Part 6

Without the city of _Halepo_ are abundance of quarries, where they dig great free-stones of a vast bigness, almost as white and soft as chalk, very proper for building: There are also about the town some walks or grotto’s under ground, which are above an _English_ mile long, which have the light let into them by holes made near the highway, so that a man must be very careful (chiefly at night) that he may not fall into them, or that he may not be trapann’d by the _Moors_ that live in them in great numbers. The ground about it being very chalky, it causeth to the soles of our feet, chiefly at night, although one be very well provided with strong shoes, a very considerable driness and heat, as one may also see by the _Moors_, that, for the most part go bare-foot, which causeth the soles of their feet to be so shrifled, that into some of their crevises you may almost put your little finger. Yet notwithstanding that, _Halepo_ is surrounded with rocky hills, and the valleys thereof are chalky; they have no want of corn, as barley, wheat, _&c._ but rather it is very fruitful, and their harvest beginning commonly in _April_ or _May_: But they have but few oats, and less grass or hay; for the driness is so great, and it is so sandy, and the hills are so rough and full of bushes, that they make but very little hay. Wherefore they feed their cattel with barley, and with straw, which is broken in pieces by threshing waggons, that are drawn by oxen. The valley is also full of Olive-trees, so that yearly they make several thousand hundred weight of oil for to make Soap. There is also a great quantity of tame and wild Almond-trees, of Figgs, of Quince, and white Mulberry-trees, which are very high and big: _Pistacies_-trees, which they call _Fistuc_, are hereabout very common; they have underneath very strong stems, which have outwardly an ashen-colour’d bark, and are adorned with handsome leaves of a sad green colour, like unto their _Charnubis_, and behind them grow many small Nuts like Grapes in clusters together. In the spring when they first put out, they send forth long shoots, which the _Moors_ gather in great quantity for their sallad, and dress them as we do Asparagus. There are also abundance of delicate orchards, that are filled with _Oranges_, _Citrons_, _Lemons_, _Adam_’s-_Apples_, _Sebesten_, _Peaches_, _Morelloes_, and _Pomegranates_, &c. and amongst them you find sometimes Apples and Pears, but very few, nor so many sorts, nor so big, nor so well coloured as ours. There grow many Myrtles, which bear roundish berries of the bigness of our _Sorbus_ or Services, of a blewish grey colour, very good to eat, which have white seeds of the shape of our jumping cheese-magots; they propagate them diligently, because they are beautiful, and remain long green, to put about their graves. Moreover there are many _Sumach_-trees, which they plant for their seeds sake, which is much used by them; but _Cherries_, _Amelanchier_ and _Spenleny_ I have not seen there, and very few Goosberries, or Currans; _Weychseln_ they have, but very few, wherefore they esteem them, and keep them choice, as a foreign plant, to shew them to others, and to present great persons with them; this may suffice of trees.

Concerning their garden plants: those that are common, are Endives, Lettice, Keal or Coleworts, Colliflowers, _Cauloropa_, _Rauckelen_, _Apium_, _Tarcon_, whereof _Rhasis_ describeth two sorts, one with long small leaves, by us call’d Taragon, and the other with broad leaves, which I reckon to be our _Lepidium_, by the inhabitants call’d _Cozirihan_. _Ravos Serap_; or our common Hartichokes. But beyond all they plant _Colocasia_ in such plenty as we do Turneps, whereof they have also great plenty. They are also very well provided with Horseraddishes, Garlick, and Onions, which the inhabitants still call _Bassal_. Of _Pumpions_, _Citruls_, and _Cucumis anguinus_, which they call _Gette_, they plant as many as they have occasion for; but many more _Angurien_ an _Indian Muskmillion_, or Water-mellons, which they call _Batiechas_, but _Serap._ _Dullaha_, they are large, of greenish colour, sweet and pleasent to eat, and very cooling, wherefore they esteem them to be their best fruits; but chiefly those, which have more red than white within; they are very innocent and harmless, and keep so long good, that they sell them in their _Batzars_ all the winter long. Moreover, there are three sorts of those plants which the _Arabians_ call _Melanzana_, _Melongena_, and _Beudengian_, as ash-coulour’d, yellow, and flesh-colour’d, which are very like one another in their crookedness and length, and like unto the long Gourds. There are two other sorts, which are call’d _Bathleschain_, _viz._ oblong and round ones, which are much bigger, of a black colour, and so smooth and glaz’d that they give a reflection. They eat these oftener boil’d (chiefly after the way which _Averrhoës_ mention’d) than raw. Without their gardens are two other strange plants, which also (being they eat them commonly with others) may be reckon’d among the Kitchin-herbs; whereof one is call’d by them _Secacul_, which I found about the town in shady places, and among trees, and in the corn; it’s roots are of an ashen colour without, and white within, smooth, mellow or tender, of one inch thick, and one and a half long; it hath instead of fibres, little knobs like unto warts, and a sweet taste, not unlike to our Carrots in stalk, herb or head, saving only the flowers, which are yellow; the herb-women carry them strung upon strings about the streets to sell them. The other sort is also very plentiful, and is found in dry and rough places, which the inhabitants to this day, with _Serapio_, call _Hacub_, whereof he maketh mention in his 295th chapter, under the name of _Hacub Alcardeg_, whereof they cut in the spring the young shoots or sprouts, that grow round about it, boil and eat it as we do Asparagus, corruptly call’d Sparrowgrass; the whole plant is very like to our Carlina, only this hath bigger, higher and more prickly heads, whereon appear flesh-coulour’d flowers. It being that it is every way like it, and that also the root hath the same virtue, for if you steep it in water, and drink of it, it maketh you vomit and fling up; therefore I am of opinion, that without doubt it must be the true _Silybum Dioscorides_; besides this there grow also in the road and on old walls such plenty of Capers, that they are not at all esteem’d; they take these flowers before they open, and pickle them, and eat them for sauce with their meat. I had almost forgot another herb, which I found in their gardens, that beareth roundish smooth stalks about two foot high; the leaves are two and two equally distant from one another, and one above the other; they are long, crenated at the sides, like unto our Mercurialis; between them sprout out in harvest-time yellow flowers, which produce long aculeated cods, which open themselves when they are ripe; within them are six distinctions, and in each of them a little black seed placed in very good order; the herb is of a sower taste, like Sorrel, wherefore it is to every body, chiefly the _Jews_, known, who boil the leaves thereof with their meat to eat them; wherefore some take it to be _Olus Judaicum Avicennæ_, and others take it for _Corchorum Plinii_, whether it be or no I suspend my judgment.

They have abundance of Pulses in these countries, which they feed upon, so that you see several in their _Batzars_ which sell nothing else but them. Among the rest you will find abundance of _Phaseoli_, or Kidney-beans, little and great ones, very white; and many sorts of _Cicer_, which they call _Cotane_, and, with _Avicenna_, _Hamos_. Whereof they have as many as we have Pease in our country, and boil them for their daily food, and oftentimes they eat them raw, chiefly if they be roasted, till the outward shell falls off; they often call for them thus dressed when they are a drinking in their coffee-houses, and have them brought to table with cheese after their meals instead of preserves or fruit, as Cibebs, Hasel-nuts, and the like, for they eat very mellow, and have a fine saltish taste. They dress the _Orobus_ after the same manner, which they call now _Ades_ and _Hades_, but whether right or no I leave to the learned; they are somewhat less and rounder, and not unlike the Cicers in their colour, only that these are reddish and white, and the other white and yellow. These put me still in mind of another strange plant, by the _Arabians_ call’d _Mas_, whose leaves and cods are pretty like our _Phaseolus_, and the cods contain little round seeds, something less than our pease, of a dark green colour, and are so smooth and shining that they reflect again. _Serapio_ maketh mention of them in his 116th chap. under the name of _Mes_. And _Avicenna_ in his 488th chapter under the name _Meisce_; and the very learned and experienced Botanist, _Carolus Clusius_, calleth it, in his _Epitome_ of the _Indian_ plants, by the name of _Mungo_. The _Turks_ love these Pulses very well, chiefly to eat them among their rice. So much I thought convenient to mention here of their Kitchen-herbs and fruits that grow in gardens and about _Aleppo_; of others that belong not to the kitchen I shall make mention hereafter.

In this city of _Aleppo_ the Merchants buy great store of drugs, brought from several parts by the caravans, as _Rheubarb_, _Galbanum_, _Opoponax_, _Styrax_, _Laser_, _Sagapenum_, _Scammony_, &c.

CHAP. VII.

_Of the high places and authority of ~Bashaws~, what great courts they keep, and how they administer their offices; as also of their way of living, of their privileges, of their manners and conversation._

The city of _Aleppo_, which some, considering the name and situation, believe to be the town _Chalibon_ of _Ptolomæus_ situated in _Chalibonitis_, is subject unto the _Turkish_ Emperor, together with all the adjacent places, wherefore he keepeth a _Bashaw_ in it, which is to rule it, and the whole province according to his will and pleasure. Now as the _Bashaws_ are almost the chiefest and heighest under the Emperor, so they keep according to their station and dignity their courts as great as the Princes do in our country, according as they have great or small provinces. So they have under them their chief commanders, as _Sangiacks_, _Bolucs-bashaws_ and others, which are continually with them, go with them to their temples, or any other place where-ever they have a mind to go in great numbers, both on foot and on horse-back, which by their several habits are to be distinguish’d, but chiefly the _Bolusc-bashaws_, who as captains have an hundred Janisaries under them, which in costly cloaths, and high heads with feathers, run on foot like lackies by their master. They have also besides their court, as well as the Emperor himself, peculiar lodgings for their concubines, which they either have pick’d up here and there out of towns and countries, or else taken in time of war by sea and land from Christians and other nations; wherefore they keep many eunuchs to attend them constantly. They take great delight in hunting, and go often several days journeys after it; if they take wild boars, they give them to Christians, because they are by their laws forbid to eat them, which makes the _Turks_, often to mock them in the streets, crying out and calling them _Chansir quibir_, that is, great Boars or Hog-eaters. Although the _Bashaws_ are great persons, that command over cities and countries, yet they are reckon’d to be like others, but slaves to their master, that have nothing of their own that they can bequeath to their heirs or posterity after their decease, as our Princes can; because the Emperor, after their decease, taketh possession of all their visible estates, and allows only to their children an annuity; nay, if their Sultan commands them to go from one place to an inferior one, or to leave their dignity quite and clean, they must obey immediately, if they will not run themselves into greater inconveniences or dangers. This is the reason that such persons, though rich, seldom build great buildings, so that you see none in all the country, except it be a chapel, or a champ, which they build to be remember’d by. They rather keep their riches in gold and silver, which can be hid, and so secretly given to their posterity. They bestow but very little upon jacks, for they are too covetous, neither have they many workmen that are able to set them. These _Bashaws_ being altogether for their own advantage, that strive to get wealth, their subjects must needs suffer very much under them, but chiefly strangers, that live there to traffick, as _Italians_, _French_, &c. whereby between them and the _Bashaws_, that mind their own and not the public good, arise often great differences, and they must have suffer’d great damage, if their sovereigns, to prevent these things, and that their subjects may deal securely, had not taken care to send them discreet and prudent men, which are call’d Consuls, endew’d with great privileges from the Grand Signior, to hear their complaints, and to protect them against any assaulters. It happen’d in my time, while I staid there, that great differences arose between the Consul of _Venice_ and the new _Bashaw_ who was sent thither instead of the deceased one, in the year 1575, the 6th of March, who came in to take possession with a great number of horse and foot. At his arrival, the Consul of _Venice_ went, accompany’d with a great number of merchants in great state, to meet him, to bid him welcome, and presented him with fourteen cloaths richly wrought of silk, desiring him to take his countrymen into protection; that they might trade and deal safely under him. The _Bashaw_ looking upon the cloaths, behaved himself very unkindly, and thinking them to be very inconsiderable, he not only refused them, but answer’d the Consul very scornfully. So it often happens that these great persons come to differ, and pursue their differences so far, that at last it must be brought before the Emperor and his court. If they find that the _Bashaw_ is in the wrong, he is immediately punish’d, not regarding his great authority, according to the default, either in money, or else, if it be a great crime, he must loose his life for it; which is the oftner done, because they depend very much upon traffick, which bringeth the Emperor in yearly a great revenue. Yet notwithstanding they are punish’d so severely, sometimes the pride and ambition of the _Bashaws_ is so great, that to uphold their greatness they will not cease to strive by any means after riches and very great wealth, which their subjects, not to speak of strangers, find daily, whom they squeeze and press, chiefly if they find them rich, to that degree, that they cannot come to any thing, nor thrive under them; moreover they draw, after the decease of their rich subjects, for the most part the greatest share of what they leave, into their own purses; so that such persons do not take pains, nor bestow any great cost to build their houses, or to till their grounds, as we do in our country. They have commonly in market-towns and villages low houses or halls, whereof many are so cover’d with hills, that you cannot see them before you are quite at them. When you come into them, you find neither chairs, nor stools, nor tables, only a couple of pieces of tapestry spread, whereon they sit after their fashion; and instead of feather-beds, whereof they make no use at all, they have mats and quilts, which they fold together in the day, and hang them up in a corner, at night they spread them out again to sleep on them. They have no occasion for sheets to cover themselves as we do, nor for any towels neither, for instead of them they use long pieces of rags, which they hang about their naked necks, or hang them at their girdles. We see sometimes in their houses, above all in the country, several strange shaped earthen vessells, which cover whole sides of the wall in their rooms, which their relations use to present them with at their wedding, which to please them, they use to put up, and to keep there, rather for their remembrance than to make any other use of them. In their kitchen they have very few utensils, perhaps a few pipkins, pans, and trenchers, for they boil all their victuals in one pot together, that their maids may not have many to cleanse, or to put up.

Concerning their cloaths: They bestow not very much upon them, although they be well to pass, for they love money so well, that they will rather spend a whole day in contending for a penny, than pay it willingly. Wherefore a man that will travel through these countries, must have his purse well stored, and keep it very close, that no body may know it’s worth, but chiefly he must have a care of the _Jews_, who are not to be trusted, if you will escape great danger: They will not only do nothing for you without reward, but if they suspect you to have any money, they will endeavour to get it from you. Wherefore those that take a pilgrimage into the Holy Land, and go in pitiful cloaths, are not much troubled by them. The courtiers of the _Bashaws_, and amongst the rest chiefly the eunuchs and dwarfs, _&c._ whereof they have several, go in their taffety and sattin cloaths, which are long, and very well trimmed, wherewith their master furnisheth them, being gifts from others, which he distributeth among them. The Soldiers, _Spahees_, _Janisaries_, _&c._, commonly have blew woollen cloaths from the court, and they live on their pay, that is, four, five, six, seven, or eight _Medins_, (which are about three farthings apiece) more or less (according as their places are) which are paid them daily, as well in peace as in war time: If they can get any thing else, by excursions and fighting from their enemies, it is well for them. The Soldiers commonly wear white turbants on their heads, and so do all _Turks_, and put painted paper underneath them, chiefly when they go into the war, believing if they wear them they cannot be hurt nor wounded. On their turbants they commonly wear cranes feathers, that others may believe them to be valiant soldiers, and that by their number people may guess that either they have been in so many campaigns, or else killed so many _Christians_. Besides these turbants the _Janisaries_ have also hats with high crowns, called _Zarcellus_, made of white felt, which they wear instead of helmets, when they are in waiting, or go out to the war; these have before, on the forehead, a gilded sheath, set without with granats, rubies, _Turkey_-stones, and other jewels, yet of no great value, wherein they put their feathers. They and also other _Turks_ and _Moors_ let no hair grow upon their heads, but as soon as it grows they shave it again, only behind they keep a lock, which hangs down a pretty way; they let their beards grow now, which they used formerly to cut off, so that now for some years they have worn huge great mustachies. In war time they carry musquets, and in peace, chiefly when they are in waiting, their long poles. They are also allow’d to marry, and besides their wives, to keep any they take prisoners in war, or else to sell them to any body. When they are at home they are lovers of wine, and when they can come at it, that no body sees them, they will drink more without mixture than any other nation; but in time of war, when they are in expedition, they can live very sparingly, and will march all day long before they will refresh themselves. Yet to speak the truth, these and almost all Soldiers, because they are as well paid in peace as in war, are no more so ready to take the field, and to change a quiet life for a troublesome one, or a secure one for a dangerous, as they have been in former ages, being used to laziness for a great while together. Besides the power and strength of the _Turks_ is reckon’d much inferior to that of the Christians, for we are better arm’d with muskets and pikes, to keep them off at a distance, that they may not be able to come in with us to club-law, and so over-power us; for if their enemy doth not give way at their first on-set, they turn their backs and run away. But that notwithstanding all this, we gain nothing from the _Turks_, but they rather from us; the reason is, not to mention our manifold transgressions, rather our great divisions and contentions, which hinders us from going out with such an army as is necessary, and we might otherwise do. Wherefore the _Turks_ come out the bolder, to frighten and to plague us, and make use of all sorts of stratagems to amuse us, or to draw us into an ambush by pursuing them, and when they think we are almost tired, they fall upon us with a multitude of fresh men, to surround and to beat us. Nor do they value it, if they loose one regiment or another, because there is enough of them, and they know how to have in the room of the slain others again, that will be very glad to accept of it, because of their pay that they receive daily of their Prince out of his provinces. It being then so that he doth not only maintain his own provinces, but rather gains others, and enlarges his dominions daily, we ought to be very careful; for the more he increaseth the more we are in danger. Thus he taketh one town, country, or kingdom after another with his sword, as we have seen hitherto in _Europe_, not to mention any thing of _Asia_, not without great detriment and damage to all Christians. So he cometh daily the longer the nearer to us, that at length we must expect no better than _Greece_, _Thracia_, _Servia_, _Bosnia_, _Hungary_, and _Wallachia_, &c. which are brought into slavery, under which some persons of quality still groan to this day. So I found at _Aleppo_ an ancient Queen of _Wallachia_ with her sons, whereof the youngest was born after the King his father’s death, who is maintain’d by a very small allowance from the _Turkish_ Emperor. She is a very discreet woman, and well skill’d in the _Turkish_ and _Arabian_ languages. Her subjects still hope for her, that God Almighty will restore her to them again, that so their slavery may have an end.

After the _Turks_ have obtained a great victory, they lift up their hands, thank and praise God, and the prophet _Mahomet_, God Almighty’s dearly beloved messenger; and pray farther, that God may send differences and quarrels among us (that are against the book _Jugilis_, as they call it, that is the book of the Gospel) that the magistrates may quarrel with the subjects, and the Clergy with the Seculars, that from thence may arise such disorders, that we may go on to transgress the laws of God still more and more; that our belief in _Messias_ may be extinguished, and that all good orders and policies may be dissolved: So that God may take from thence occasion to make them farther our punishers to afflict us. And when they see that the rich men oppress the poor, that the magistrates do not protect the just and innocent, but that the chief and heads do strive to ruin one another, then they rejoice at our misfortune and misery, and do not fear us in the least to do them any mischief (which might easily be done if we were unanimous) but rather threaten what mischief they will do us.