_ 306 _ water of which the streets are always full. One has no better solution than to go along them always washing one’s shoes and boots in the springs of water, for they cannot be cleaned in any other way. The plague was still so virulent here that many died every day. On the one following our arrival, I went out to the bazaar to buy I do not know what and saw fifteen [dead] carried away. I was told that more than six thousand had already died during the three months since it had begun. In the caravanserai where we were staying there were two locked houses full of the property of the merchants who had died there. I saw some very fine hazel-nuts, split because this is how they are sold, some very strange pearmains which come from the city of Agiat, and very fine, sweet dates which come from Baghdad, all very cheap; and very excellent grapes hanging [from the vine]. I was told that in other places in Armenia towards the north there were still a great many on the vine, and that they lasted on them all the year. Near this city, in a westerly direction, there is a great arm of the sea like the water of Amargós, which is called the Sea of Van. At its widest it must be three leagues wide, and,
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTg0NzAy