_ 514 _ Samarra is a city on the river Tigris situated in Persia, and it is said that close to it there are forests of timber which is not so good as that to [Bira] because it is short in length and twisted. From Basra to Samarra is two hundred leagues. The way the Turks’ captured Basra is as follows: There are forty thousand men ready in Baghdad, but only seventeen thousands of them went, viz, eleven thousand musketeers and six thousand cavalry. Their captain was [Ajax] Pasha. Governor of Baghdad. The army arrived by land from the Arabian side and the rest by sea in large river vessels they have called danecas which can carry a great deal. The gizilbashi fought the men who went by sea, with some danecas and seven foists from Basra, and the Turks were defeated in a narrow passage called [Korla], and men were killed and some danecas captured with five heavy guns. But those in the foists tired, and they allowed the Turks to pass and reach Basra, which they captured against little resistance, although the King of Basra had sixty thousand Arabs, with many cavalry and many camels chaired together, as is their custom, and the seven foists in the narrowest part of the river. But those who came by sea together with those who came by land defeated the King
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTg0NzAy