_ 135 _ saw each group of oxen drawing two ploughs, so light and fertile is the soil. We passed through innumerable villages and hamlets of these Turkmen people and arrived at a town called El Bab, “gateway”, because it is like a gateway to Aleppo and near to it. It is situated to the north and has about six hundred citizens, Arab and Turkmen Moors; it is well-supplied and has no wall. The houses are of wattle and daub like the others we had passed. On the next day, we travelled always westward along a flat, but somewhat stony road and arrived at the famous city of Aleppo, formerly Heliopolis. Item: The noble and famous city of Aleppo, formerly Heliopolis, is very ancient and now the metropolis of this region, situated in Syria to the east side of the road along which we were travelling. It is encircled by a good wall. As by this road it is no more than about eighty leagues from Tabriz, this distance can be covered in thirty days. Because of the rain, the snow, the mountains and various delays, we spent forty-seven days on it. The city must have twelve thousand citizens: Turks, Turkmens and Armenians, Christians both Greek and Nestorian, Jacobites who are called Syrians, Maronites who claim to be the closest to our own church; and others:
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