In the year 1563, while residing at Venice, being desirous to see the eastern parts of the world, I embarked in a ship called the Gradaige of Venice, commanded by Jacomo Vatica, bound for Cyprus, taking with me certain merchandise. On arriving at Cyprus, I left that ship, and went in a lesser to Tripoli in Syria, where I made a short stay. I then travelled by land to Aleppo, where I became acquainted with some Armenian and Moorish merchants, and agreed to accompany them to Ormuz. We accordingly departed together from Aleppo, and came to the city of Bir in two days journey and a-half.

Bir is a small city in which provisions are very scarce, situated in Asia Minor [in lat. 37° 5' N. long. 38° E. from Greenwich], the river Euphrates running near its walls. In this city, the merchants who intend to descend the Euphrates form themselves into companies or associations, according to the quantities of merchandise they possess, and either build or buy a boat to carry themselves and their goods down the Euphrates to Babylon121, under the care of a master and mariners hired to conduct the boat. These boats are almost flat-bottomed and very strong, yet serve only for one voyage, as it is impossible to navigate them upwards. They are fitted for the shallowness of the river, which in many places is full of great stones which greatly obstruct the navigation. At Feluchia a small city on the Euphrates, the merchants pull their boats to pieces or sell them for a small price; as a boat that cost forty or fifty chequins at Bir sells only at Feluchia for seven or eight chequins. When the merchants return back from Babylon, if they have merchandise or goods that pay custom, they travel through the wilderness in forty days, passing that way at much less expence than the other. If they have no such merchandise, they then go by the way of Mosul in Mesopotamia, which is attended with great charges both for the caravan and company. From Bir to Feluchia. on the Euphrates, over against Babylon, which is on the Tigris, if the river have sufficient water, the voyage down the river may be made in fifteen or eighteen days; but when the water is low in consequence of long previous drought, the voyage is attended with much trouble, and will sometimes require forty or fifty days to get down. In this case the boats often strike on the stones in the river, when it becomes necessary to unlade and repair them, which is attended with much trouble and delay; and on this account the merchants have always one or two spare boats, that if one happen to split or be lost by striking on the shoals, they may have another ready to take in their goods till they have repaired the broken boat If they were to draw the broken boat on the land for repair, it would be difficult to defend it in the night from the great numbers of Arabs that would come to rob and plunder them. Every night, when it is necessary to make fast the boat to the bank, good watch must be kept against the Arabs, who are great thieves and as numerous as ants; yet are they not given to murder on these occasions, but steal what they can and run away. Arquebuses are excellent weapons for keeping off these Arabs, as they are in great fear of the shot. In passing down the river from Bir to Feluchia, there are certain towns and villages on the Euphrates belonging to the son of Aborise, king of the Arabs and of the desert, at some of which the merchants have to pay so many medins of custom on each bale.

Feluchia is a village on the Euphrates, where they who come from Bir for Babylon disembark with their goods, and go thence by land to Babylon, a journey of a day and a half. Babylon is no great city, but is very populous and is greatly resorted to by strangers, being the great thoroughfare for Persia, Turkey and Arabia, and from this place there are frequent caravans to different countries. Babylon is abundantly supplied with provisions, which are brought down the river Tigris on certain rafts or zattores called Vtrij, the river Tigris running past the walls of Babylon. The blown-up hides of which these rafts are composed, are bound fast together, on which boards are laid, and on these boards the commodities are loaded. When unladed at Babylon, the air is let out of the skins, which are then laid on the backs of camels and carried back to serve for another voyage. The city of Babylon is properly speaking in the kingdom of Persia, but is now under the dominion of the Turks. On the other side of the river towards Arabia, over against Babylon, there is a handsome town in which is an extensive Bazar for the merchants, with many lodging rooms, in which the greater part of the stranger merchants that go to Babylon expose their goods for sale. The passage across the river between Babylon and this town is by a long bridge of boats chained together with great chains: And when the river is swollen by the great rains, this bridge is opened in the middle, one half falling alongside of the walls of Babylon, and the other half along the opposite bank of the borough. So long as the bridge remains open, the people cross from side to side in small boats with much danger, by reason of their smallness, and that they are usually overladen, so that they are very liable to be overset by the swiftness of the current, or to be carried away and wrecked on the banks. In this manner-many people are lost and drowned, as I have often witnessed.

The tower of Nimrod, or Babel, is situated on the Arabian side of the Tigris, in a great plain, seven or eight miles from Babylon. Being ruined on every side, it has formed a great mountain, yet a considerable part of the tower is still standing, compassed and almost covered up by these ruins. It has been built of square bricks dried in the sun, and constructed in the following manner. In the first place a course of bricks was laid, then a mat made of canes squared like the bricks, and daubed with earth instead of lime mortar; and these mats still remain so strong that it is wonderful considering their great antiquity. I have gone all round it without being able to discover any place where there had been a door or entrance, and in my opinion it may be about a mile in circumference or rather less. Contrary to all other things, which appear small at a distance and become larger the nearer they are approached, this tower appears largest when seen from afar, and seems less as you come nearer. This may be accounted for, as the tower stands in a very large plain, and with its surrounding ruins forms the only perceptible object; so that from a distance the tower and the mountains formed of its ruins make a greater shew than it is found to be on coming near.

From Babylon I embarked in one of those small vessels which ply upon the Tigris between Babylon and Basora, which are built after the manner of foists or galliots, having a speron122 and a covered poop. They use no pumps, being so well daubed with pitch as effectually to exclude the water. This pitch they have from a great plain near the city of Heit on the Euphrates, two days journey from Babylon. This plain full of pitch is marvellous to behold, and a thing almost incredible, as from a hole in the earth the pitch is continually thrown into the air with a constant great smoke; and being hot it falls as it were sprinkled all over the plain, in such abundance that the plain is always full of pitch123. The Moors and Arabs of the neighbourhood allege that this hole is the mouth of Hell; and in truth it is a very memorable object From this native pitch or bitumen the whole people of that country derive great benefit, as with it they pay or serve their barks, which they call Daneck and Saffin.