Читать книгу Mirabilia descripta: The wonders of the East онлайн

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9. But I saw not anything else, in this Armenia the greater, worth telling as a marvel.

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1. In Persia, however, I saw a very marvellous thing: to wit, that in Tabriz, which is a very great city, containing as many as two hundred thousand houses,[58] dew never falls from heaven; nor doth it rain in summer as in most parts it doth, but they water artificially everything that is grown for man’s food.[59] There also, or thereabouts, on a kind of willows, are found certain little worms, which emit a liquid which congeals upon the leaves of the tree, and also drops upon the ground, white like wax; and that excretion is sweeter than honey and the honeycomb.[60]

2. There we have a fine-enough church, and about a thousand of the schismatics converted to our faith, and about as many also in Ur of the Chaldees, where Abraham was born, which is a very opulent city, distant about two days from Tabriz.[61]

3. Likewise also at Sultania we have five hundred, or five hundred and fifty. This is eight days’ distant from Tabriz, and we have a very fine church there.