NARRATIVE OF TRAVELS
IN
EUROPE, ASIA, AND AFRICA,
IN
THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY,

BY

EVLIYÁ EFENDÍ.

TRANSLATED FROM THE TURKISH
BY
THE RITTER JOSEPH VON HAMMER,
F.M R.A.S, &c. &c. &c.

LONDON:
PRINTED FOR THE ORIENTAL TRANSLATION FUND
OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND;
SOLD BY
PARBURY, ALLEN, & Co., LEADENHALL STREET.

M.DCCC.XXXIV.

LONDON:
Printed by J. L. Cox and Son, 75, Great Queen Street,
Lincoln’s-Inn Fields.

ADVERTISEMENT.

The narrative of an Asiatic traveller, enthusiastically fond of seeing foreign countries, andunwearied in his investigation of their history, condition, and institutions, is in itself so great asingularity, and so deserving of attention, that no apology seems requisite for thus presentingEvliyá Efendí in an English dress: and the name of the Ritter von Hammer, by whom thiswork was abridged and translated, is a sufficient voucher for its intrinsic merit and the accuracyof the version.

It is requisite to inform the reader, that throughout the work the Asiatic words and propernames are spelt according to the system of orthography adopted by Sir William Jones andSir Charles Wilkins, which gives to the consonants the sound they have in our own, but tothe vowels that which they have in the Italian and German languages; and by assigning toeach Arabic character its appropriate Roman letter, enables the Oriental student to transfer theword at once from one mode of writing to the other.

London, 20th Jan. 1834.

iii

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR.

Evliyá, the son of Dervísh Mohammed, chief of the goldsmiths ofConstantinople, was born in the reign of Sultán Ahmed I., on the10th of Moharrem 1020 (A.D. 1611). He records the building of themosque of Sultán Ahmed, which was begun when he was six years old,and the gate of which was executed under the superintendance ofhis father, who in his youth had been standard-bearer to SultánSuleïmán. His grandfather was standard-bearer at the conquest ofConstantinople, by Sultán Mohammed, on which occasion the housewithin the Un-kapán (flour-market), on the ground attached to themosque of Sághirjílar, was the portion of spoil allotted to him. On thisspot he erected one hundred shops, the revenues of which he devotedto the mosque. The administration of the mosque, therefore, remainedin the hands of the family. He mentions more than once, as one of hisancestors, the great Sheikh Ahmed Yesov, called the Turk of Turks,a resident of Khorásán, and who sent his disciple, the celebratedHájí Bektásh,1 to Sultán Orkhán. Evliyá’s mother was an Abáza,and when a girl, had been sent along with her brother to SultánAhmed, who kept the boy as a page, and presented the girl toMohammed Dervísh, the chief of the goldsmiths. The brother had,or received, the Sultán’s name, with the sirname Melek (angel), and...