ANTHONY JENKINSON.

1558

that it thrives, it is similar to rice. All the water that one uses in this land is drawn through canals from the river Oxus, and it is for this reason that it no longer discharges into the Caspian Sea. The land would be in danger of becoming completely desolate if this custom of changing the course of this river by means of their canals were to cease.

Departure from Sellizure and arrival at Urgence.

On the 14th we departed from Sellizure, and on the 16th we arrived at a city called Urgence, where we had to pay a head-tax for both our horses and ourselves. We stayed there for a month. The Prince of the land called himself Aly-Sultan, brother of Azuncan, of whom I have spoken. He had just returned from the city of Corasan likely Khorasan, which he had recently seized from the Persians, for they are constantly at war with the King of Persia. I had orders to visit him, and I showed him a letter from the Tsar of Muscovy, and he granted me a letter of safe-conduct.

Description of Urgence

Urgence is a plain and is more than 4 miles in circumference. The walls are made of earth, as are the houses, which are poorly built. I observed there a large street covered from above, which serves as the market. This city has been captured 4 times in the 7 years that their internal wars have lasted. The merchants are very impoverished because of this, and I could sell nothing there but 4 pieces of serge. Very little trade can be done there; one found no merchants other than those who came from Boghar Bukhara and from Persia. The land between the shore of the Caspian Sea and this city is called Turcomania.

Turcomania governed by Azuncan and his brothers.

Azuncan holds the government there, along with 5 of his brothers. The most powerful one carries the title of Can Khan, but this supremacy is not recognized except in the place where he resides. For each of the others wishes to exercise absolute authority in his own states, and they think of nothing else but how to offend their