all the winter, for no sailor will peril a ship
because we are in haste. But on the approach
of spring, we have secured and armed a galiot
of nineteen pair of oars, and, hoping to reach
Timour's winter quarters before he has left them,
ours is the first vessel that, on the approach of
spring, ventures into the great sea. On Friday,
the eleventh of April, we reach Trebizond.

We push on, after a fortnight's detention
in this city: necessary, because here we
prepare for the long land journey that lies before
us. On Saturday, the twenty-sixth of April,
we set out again, and come, on Wednesday, to
a part of the road where the way is through a
narrow pass with a river on one side, and on the
other side a high rock with a castle full of
thieves upon its top. Here is toll taken, and
at vespers we are at the foot of a castle on a
high hill, called Dorile, where the lord of the
country lives. That worthy comes to us,
accompanied with thirty mounted bowmen. He sits
with us graciously, and tells us that we see how
poor the land is; clearly he must depend for
his living upon what is given him by travellers,
or plundered from his neighbours. He is told
all about his master at Trebizond, vassal of
Timour Beg, to whom we are ambassadors.
"Yes," he says, " that is true; but we have
nothing to live on, therefore you must give
what we demand." Our ambassadors offer him
scarlet and fine linen, and a silver cup. He
requires more, and answers to fair speeches that
words are worth nothing. But for another
piece of camlet, he provides us with a guard of
ten men as far as the land of Assinga, which
belongs to Timour.

Here, the return envoy from Timour, who has
been thus far a quiet comrade, and who wears
a Spanish suit of clothes, becomes a person in
authority, and bursts into activity. At every
town we enter, he commands of the people food,
horses, and men, " and if they do not come, the
people receive such a number of blows with
sticks and whips that it is quite wonderful.
Thus the people of these towns are so severely
punished that they fly when they see a Zagatay
coming. A Zagatay is a man in the host of
Timour Beg of noble lineage." Carpets are
brought out of every house, that we may sit on
them, and before them are placed pieces of
leather upon which the food is laid that they
bring out for us to eat.

On Thursday, the fifteenth of May, we
travel on, and on the following Sunday week
sleep in the Town of Madmen, which is
inhabited by Moorish hermits called Caxixes,
who shave their beards and their heads, wear
rags, and go about singing day and night with
timbrels. On Thursday, the twenty-ninth of
May, we reach the great city called Calmarin,
from which, at a distance of six leagues, we see
the great mountain on which the ark of Noah
rested. This city of Calmarin was the first
city that was built in the world, after the
Flood. Next day, we come to a castle on the
top of a rock, belonging to a widow lady, who
paid tribute for it to Timour. Her husband had
been a robber chief, and when Timour had killed
him, before giving possession to his wife he
caused the castle doors to be pulled off, and
ordered that they never should be replaced, in
order that no malefactors might be again able
there to defend themselves. On Saturday the
road passed at the foot of Ararat, and here
were the league-long ruins of a city, of which
also the people of the region said that it was
the first built after the Flood. So, on by
rock, castle, and plain, sleeping sometimes in
the plain near tents of the wandering Zagatays,
until we come to the city of Khoi, where the
land of Upper Armenia ends, and the land of
Persia commences. Here, we find an ambassador
to Timour from the Sultan of Babylon,
who had sent with him twenty horses and fifteen
camels laden with presents, besides six rare
birds and a giraffe.

The heat now was so great, that we could not
travel in the daytime, and the insects were such
as the beasts could not endure, so that there
came from them so much blood, that it was
quite wonderful. But on Midsummer-day we
were met by a messenger from the eldest son of
the lord Timour, desiring us to ride as fast as
we could to a plain where he was encamped.

Two leagues beyond Teheran, we passed a
great city in ruins, once the largest in the land.
We were feasted on the road, according to the
custom of the land, with horses roasted and their
tripes boiled, the ambassadors receiving many
gifts of robes and horses. Gifts had to be
presented in return. A favourite grandson of
Timour's, who was passed on the way, begged
one of the falcons we were carrying, and it was
given to him.

The hot wind blew as from a world on fire
upon the day of our coming to Damghan,
in the province of Media. Outside this city,
were two towers, so high that a man could
scarcely throw a stone to the top of them. They
were made of mud and the heads of men; and
there were two other such towers fallen to the
ground. The heads were those of the White
Tartars whom Timour had defeated and killed.
He ordered that these four towers should be
built of their heads, plastered together with
mud. He also ordered that every White Tartar,
wherever he might be found, should be put to
death, and so it was done. Along the roads, in
one place ten, and in another twenty, of their
bodies might be seen. The people of the city
say that they often see lights burning on the
top of those towers in the night.

Travelling by night because of the great heat,
all of us greatly wearied and some very ill, we
came, on Sunday, the twentieth of July, to the
city of Vascal, where a great knight waited, by
order of Timour, to do us honour. He desired us
to come to him after dinner. We replied that we
could not walk, and trusted that he would excuse
us, but he sent again to say that we should come.
Horses were then sent to us, with word that we
should proceed on our journey, as it was the
command of the great lord Timour that we
should follow him as quickly as possible, by night