For conveniency of carriage, and accommodations of the journey, his Excellency was furnished with seventy one waggons, which were to attend him to the extreme bounds of the Turkish empire, at the sole charge of the Port. Tho this was but the least mark of esteem, which he received from thence; as it may be reasonably computed, that they presented him to the value of near twenty purses of money, since his last arrival at Adrianople, in the following particulars. For the fitting up of his palace in that city, five hundred dollars: for the cushions and other furniture of two sophá rooms, six hundred: for a stately horse from the grand vizír, five hundred: for the rich furniture of the same, a thousand: for a sable vest at the same time, a thousand: for an horse and furniture from the vizír kayá, five hundred: for the like from the reis effendi, five hundred: for fifteen mules from the government, at about fifty dollars each, seven hundred and fifty: for seventy two horses from the same, at thirty dollars each, two thousand one hundred and sixty: and lastly for one hundred days tain, or allowance, from the Port, at the rate of fifty dollars a day, making five thousand.
This day his Excellency and his retinue travel slowly about the space of fifteen miles, and about three a clock arrive at a small village called Senigée, where we find the waggons disposed in their several stations, the apartments of each company alloted, and three tents (tho not pitched this evening) ready for the service of his Excellency; which I here mention once for all, as being the constant method of each following conáck.
April ix.
From Senigée we proceed this morning in three hours to Cokúck Derocut, and from thence in the like time to Boiák Dervent, where we find his Excellency’s tents orderly and conveniently placed, and all things regularly disposed for this night’s lodging. Here we saw an old Bulgar Christian, named Staón, aged one hundred and twenty years[112]; who told us, that he had all his life time been subject to great and continual sickness, and had three times changed his teeth, once in his infancy, and twice in his old age. They were now for the most part intire, his senses of hearing and tasting very lively, and his sight but little decayed; his beard and his eyebrows lately became perfectly black, but the hair of his head milk white, and the skin of his breast like the bark of an old weather beaten beech.
April x.
We travel this day from Dervent to Jenícui, having hitherto found the country to consist of a level campain, and a soil that promised fertility, were it more happily furnished with inhabitants, water, and wood.
April xi.
We now proceed from Jenícui to Pashácui, so called from the residence of Achmét Gerai Sultan, who is a Tartar prince, happily banished from his own barbarous country to this fair and delightful village, situated in a verdant plain, that is better furnished with wood, than the campain we had lately passed; and watered with a small river, which seems to rise from the bowels of mount Haemus, and bend its course towards the Tunsa.
April xii.
From Pashácui we arrive at Comorwa, a rich well cultivated village, and plentifully supplied both with wood and water. In our way hitherto from Adrianople we sometimes observed drummers, placed in the nature of watchmen, to give notice of the security of the road.