insomuch that when it hath not stood long enough in the vat, or is not high colored enough to their fancy, they pour into it a little brazil-wood or saffron to heighten its color.  They do not keep it in buts or tuns, but either in great earthen pots or fill therewith the whole cellar without using any vessel at all.

An Old Inhabitant of Persia Source: Herbert

There is yet a noble part of the suburbs towards the west-side of the city, named Kebrabath, deriving its name from a certain people called Kebber, that is to say, infidels, from the Turkish work kiaphir, which signifies a renegat [renegade?].  I know not whether I may affirm they are originally Persians since they have nothing common with them but the language.  They are distinguished from the other Persians by their beards which they wear very big as also by their habit which is absolutely different from that of the others.  They wear over their waste-coats a cassock, or coat, which falls down to half the leg and is open at the neck and shoulders, where they tie it together with ribbons.  Their women cover not their faces, as those of the other Persians do, and they are seen in the streets and elsewhere, contrary to the custom of those who pretend to live civilly; yet have they a great reputation of being very chaste.

I made it my business to inquire what religion these Kebbers are of, but all the accompt I could have of them was that they are a sort of pagan who have neither circumcision, nor baptism, nor priests, nor churches, nor any books of devotion or morality among them.  Some authors affirm that they have a certain veneration for the fire, as the ancient Persians had; but there is no such thing.  They believe indeed the immorality of the soul, and somewhat consonant to what the ancient Pagans writ of Hell and the Elysian fields.  For when any one of them dies they let a cock out of the house of the party deceased and follow him into the fields without the city, and if a fox take him by the way, they make no doubt but that his soul is saved; but if this experiment take not, they use another which in their opinion is more certain and infallible, which is this.  They put about the deceased person his best clothes, hang several gold chains and jewels about his neck, and rings, and whatsoever else he had of most value of that kind upon his fingers and in his hands, and so dressed he is brought to the churchyard, where they set him standing against the wall and keep him up in that posture by putting a fork under his chin.  If it happens that the crows or any other ravenous birds pick-out his right eye, he is looked upon as a saint, there’s no doubt of his salvation, the corps is buried with ceremonies and is very gently and orderly let down into the grave.  But if the said birds unfortunately make at the left eye, ‘tis an infallible argument of his damnation, they conceive a horror at him as a reprobate, and they cast him headlong into the grave.

There are near and about Isfahan fourteen-hundred and sixty villages, the inhabitants where are all in a manner employed in the making of stuffs and tapestry, of wool, cotton, silk, and brocado.

The fields about the city lie very low, and it seems nature was willing in that to show an effect of her providence, inasmuch as were it not for that convenience the country would not be habitable by reason of the excessive heats which reign there.  For the convenience they derive from this situation is this, that they can make the river Zayanda-rud overflow, when the summer heats have melted the snow on the neighboring mountains and draw it all over the fields.  Johannes de Persia says indeed that the river, falling again into its channel, leaves a slime behind which corrupts the air; but he is mistaken.  For it is certain that some provinces only excepted, which lie upon the Caspian sea, there is not any place in all Persia where the air is more healthy that at Isfahan.

The camels are very revengeful and remember a long time any injury they have received: insomuch that in Persia a camels anger is come into a proverb, when they would speak of an irreconcilable enmity.  As to this particular there is a very memorable example of a camel which being hot and having not the muzzle on, bit a servant who went along by him in the arm.  The servant gave him a many blows about the neck with a cudgel, which part is the tenderest about these creatures.   But the camel had a cruel revenge of him, ere they came to their journey’s end.  For some time after, being got loose in the night, he went among the servants who by reason of the cold lay near the camels that they might thrust their feet under their bellies, and having pitched upon the person that had beaten him, he trod on him so as that all his bones were crushed and broken.  The servant’s father demanded satisfaction and had the camel adjudged him to be disposed of as he pleased.  If anger proceed from choler as its principle, a man may justly wonder whence it comes that Pliny says that camels, horses, and asses have no gall.  Nor could I ever find any reason why the same Pliny should affirm, after Xenophone[16], that camels have an aversion for horses.  When I told the Persians of it, they laughed at me and said it that it was not without reason camels have an aversion for horses; when many times horses may get into the stables and have a house over their heads, whereas the camels, which cannot get in by reason of the lowness of the doors, are forced to lie abroad and to suffer the horses to take up their quarters.  And indeed there hardly goes any caravan but a man may see camels, horses, and asses put up together in the same stable, yet express not any aversion or animosity one against another.

True indeed it is that the females go twelve months, but those are extremely misinformed who believe that the male, when he covers her, turns his hinder part to her.  This mistake took its rise hence, that the camels, when they make water [i.e, urinate], put their yards backwards between their hinder legs, but in the work of generation they use them otherwise.  The female lies down upon her belly and the male covers her after same manner as horses do.  And though this creature be of a great bulk, yet is not its generative member, which is as at least three foot in length and thicker than a man’s little finger.  This animal is seldom eaten, as being more serviceable in point of work; but when they fall under their burdens, or in case they be stung by one of the moheres, they kill them with two thrusts into the throat: one at the place where it joins to the head, the other towards the breast, and then they them.

There are [an] abundance of horses in Persia, most of them well made.  They are very handsome about the head, neck, ears, crupper, and legs.  Media bred heretofore such excellent horses that they were all kept for the king.  The horses of those parts are at this time very good ones, and there are of an excellent breed in the province of Erscheck, near Ardebil; but it is with-all certain that the Arabian horses are incomparably better, and accordingly more esteemed by the king, who makes them the chiefest ornament of his stables.  Next [to] those, they most value those of Turkey, though the king hath good breeding places in several provinces of his kingdom, especially in Erscheck, Shirvan, Karabug, and Mokan, where is the best meadow-grounds in Persia.  They make use of them for the most part for men’s riding, very seldom for the carriage of commodities, and never almost in the cart, which, all over Persia, hath but two wheels.  And whereas the main forces of the kingdom consist in their cavalry, it thence comes that they are great lovers of horses and very tender in the keeping of them.  Yet with all this care, do they not make use of straw for litter, but of horse-dung, which they dry in the sun and make beds of it a foot deep for the horses, which could not lie more at their ease upon quilts.  This litter serves them a long time, and when it is moistened with stale they put it into the sun, dry it again, and so continue to make use of it.  With their soft beds they also cover them with a hair-cloth, lines with a king of soft coarse cloth.  They also fasten them by the hinder feet, to a stake, that, in case they should break of slip their halters, they may not get away, or hurt the other horses.  All the manage they bestow on them consists only in accustoming them to start away, as lightning, at the beginning of a race, and they call those horses which exceed in swiftness, bad-pay, that is, windy-heeled.  If their horses be white or gray, they color the main and the tail, and sometimes also the legs, with red or orange; wherein the Polanders and Tartars are wont to imitate them.  They do not in any thing make so great ostentation of their expense, as in what is employed about the harness of their horses, which they sometimes cover with plates of gold or silver and adorn the reigns, saddles and covering clothes with goldsmiths work and embroidery.  Yet is not this custom of so late a beginning, but that there may somewhat of this kind be observed out of the most ancient authors of the Greek history.

They have also a great number of mules, which for the most part are used only for riding.  The king himself and the khans ordinarily ride upon these, and they stood us in good steed when all other kind of riding had been very troublesome to us in our sickness.  They yield as good rate as horses, so that a mule (though none of the best nor very handsome) is sold at least for a hundred crowns.  I was told there were some white ones, but they are very rare and highly valued; and I must confess, I never saw any.

Asses are very common all over the East, but in Persia more than anywhere, and especially at Isfahan, where there is an infinite number of them, in regard they allow not carting within the city.  Those who drive them have at the end of their whip a great bodkin fastened with a chain, wherewith they make a noise and are perpetually pricking of this creature, which seems to be more cold and heavy in this country than anywhere else.

SILK PRODUCTION [transposed from pp.312-313]

In the spring, as soon as these trees begin to shoot forth their leaves, the Persians begin to hatch their silk-worms.  To do this they carry the see in a little bag under the arm pit where the heat of seven or eight days hatches them.  Then they put them into a wooden dish upon the mulberry- leaves, which they change at least once a day, having a great care that they be not wet.  At the end of five days they sleep three, and then they dispose them into rooms, or barns, kept very clean and prepared for that purpose, and in the province of Gilan they have particular buildings for that end.  Along the beams of these buildings they nail laths, or cleft pieces, such as hoops are made of, upon which they lay the mulberry branches with the leaves on, and put the worms upon them, every day changing these branches, and at least when they are grown pretty big, twice or thrice a day; and they so shut all overtures of the barns, which are covered with nets, that the very birds cannot get in to eat them.  In the mean time (and before they begin to spin) they sleep eight days more; but there must be a great care taken that women troubled with their monthly infirmity come not near them, inasmuch as it would kill them and as it were smother them in their own moisture.  After seven weeks life they begin to spin, which is known as well by their satiety, in regard they then give over eating as by the silk which comes out at their mouths.  They suffer them to work twelve days at their cod, and in the mean time they very carefully watch the place where they spin.  That time expired, they find as many cods as there had been worms, and they make choice of the biggest for the seed.  All the rest is cast into a kettle of boiling water, into which they ever and anon put a besom made for that purpose, whereto the silk sticks and they immediately wind it up, and what remains they cast away.  [It is] that which is kept in a temperate place till the year following.  In this commodity of silk consists the greatest trade of all Persia, nay in a manner of all the East, as it is in effect the most richest and most noble of any that is driven in Europe.