Page:Travels and adventures of Willm. Lithgow, in Europe, Asia, and Africa.pdf/22

22 being an old man to die to save his race from destruction and preserve his son in his authority and inheritance. This done, he went to prayer; and taking leave of them all and sitting down on his knees, the chauix struck off his head, and put it into a box to carry to Constantinople. The corpse was honourably buried at Aleppo, of winch Lithgow was an eye-witness. And immediately the chiauix by proclamation, fully invested the son in his father’s lands, offices &c.

Being disappointed going with the caravan to Babylon in the autumn, as has been already related, our traveller returned to Aleppo, where he staid till the spring, when he joined a caravan of Armenians and Turks, well guarded, bound to Jerusalem, hiring a mule from a Turk to carry his victuals.

Their number was about 600 Armenians, Christian pilgrims, men and women, 600 Turks trafficing for their own business. 100 soldiers, three chiauses, and six janizaries. The confusion of this multitude he describes as most grevious, on account of the extreme heat and scarcity of water, and narrow stony passages in which they often fell one over another in great heaps, and the Christians were often