Ferhabat

1638. Some yeares travels into divers parts of Asia and Afrique by Thomas Herbert.

FARRABAVT (or rather Farrag-baut, from King Farrag-zed (baut is garden, Zed is sonne,) successor to Shezyr sonne of Iezan Zeddah, and predecessour to Tezdgird the Hyrcanian King slaine by the Romans in the yeere of our Lord God 595. five and twenty yeeres before the hegira or banishment of Mahomet) is not unlikely to be that old Amarusa noted by Ptolomy: and the same Citie per paranomasiam (if opinion delude me not) which Vlughbeg and Teixera call Strabatt and Estrabaut. The scituation of Farabatt is low, in a marrish and insalubrious plaine; whereby it sucks in the salt fumes and cold fomes the Caspian sea (a little mile, North) evomerates. Tis watered by a fresh streame, forty paces broad; which arising in mount Taurus, bubbles downe, and at this Town incorporates with the briny Caspian: in place of solyd walls, it is ingirt with liquid moats or trenches, planted with willowes and other trees, which give both shade and ornament: the houses differ from the common mode of Persia; they be without Tarrasses or flat tops, and resemble ours in England rather, in shape, in windowes, and in tyling; the whole Towne brags of three thousand families; of most Note, are the two Buzzarrs, equally spatious, neat and beautifull; many choice and fragrant Gardens also condecorate her, which together make a combined beauty though seeming separate: but, more notable than the rest, is a sumptuous Pallace of the Emperours; at the North side of the Citie, whose balconyes view, whose Gardens extend to the Mare Caspium. It has two large Courts (comparable to Fountain bleaus) either of which expresse an elaborat Art in the skilfull gardiner; paild they are in many shapes, the ground is forced into pretty knots, the spreading Elms, Chenores, and Sicamores surrounding and commixing so pleasantly, so artificially, that from each chamber the prospect is amiable, the eye and smell contending who should surfet soonest of variety. The house is low; but each chamber, high & capacious; rich in work, cōmendable in uniformity; we could not enter with our shooes on (a cōmon Assiatick trick at meales & houres of devotion; the Romans also used it, as Terence in his Heautont: Accurrunt servi soleas detrahunt, &c.) some are square, some gallery-wise, but all are arched: three were especially rich and lovely; whose sides were set with Mirrors or Looking-glasses; and whose tops or seeling, were gloriously imbost with flaming gold; the casements were of large square Muscovian glasse, cemented with gold; the ground was over-spread with crimson velvet, some stuft with Down; others with matteresses of azure coloured velvet; coverd with Calzoons of bodkin or cloth of beaten gold: and in Winter the Pot-shaugh sleepes either in sheets of costly Sables, or of delicate shagg or sheep wooll of Corasan: in those gallaries of Mirrors the King has sundry representations of venereous gambolls, his Concubines studying by amorous postures to illure his favor, to glut his fancie: the other chambers are richly furnisht, the walls varnisht & painted in oyle, but by an uncivill pencil, the genius of some goatish Apelles; such Lavaltoes of the Persian Iupiter are there, such immodest postures of men and women, nay of Paederastyes, as makes the modest eye swell with shame, the curious smell winde nothing from those artificiall flowers, save loathsome invention. Let us goe cent the Caspyan ayre, and taste the unruly waves, compared with the quiet houses, sweet and wholsome. The first object are those prams or ships, wherein the Moscovite sailes downe Volga (70 mouth'd Volga, issuing from the Hyperborean and Rhyphaean hills) and from Astra-can (in six and forty degrees) crosse over the Caspian sea, and at this Port or Demir-cape (in 40 degrees 20 minutes) ride at anchor, till they have loaded away raw silks, exchang'd for Sables, usually in March, in Iuly returning; with a good winde they crosse the sea in 8 dayes, though by adverse stormes Sir Anthony Sherley was fourescore: these vessells (resembling our old Corraghs, recorded by Caesar and Lucan) are without ordinance, the Sea is free of Pyrats: they are sowed with hemp and cord (made of the husk of Cocoes,) and have little iron work; the Marriners are as meanly furnist with skill or use of Compasse. Here also we saw many Canoos, of one peece of wood hewd out of some grown Oke (Hyrcania has store, yet little used) capable to receive eight men in faire weather without much danger.