Embassy to Tamerlane, 1403-1406 / translated from the Spanish by Guy Le Strange with an introduction.
- Ruy González de Clavijo
- Date:
- [1928]
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Embassy to Tamerlane, 1403-1406 / translated from the Spanish by Guy Le Strange with an introduction. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![country-side, we again therefore turned aside taking our way to the left hand and marched till midday in this new direótion, though we knew that the longer we followed on this path the more we were áfraying from our right route. We none the less had to keep on thus all the following Sunday, passing across a totally uninhabited trabl and Monday it was the same. The entire lack of inhabitants in this part of Armenia, you musd know, is due to the fadt that the Christians have loSt their power throughout moSt of Greater Armenia by reason of the civil war that recently has raged between three royal brothers. On Tuesday which was the isd of September at [nine of the morning which is] the hour of tierce we finally had come to a large town, but here too moSt of the houses were empty of their inhabitants. The name of this town was Alashkert.3 The city walls which had been very broad and very Strong were all in ruin, and the caStle finely built of masonry set in mortar was all open, breached in many places, though a few poor folk were Still inhabiting its chambers, and Still there were many fine buildings to be seen throughout the city, for the houses were everywhere of good masonry. Here we now took our midday dinner, and the while the people related to us how it had come about that this great place had thus been ruined as we now saw. In this country of Greater Armenia there had been formerly a famous and very powerful king, the lord of the whole land, who at the time of his death had left three sons: and he had by his will divided Armenia among the three after this fashion. To his eldeSt son he had left this city of Alashkert with adjacent lands: to his next son he had left Ani city, with its province, and to his third son Erzerum: these cities aforesaid being the three capital towns of Armenia. The eldeáf son seeing that he possessed Alashkert the áfrongeál place in all the land, forthwith tried to](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b31354932_0363.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
