Our Distress On
Receiving This Intelligence May Easily Be Conceived, And, In Fact, We
Were So Much Cast Down, As Not To Know What Measures To Pursue, Or To
Which Hand To Turn Us.
Louis, the patriarch of Antioch, resolved upon
going through Tartary and Russia, with which route he was acquainted.
It
was to no purpose that I urged the promises we had mutually come under at
the beginning of our journey, never to separate on any account. To this
he answered, that the unforeseen circumstances which had occurred, were a
sufficient warrant to every one to consult his own individual safety. I
insisted and beseeched him not to treat me with such unfeeling cruelty,
but all in vain, for he prepared to set off along with the Turkish
ambassador, who had been sent by Uzun-Hassan as his particular companion.
In this extremity I went to Marcus Ruffus, and the Turkish ambassador who
was joined with him by the king of Persia, to whom I mentioned my
intention of returning back to Uzun-Hassan. They pretended to approve my
plan, and even to join me, and we embraced as entering, into promise of
keeping together; but they secretly came to a determination of taking
their journey through the province of _Gorgore_, which is subject to
_Calcicanus_, and to the city of _Vati_,[4] which is on the frontiers of
the Turks, and pays tribute to the Grand Signior.
The patriarch set out on the 6th of August, and the next day Marcus
Ruffus followed him, accompanied by several Russians, partly on horseback,
and partly by means of boats. Their intentions were to travel from Vati,
by Shamaki, anciently Cyropolis, and thence into Tartary. Thus left alone
in a strange land, I leave any reasonable person to think what were the
embarrassments with which I was surrounded. I was unacquainted with a
single individual, having no company but that of my domestics, and had
very little money remaining. In short, I was reduced almost to despair,
of ever being able to get out of the country. In this state of distress I
fell into a violent fever, and could get no other nourishment but bread
and water, and a pullet occasionally with much difficulty; and my fever
increased to such a degree that I became delirious. All my domestics were
attacked soon after with the same fever, the priest Stephen only excepted,
who had to take care of us all. My only bed was a wretched mattress,
which had been lent me by a person named John Volcan; and my life was
despaired of by every one, till the 9th of September, when, by the cares
of Stephen and of Martha, my good hostess, or rather through the mercy of
God, the fever abated, and I soon recovered my former health, to the
astonishment of every one. My domestics likewise recovered, and we began
again to consult on the best means of escaping out of our present
situation. Some proposed to take the road of Syria, but I deemed this too
dangerous; and we at length came to the determination, of going by
Shamaki, into Tartary, and thence by Russia, Poland, and Germany.
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