Page:From Constantinople to the home of Omar Khayyam.djvu/141

 There is little doubt that Derbent, which is not a natural harbor like Baku, was artificially made into a roadstead because of the importance of its strategic position. I have not been able to find a good old picture of the haven itself, for the sketch by Olearius in 1636-1637 and an anonymous drawing of Derbent in 1796 (reproduced here from Eichwald's Caucasus) ^ are not minute enough ; but I present here, with the other two, a view (apparently of about the middle of the nineteenth century) based on a drawing by Moynet from an older sketch, as it con- veys an idea of how the shore appeared in the last century. ^ Many of the blocks that formed the piers have been appropriated in course of time for building purposes, as always happens in the case of great ruined structures when near growing towns.^ The present railway line, moreover, cuts directly through the walls at a point where the ends almost reach the sea, nearly striking one of the round bastions on the northern side.*

The breadth of the end of the northernmost wall, where the rampart widens slightly, is twenty-four yards ; but as it recedes from the shore it becomes somewhat narrower, being only about ten yards wide in some places, yet broad enough to drive a wagon upon, as Olearius said in 1637, if not for twenty horses to go abreast, as was stated by Ibn Fakih al-Hamadani, six hundred years before him.^ The height of the rampart varies, though it is seldom less than thirty feet, being highest near the gates, of which there once were six or more.^

The construction is of large blocks, four feet in length and two feet in height, with smaller upright stones, two feet high but only eight inches broad, between them. Many of the

1 Eichwald, Reise in den Caucasus, guard either end by the sea, are raen- 1834, gives the date of the view as tioned by Hanway, p. 371, and are 1796, but I have not been able to seen in the view dating from the year locate the source of the drawing. 1796.

2 This picture, after Moynet, is ^ Olearius, Reisebeschreibungen, p. given in Yule's Marco Polo, p. 55. 377 (= tr. Davies, p. 403) ; Ibn Fakih

8 See Kazem-Beg, Derbend Ndmeh, (903 a.d.), ed. De Goeje, 5. 5. 291. p. 96, n. 1. « See Kazem-Beg, p. 100.


 * The ' two round bastions,' which

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