Seer aenmerkelyke reys-beschryving na Constantinopolen, en Egypten, gedaan in het jaar 1605, en vervolgen...

REYS-BESCHRYVINGE na Travelogue to

1605. hunger, and the slaves plunder the Turkish merchants.

of figs and raisins at the Black Sea. Our slaves, dying nearly of hunger, begged the Janissaries and other guides to allow us to climb off the camels and attack these Turks; which being done, we plundered these Turks with the support of our own guides and took all the food, thus stilling that great enemy, hunger, which had tormented us very harshly the day before.

Arrives at Varna.

After we had arrived at Varna and I began to suffer great thirst from my figs and raisins, I drank—being ignorant that it was salt water—from the Black Sea; upon which I felt such pain that I thought I would burst, and I also became so sick that I could not get on my feet for several weeks.

Schmid travels further to Constantinople.

Notwithstanding my sickness, I was shipped here along with the other slaves, and we arrived at Constantinople after the passage of three days. On this voyage, we saw a very large fish, which some said to be a whale, which, playing with its tail in the water, made such high waves that we feared our entire ship would be overturned. A large whale in the Black Sea. Our Turks were not a little dismayed and predicted a great upcoming misfortune; they began to pray and, as they are accustomed to doing in all their calamities, to call out "Halla, Halla," that is, "God be with us." Hereupon the sailors threw a large barrel into the water, with which this fish played, and it pursued us no more, as it had first seemed it would do.

How the fasts are kept by the Turks.

As we began to approach the city of Constantinople, which happened at night, it seemed to be in fire and flames; the cause I learned to be that it was precisely during the fast of the Turks, during which time the Turks hang many burning lamps around the galleries of their towers and stretch ropes from one tower to another, from which thousands of lamps hang; and these ropes are then [arranged] in the round...