Roads to Tauris and the Side of Turky they are all fortify’d, and are able to entertain five or six Thousand People, and have a Stock to furnish what Number of Men can come with Provisions; nay, it has been known, that whole armies of the Persians have on their March been furnish’d with Provisions in one of these Caravansera’s, and that they have kill’d 2000 Sheep for them in one Night’s Time.

In this Manner we travell’d to Ispahan, the Capital of Persia, where appearing as Merchants, and with several Camels loaden with Merchandize, we pass’d all Possibility of Suspicion, and being perfectly easy, we continu’d here some Time, sold our Cargoes, and would gladly have remitted the Money to other Places, as for Constantinople in particular; but we found the Turks and Persians have no such Thing as an Exchange, by Bills running between them and other Nations, no, nor between one Town and another.

We were invited here by a sudden Accident to have gone Home by the Caspian Sea and Astracan, so thro’ Muscovy; but I had heard so much of the Barbarity of the Russians, the dangerous Navigation of the Caspian Sea by Reason of the Calms and Shoals, the Hazard of being robb’d by the Tartars on the River Wolga, and the like, that I chose to travel to Constantinople, a Journey through Desarts, over Mountains and Wastes, among so many Sorts of Barbarians, that I would run any Kind of Hazards by Sea, before I would attempt such a Thing again.

It would deserve another History to let you into all the different Circumstances of this Journey; how well I was us’d by some, and how ill by others; nay, how well by some Mahometans, how ill by some Christians: But it shall suffice to tell you, that I am at present at Constantinople; and, tho’ I write this here, I do not purpose to send it to you till I come to Marseilles in France; from whence I intend to go and live in some inland Town, where, as they have, perhaps, no Notion of the Sea, so they will not be inquisitive after us.

I am, &c.

FINIS.

[Transcriber's Notes]

The text was left as close to the original as possible, including obsolete and inconsistent spelling. The transcriber made only a very few changes to the text to correct obvious errors: