ANTHONY JENKINSON ad 



1559 

 our barke from sinking, the billowe was so great : but 

 at the last, having faire weather, we tooke the Sunne, 

 and knowing howe the land lay from us, we fel with 

 the River Yaik, according to our desire, wherof the 

 Tartars were very glad, fearing that wee should have bene 

 driven to the coast of Persia, whose people were unto 

 them great enemies. 



Note, that during the time of our Navigation, wee The English 

 set up the redde crosse of S. George in our flagges, for F?£ ™ 

 honour of the Christians, which I suppose was never 

 seene in the Caspian sea before. We passed in this 

 voyage divers fortunes : notwithstanding the 28. of May 

 we arrived in safetie at Astracan, and there remained till 

 the tenth of June following, as well to prepare us small 

 boates, to goe up against the streame of Volga, with our 

 goods, as also for the companie of the Ambassadours of 

 Tartarie, committed unto me, to bee brought to the 

 presence of the Emperour of Russia. 



This Caspian sea (to say some thing of it) is in length 

 about two hundred leagues, and in breadth 150. with- 

 out any issue to other seas : to the East part whereof, 

 joyneth the great desert countrey of the Tartars, called 

 Turkemen : to the West, the countreyes of the Chyr- 

 casses, the mountaines of Caucasus, and the Mare 

 Euxinum, which is from the said Caspian Sea a hundred 

 leagues. To the North is the river Volga, and the land 

 of Nagay, and to the South part joyne the countreys 

 of Media and Persia. This sea is fresh water in many A notable de- 

 places, and in other places as salt as our great Ocean, seription of the 

 It hath many goodly Rivers falling into it, and it avoideth as ^ tar 

 not it selfe except it be under ground. The notable 

 Rivers that fall into it, are first the great River of Volga, 

 called in the Tartar tongue Edell, which springeth out 

 of a lake in a marrish or plaine ground, not farre from 

 the Citie of Novogrode in Russia, and it is from the 

 spring to the Sea, above two thousande English miles. 

 It hath divers other goodly Rivers falling into it, as 

 out of Siberia, Yaic, and Yem : Also out of the moun- 



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