_ 131 _ stretches across Syria, Armenia and Persia to the city of Isfahan. This city has a great province, a plain, with many villages, provisions and fruits like our own. When we arrived here, the inns (they are caves near the city) were all full of camels, and inside the city there are no others. As it was raining hard, we had to cross the river immediately. I was very pleased because I was much afraid of this port; and so we went on board the barges which are always waiting there, on horseback and having loaded the animals. These barges are like rustic ones in Galicia, but broader and without keels. They are flat-bottomed like a floor without foundations; they have no masts, and the prow, through which men and animals go on board, is open and blunt, and the deck is at the same level as the water. They are propelled by oars and poles. Here they made me pay a xain, claiming that I was a priest, because they saw hair on my head; for I had not shavedi my head for days because I had been hoping to arrive soon in Aleppo and dress like a Venetian in a cap, leaving off the turbans and the dress of an Armenian, which I had been wearing until now and intended to wear until arriving in Aleppo. Armenian priests who pass this wary - many go this way on pilgrimages to Jerusalem - pay one xain per head.
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