Having received his call by a vision of the Prophet, he commenced his travels by excursions through Constantinople and its environs, his topographical descriptions of which, as to the latter, are perhaps the best extant, and occupy the whole of the first volume. The most valuable portion of it is that towards the end, in which he gives a detailed account of the various corporations of tradesmen, and the rank they held in the solemn processions.
He travelled, as he frequently mentions, for forty-one years, so that he must have completed his travels in the year 1081 (A.D. 1670), when he was sixty-one years of age, and he seems to have devoted the rest of his life to repose, and to the writing of his travels, which extended to all parts of the Ottoman empire, in Europe, Asia, and Africa, except Tunis, Algiers, and Tripolis, which he never visited, and which he therefore passes over in his statistical account of the Ottoman empire. Besides travelling in Rumelia, Anatolia, Syria, and Egypt, he accompanied the Turkish Embassy to Vienna in 1664, as secretary, whence he proceeded to the Netherlands and Sweden, and returned by the Crimea. Though generally employed in diplomatic and financial missions, he was sometimes engaged in battles, and mentions having been present at twenty-two; the first of which was the expedition to Eriván, which took place the same year in which he entered and left the Seraglio (1645). His father, who had been standard-bearer at the siege of Siget (1564), and must at this time have been nearly ninety years of age, was ordered, together with some other veterans who had served under Sultán Suleïmán, to accompany the expedition in litters, merely to encourage the Janissaries. This was Evliyá’s first campaign, but he has left no account of it.
His second journey was to Brousa, in 1640, with the account of which he commences his second volume. This journey he undertook, together with some friends, without his father’s consent, and having visited all the baths, monuments, mosques, and public walks, he returned to Constantinople, where he was well received by his father.
In the beginning of Rebi-ul-evvel he set out on his third journey, which was to Nicomedia. On his return he visited the Princes’ Islands, and arrived at Constantinople a month after he had left it.
Ketánjí Omar Páshá having been appointed to the government of Trebisonde, he made his old friend, Evliyá’s father, his agent at Constantinople, and took Evliyá along with him. They left Constantinople in the beginning of Rebi-ul-ákhir, and proceeded to Trebisonde, coasting by Kefken, Heraclea, Amassera, Sinope, Samsún, and Kherson. From Trebisonde he was ordered to attend the zemburukchís (camel-artillery) of Gonia to the siege of Azov in 1051. He proceeded along the shores of the Black Sea through the country of the Abáza, the history and description of which form the most interesting part of Evliyá’s travels. The fleet destined for Azov reached Anapa shortly after the arrival of Evliyá. He immediately waited upon the commander, Delí Husain Páshá, who received him into his suite, and placed him on board the galley of his kehiyá. They sailed for Azov on the 12th of Sha’bán. Evliyá was present at the siege, which being unsuccessful, was raised, and he accompanied the Tatár Khán’s army, which returned to the Crimea by land. At Bálakláva he embarked for Constantinople, but was wrecked, and escaped with only two slaves out of the many whom he had collected in his travels through Abáza and Mingrelia. He was thrown on the coast of Kilyra, whence he proceeded to Constantinople.
In 1055 (1645) the fleet was fitted out, as was generally rumoured, for an expedition against Malta, and Evliyá embarked on board the ship of the Capudán Páshá, Yúsuf Páshá, in the capacity of Móazzin-báshí.[3] The expedition, however, having touched at the Morea, suddenly turned upon Candia, where Evliyá was present at the reduction of the castle of St. Todero, and the siege of Canea; after which he attended several military excursions to Dalmatia and Sebenico.
On his return to Constantinople he made arrangements for his sixth journey, with Defterdár Zádeh Mohammed Páshá, who was at that time appointed governor of Erzerúm, and whom Evliyá accompanied as clerk of the custom-house at Erzerúm. Their route lay through Nicomedia, Sabanja, Bólí, Túsia, Amásia, Nígísár, and they reached Erzerúm, having made seventy stages. Shortly afterwards the Páshá sent him on a mission to the Khán of Tabríz, with a view to facilitate a commercial intercourse. This was Evliyá’s first journey into Persia. On his way he visited Etchmiazin, Nakhcheván, and Merend; and returned by Aján, Erdebíl, Eriván, Bakú, Derbend, Kákht, the plain of Chaldirán, and the fortress of Akhíska. Ten days after he was again despatched to Eriván, on returning from which he resumed his duties at the custom-house. He was, however, scarcely settled, when the Páshá sent him on a mission to the governor of the Sanjaks of Jánja and Tortúm, in order to collect the troops which had been ordered by a Khatt-i-sheríf. With this commission he visited the towns of Baiburd, Jánja, Isper, Tortúm, Akchekala’, and Gonia, of which latter the Cossacks had at that time taken possession. Evliyá witnessed its reduction, and was the first to proclaim on its walls the faith of the Islám.
The Mingrelians having revolted on the occasion of one of the Cossack inroads, a predatory expedition into Mingrelia was undertaken by Seidí Ahmed Páshá; and Evliyá having over-run the country with his plundering party, returned to Erzerúm, whence, on the 18th of Zilka’da, he set out on his return to Constantinople. His Páshá, Defterdár Zádeh Mohammed, having openly rebelled against the Porte, he followed him from Erzerúm through Kumákh, Erzenján, Shínkara-hisár, Ládík, Merzifún, Koprí, Gumish, Jorúm, and Tokát. He once fell into the hands of robbers, but fortunately effecting his escape, he followed his master to Angora. The inhabitants of this town not permitting the Páshá to shut himself up in the castle, he was again obliged to take the field. His great ally Várvár Páshá, on whose account he had rebelled, though he had beaten and made prisoners several Páshás (amongst whom was Kopreilí, afterwards celebrated as the first Grand Vezír of the family), was at last defeated, and killed by Ibshír Páshá. Defterdár Zádeh Mohammed Páshá, however, managed his affairs so well, that he obtained not only his pardon but a new appointment. Evliyá was with him at Begbázár, when he received the intelligence of his father’s death, and that all his property had fallen to his step-mother and his sisters. On hearing this he took leave of Defterdár Zádeh, and proceeded by Turbelí, Taráklí, and Kíva, to Constantinople, where he arrived at the time of the great revolution, by which Sultán Selím was deposed, and Mohammed IV. raised to the throne. Evliyá’s account of this revolution, and of the principal actors in it, is so much the more interesting, that the chief favourite of Ibrahím, the famous Jinjí Khoajeh, of whose ignorance he makes mention, had been Evliyá’s school-fellow. Evliyá, however, had been well treated by him, and received as an old school-fellow, shortly before his own fall, and that of his royal master, Ibrahím, which happened in the year 1058 (1648).
Evliyá next attached himself to Silihdár Murtezá Páshá, who was appointed Governor of Damascus, as Moazzin-báshí (an office which, as before mentioned, he had held under Yúsuf Páshá, in the expedition against Canea), and as Imám Mahmil, or priest of the caravan of pilgrims to Mecca. He left Constantinople in the beginning of Sha’bán 1058 (1648).
The third volume commences with an account of his seventh great journey, which was to Damascus. He had scarcely arrived at this place when he was sent by Murtezá Páshá on a mission to Constantinople. This journey was performed very rapidly, and he gives no particular account of it, only mentioning that he met some of the robbers belonging to the party of Kátirjí Oghlí.