fhould receive an impreffion as important, from the ocular view of fo great a revolution; for above all other fenfes, the eye having the most immediate and quick commerce with the foul, gives it a more fmart touch than the reft, leaving in the fancy fomewhat unutterable; fo that an eye-witness of things conceives them with an imagination more compleat, ftrong, and intuitive, than he can either apprehend, or deliver by way of relation; for relations are not only in great part falfe, out of the relator's mifinformation, vanity, or intercft; but which is unavoidable, their choice and frame agrees more naturally with his judgment, whose iffue they are, than with his readers; so as the reader is like one feafted with difhes fitter for another man's ftomach than his own; but a traveller takes with his eye and ear, only fuch occurrences into obfervation, as his own apprehenfion affects; and through that fympathy can digeft them into an experience more natural for himself, than he could have done the notes of another; wherefore I defiring fomewhat to inform myfelf of the Turkish nation, would not fit down with a book-knowledge thereof, but rather (through all the hazard and endurance of travel) receive it from mine own eye, not dazzled with any affection, prejudice, or mift of education, which pre-occupate the mind, and delude it with partial ideas, as with a falfe glafs, reprefenting the object in colours and proportions untrue; for the juft cenfure of things is to be drawn from their end whereto they are aimed, without requiring them to our customs and ordinances, or other impertinent refpects, which they acknowledge not for their touch-stone; wherefore he who paffes through the feveral educations of men, muft not try them by his own, but weaning his mind from all former habit of opinion, fhould, as it were putting off the old man, come fresh and fincere to confider them. This preparation was the caufe why the fuperftition, policy, entertainments, diet, lodging, and other manners of the Turks, never provoked me fo far, as ufually they do those who catechize the world by their own home; and this alfo bars these obfervations from appearing beyond my own clofet; for to a mind poffeffed with any fet doctrine, their unconformity muft needs make them fcem unfound and extravagant, nor can they comply to a rule by which they were not made. Nevertheless, confidering that experience, forgotten as if it never had been, and knowing how much I ventured for it, as little as it is, I could not but esteem it worth retaining in my own memory, though not transferring to others. Hereupon I have in these lines registered to myfelf whatsoever most took me in my journey from Venice into Turkey.

First, I agreed with a Janiffary at Venice, to find me diet, horfe, coach, paffage, and all other ufual charges, as far as Conftantinople; then upon the 7th of May 1634, I embarked on a Venetian galley with a caravan of Turks and Jews bound for the Levant, not having any Chriftians with them befides myfelf: this occafion was right to my purpofe, for the familiarity of bed, board, and paffage together, is more opportune to dif clofe the customs of men, than a much longer habitation in cities, where fociety is not fo linked, and behaviour more perfonate, than in travel, whofe common fufferings endear men, laying them open and obnoxious to one another. The not having any other Chriftian in the caravan, gave me two notable advantages; first, that no other man's errors could draw either hatred or engagement upon me; then I had a freedom of complying upon occafion of questions by them made, whereby I became all things to all men, which let me into the breafts of many.

The galley lying that day and night in port at Lio, fet fail the next morn, and in twenty-four hours arrived at Rovinio, a Venetian city in Iftria. It ftands in a creek of the Adriatic, upon a hill promontory, which hath two thirds wafhed by the fea; the fouth eaft fide joined to the continent, the foil rocky and barren, as all that fide along

the gulph. It is an hundred miles from Venice, and therefore being fo far within the gulph, is not fortified as against much danger, yet hath it a pretty wall, and fortrefs, with a final garrifon. From thence we came to Zara. This city ftands in Dalmatia, and of all others within the gulph, is, by reafon of the fituation, moft apt to comand the whole Adriatic, and therefore has formerly been attempted by the Turk; wherefore the Venetians have fortified it extraordinarily, and now, though in times of firm peace, keep it with ftrong companies both of horfe and foot. The general of the horfe came in another galley with us; he was firft welcomed with a volley of great and fmall fhot from the walls; then by three nobles therein, feveral officers commanding, he was accompanied to the town hall, where his brief patent once read, he had the staff and precedency of his predeceffor. After a day's view of this place, we failed to Spalatro, a city of Sclavonia, kept by the Venetians as the only emporium, plied fucceffively with two gallies, which carry between Venice and that place fuch merchandize as are tranfported into Turkey, or from thence brought in. It ftands in a most pleasant valley on the fouth fide of great mountains. In the wall, towards the fea, appears a great remainder of a gallery in Diocletian's palace: fouthward of the town is the fea, which makes an open port capable of holding ten or twelve gallies: without is an unfecure bay for great fhips, at the entrance above half a mile broad; yet not fo renowned for the fkill of Octavius, who chained it up when he befieged Salonæ, as for the fierce refolution of Vulteius and his company there taken. In this town the Venetians allow the great Turk to take cuftom of the merchandize; whereupon there refides his Emir or treasurer, who pays him thirty-five thousand dollars a year, as himfelf and others told me. There are high walls and ftrong companies to guard this city, yet I heard their chief fafety to be in having fo unufeful and fmall an haven; wherefore the Turk efteems Spalatro in effect but as a land town, nor so much worth as his prefent custom, and fo covets it not like Sara; for if he did, he has a terrible advantage upon it, having taken from the Venetians Clyffi, not above four miles off, which is the strongest land fortrefs that I ever beheld.

At Spalatro having ftaid three days, our caravan was furnished with horses; the first journey we began about fun-fet; our lodging, two miles off, we pitched upon a little hill grown over with juniper, once the feat of Salonæ, a city famous for their bravery against Octavius: there is not now fo much as a ruin left, excepting a poor piece of Dioclefian's aqueduct. Hence we paffed the hills of Dogliana, far higher than the Alps, and fo fteep, as in our descent for three days together, it was a greater precipice, than is of half a day's coming down from mount Cenis into Piemont. Having for the most part rode thus nine days, we came into a fpacious and fruitful plain, which at the weft, where we entered, at least ten miles over, is on the north and fouth fides' immured with ridges of eafy and pleafant hills, ftill by degrees ftreightning the plain, till after fix or seven miles riding it grows not above a mile broad; there we found the city Saraih, which extends from the one fide to the other, and takes up part of both afcents. At the east end ftands a castle upon a steep rock, commanding the town and paffage eastward: this is the metropolis of the kingdom of Bofnah; it is but meanly built, and not great, reckoning about fourscore mefchetees, and twenty thoufand houses.

In my three days abode, the most notable things I found, was the goodness of the water, and vaft, almost giant-like, ftature of the men, which, with their bordering upon Germany, made me fuppofe them to be the offspring of thofe old Germans noted by Cæfar and Tacitus for their huge fize, which in other places is now degenerate into the ordinary proportions of men. Hence at our departure we went along with the bafhaw

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bafhaw of Bofnah, his troops going for the war of Poland; they were, of horse and foot, between fix or feven thoufand, but went fcattering; the bafhaw not yet in perfon, and the taking leave of their friends, fpirited many with drink, difcontent, and infolency, which made them fitter company for the devil than for a Chriftian: myself, after many launces and knives threatened upon me, was invaded by a drunken Janiffary, whofe iron mace, entangled in his other furniture, gave me time to flee among the rocks, whereby I escaped untouched. Thus we marched ten days through a hilly country, cold, not inhabited, and in a manner a continued wood, moft of pine trees. At length we reached Valliovah, a pretty little town upon the confines of Hungary; where the camp staying some days, we left them behind, and being to pass a wood near the Christian country, doubting it to be (as confines are) full of thieves, we divided our caravan of fix fcore horse in two parts; half with the perfons, and goods of leaft esteem, we sent a day before the reft, that fo the thieves, having a booty, might be gone before we came, which happened accordingly; they were robbed; one thief, and two of ours flain; fome hundred dollars worth of goods loft. The next day we paffed, and found fixteen thieves in a narrow paffage, before whom we fet a good guard of harquebuzes and pistols, till the weaker fort paffed by; fo in three days we came fafe to Belgrada.

This city, anciently called Taurunum, or Alba Græca, was the metropolis of Hungary, till won by fultan Soliman the fecond, in the year 1525. It is one of the most pleasant, ftately, and commodious fituations that I have seen; it stands most in a bottom, encompassed eastward by gentle and pleasant ascents, employed in orchards or vines; fouthward is an eafy hill, part poffeffed with buildings, the rest a buryingplace of well nigh three miles in compafs, fo full of graves as one can be by another; the weft end yields a right magnificent afpect, by reafon of an eminency of land jetting out further than the reft, and bearing a goodly ftrong castle, whofe walls are two miles about, excellently fortified with a dry ditch and out works. This caftle on the weft fide is washed by the great river Sava, which on the north of the city lofes itself in the Danubius, of old called Ifter, now Duny, and is held the greatest river in the world, deep and dangerous for navigation, runs eaftward into the Euxine or Black Sea, in its paffage receiving fifty and odd rivers, most of them navigable. Two rarities, I was told of this river, and with my own experience found true; one was, that at mid-day and mid-night, the stream runs flower by much than at other times; this they find by the noife of thofe boat-mills, whereof there are about twenty, like thofe upon the Rhoane at Lions; their clackers beat much flower at those times than elfe, which argues like difference in the motion of the wheel, and by confequence of the ftream; the caufe is neither any reflux, nor ftop of current by wind or otherwife, for there is no encrease of water obferved. The other wonder is, that where those two great currents meet, their waters mingle no more than water and oil; not that either floats above other, but join unmixed; so that near the middle of the river, I have gone in a boat, and tasted of the Danuby as clear and pure as a well; then putting my hand not an inch further, I have taken of the Sava as troubled as a street channel, tafting the gravel in my teeth; yet did it not tafte unctious, as I expected, but hath fome other fecret ground of the antipathy, which though not eafily found out, is very effectual; for they run thus threefcore miles together, and for a day's journey I have been an eye witness thereof.

The castle is excellently furnished with artillery, and at the entrance there ftands an arfenal with some forty or fifty fair brafs pieces, most bearing the arms and infcription of Ferdinand the emperor. That which to me feemed ftrangeft in this castle (for I

had