16 
OSSIPUS. 
having taken the usual precaution of sending our mehmandar 
before, while our horses and ourselves enjoyed the freshening 
air, when we arrived, we found well-furnished tents ready to 
receive us. The village itself consists of a few miserable huts 
straggling round the foot of an artificial mound, on the summit 
of which the remains of an old fortress are yet visible. The 
place boasted considerable consequence between three and four 
centuries ago, Shah Ismail, the renowned founder of the Seffean 
dynasty, having colonized it with Christian families from his 
conquests in Georgia; but time and disaster have reduced 
Ossipus and its inhabitants to mere remnants of what they were; 
and we see nothing but dilapidation, poverty, and wretchedness. 
The ruins of a spacious caravansary complete the desolate pic¬ 
ture, by affording shelter to a few poor native families, quite as 
ragged and forlorn in appearance as their Christian neighbours. 
Besides having been a colony of manufacturers during ihe reigns 
of the Sefi monarchs, it was also a military station. A pass, equal 
in danger to that of Iman Zada, from the descent of the hostile 
mountaineers, commanded all ingress from the Ispahan road to 
this part of the valley; and to render it secure from depredators, 
the great Shah Abbas planted a strong garrison in the fortress of 
Ossipus ; which, together with the immediate district surround¬ 
ing it, was placed under the government of Sir Anthony Shirley; 
one of the chivalric brothers of that name who sought a soldier’s 
fortune in Persia during the reign of that gallant prince. Shah 
Abbas used to speak of him as “ the friend of his soul, who had 
daily drank out of the same cup with him, ever since they first 
met in his pavilion at Casvin and for whose sake, as well as 
on the best political grounds, he granted the most encouraging 
protection and privileges to the settlement of Christian mer- 
