_ 115 _ cannon between the battlements; it looked impregnable to me. The Grand Turk captured it from a Kurdish Moor who commanded it through the treachery of a nephew of his, who was the ruler of a city called Hasuh, three days’ journey farther on. The Turk, having been unable to take it after three sieges, keeps a garrison of janissaries in the castle. Around the castle there are three or four streets of wooden houses in which essentials are sold to the city and travellers. There are two good caravanserais, and the area is very mountainous, without a road to give access for large armies. To the north lies the Kingdom of Georgia, two or three days’ journey away; they are Christians, white people subject to the Turks. Here we paid six xains per load in dues; from here onwards they are different, worth double, that is to say four vintens each. We stayed here for two days and left on 6th of the month, travelling along the river which flows through the middle of the city between high mountain-ranges, by snowbound roads of difficult access. A league farther on we passed a great gateway, the length of a lance, hewn out of a mountain, through which the road runs. We put up about a league farther on at a caravanserai, to the south of which there is a fine castle on a solid
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