Adım Adım Amasya

Stories of the city

What did the travellers say about Amasya?

For two thousand years, people kept coming to this city: geographers, pilgrims, envoys, merchants, missionaries, soldiers, archaeologists, a wandering minstrel. Some wrote about its gardens, some about its taxes; some about the secret passages beneath its castle, some about a festival morning. And some exaggerated. What all forty of them said is here — each with its source and page.

40 travellers 64 BC – 1930s Source: Ali Tuzcu's compilation

Part oneAntiquity and Byzantium

64 BC – AD 21

Strabo

Born in Amasya, died in Amasya. Geographer.

He is the only native of Amasya on this list. He completed his seventeen-volume Geographika in this city, where he spent thirty years of his life. As he lists the regions of Pontus one by one, the geographer's detached tone suddenly changes when he reaches his own city:

“…and the remaining side by my country, that of the Amaseians, which is by far the largest and best of all.”1 Translation by H. L. Jones (Loeb Classical Library).

His is the oldest account of the Rock Tombs of the Kings and of the castle. That is why many of the travellers who came centuries later looked at the city through Strabo's eyes first — as you will see below.

AD 23 – 79

Pliny the Elder

Roman naturalist. Died while watching Vesuvius erupt.

Amasya and its surroundings appear in books 3, 4, 6 and 13 of his thirty-seven-book Naturalis Historia. Tuzcu gave this chapter the heading: “The town where medicines that heal the sick and poisons that kill the healthy were made.”2 In the ancient world, Pontus was the land of both healing and poison.

born 1083

Anna Komnene

Byzantine princess and historian. Plotted against her brother and was sent into exile.

She wrote the history of her father, the Emperor Alexios. One scene of that history takes place in Amasya: a Byzantine intrigue.3 Here the city is not a landscape but a political stage.

Part twoIslamic geographers and the first travellers

1100 – 1166

al-Sharif al-Idrisi

Geographer to the Norman king Roger II in Sicily.

He described Amasya in two sentences, and both are about roads:

“Amasya lies in the land of Rum, in the seventh clime. It is a city where important roads meet and where trade caravans often stop.”4

c. 1266–1267

Ibn Sa'id

Andalusian philologist and geographer (1208–1274).

He is the first traveller to record Amasya's water-wheels — sixty or seventy years before Ibn Battuta:

“It has many gardens and a great river. Water-wheels water the gardens. This city is the city of physicians, philosophers and scholars.”5

Two different travellers, sixty or seventy years apart, noticing the same thing is no coincidence: the water-wheel was Amasya's machine.

1329? 1333? 1339?

Ibn Battuta

From Tangier. Travelled three continents in twenty-five years.

He came from the direction of Sivas. His Amasya is a city of water and gardens:

“It is a fine city on the bank of a great river, covered with vineyards and gardens, full of orchards and trees. Water raised by wheels set up on the river waters its houses and gardens; its streets and markets are wide.”6

The sources disagree on the year of his visit: Tuzcu says 1339, Kertil 1329, Türkoğlu AH 733/1333.6 One more caution: in the Turkish translation, the lodge of the descendants of Ahmad al-Rifa'i seems to be in Amasya. Kuzucular points out that this comes from a small omission in the translation, and that the Rifa'i lodge where Ibn Battuta stayed was in Sonisa.6 Seven hundred years later, those gardens are still on the table: What to eat in Amasya →

1465

Basil the Merchant

Orthodox pilgrim and merchant who set out from Kiev.

On his way to Jerusalem he came to Amasya by way of Osmancık, Merzifon and Havza. Tuzcu's chapter heading gives the image he left behind: “Seven mansions strung like pearls along the Yeşilırmak.”7 He is a good source for the settlements of 15th-century Anatolia — though some of his accounts also contain irrational rumours.

Part threeThe Ottoman age of splendour

mid-16th century

Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq

Austria's envoy in Istanbul (1522–1592).

He came to Amasya to see the sultan. According to Tuzcu's chapter heading, the impression he left is that of Ottoman power, reflected from Amasya to Europe.8 For a diplomat, the things that found their way into his notes are surprising: fish, birds, animals and plants.

mid-16th century

Hans Dernschwam

In Busbecq's party; a humanist from Bohemia (1494–1568).

He knew Latin, Greek, Hungarian and Slavonic. The information he gives about Amasya is more detailed than the envoy's; Tuzcu compared the two travel accounts.9 Tuzcu's chapter heading sums up what he saw in three phrases: Ottoman splendour, the strength of the army, and busy diplomatic traffic. His real value, though, lies in his figures: he wrote down distances, measures and prices one by one.

between 1575 and 1598

Âşık Mehmed

From Trabzon. Set out at twenty and travelled for twenty-five years.

He was self-taught; he gathered his travels in the Menâzırü'l-avâlim and finished the work in Damascus in 1598. This is how he places Amasya: “Amasya lies in Bilad-ı Rum, which is the seventh of the known climes (regions).”10 It is the same geographical language that al-Idrisi had used four hundred years earlier — and most of his page on Amasya is taken from earlier travellers, such as Ibn Sa'id.

between 1616 and 1618

Simeon of Poland

Armenian traveller. Stopped on his way back from Jerusalem.

He summed up the city's geography in one sentence; the same sentence could be written today:

“The city is built at the foot of two mountains, with a great river flowing through its middle.”11

He also counts the city's Armenian community: two hundred households, three churches. It is one of the most concrete records of Amasya as a city of many communities.

May 1632

Jean-Baptiste Tavernier

French diamond merchant. Went to Persia six times.

A merchant's eye was caught by something quite other than the city's trade: dervishes living in hollows carved into the rock.12 He saw them in caves cut into the face of the rock around a spring in the middle of the castle mountain — while passing through Amasya on his way to Persia.

1647

Boullaye le Gouz

French traveller. Overland from Istanbul to Persia.

He was in Anatolia in September–October 1647. The heading Tuzcu gave to his Amasya pages names a single subject: the Jews of Amasya.13 Simeon's Armenians, le Gouz's Jews — piece by piece, they show the city's population side by side.

17th century

Evliya Çelebi

A ten-volume Seyahatnâme (Book of Travels) in fifty years.

He came to Amasya across the Merzifon plain. Describing the castle, he lines up the traditions: according to some, it was the work of a very ancient people; according to others, it was built by Ferhat, who pierced the mountain; then Melik Gazi's conquest of 1083–84, the Seljuks, the Ottomans…14

Did Evliya exaggerate again? Not this time — and that matters. When he tells who built the castle, he does not claim it was Ferhat himself; he reports it: “Some histories say that Ferhat the Mountain-Splitter built it.” Describing the castle, he also calls it “a strong place, the work of Ferhat”. So in the 17th century the castle was told about through the Ferhat legend. That is information not about the castle but about the city's memory — and that is what makes it valuable.
between 1652 and 1660

Macarius

Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch.

What he recorded while travelling through Anatolia is not a landscape but a church quarrel: the excommunication and death of Athanasius, Metropolitan of Amasya.15 The travel account also describes the privileges the Ottomans granted to the Orthodox community. It was written in Arabic not by Macarius himself but by his assistant, Paul of Aleppo.

17th century

Kâtip Çelebi

Geographer and bibliographer. The rational mind of his age.

He lists Amasya in a brief, dry style: its quarters, market, bathhouse, mosque, madrasa, the castle on a high hill, Sultan Bayezid's great mosque with two minarets. Then he reports the city's name:

“They call this city ‘Bagdad-ı Rum’. At one time it was a Dar-ül mülk.”16

Note: Kâtip Çelebi does not give this name himself; he reports it with a “they say” — just as Evliya does with the Ferhat tradition. Bagdad-ı Rum means “the Baghdad of Rum”, and a dârülmülk is a seat of royal government. Tuzcu headed this chapter “the Baghdad of Anatolia”.

Part fourThe age of science, trade and diplomacy

18–20 May 1781

Domenico Sestini

Florentine collector of ancient coins and observer of nature.

He spent two days in Amasya. Tuzcu gave this chapter the portrait of a valley as its heading: “The valley of Amasya, ringed by steep passes, where noble horses and beautiful, magical flowers grow.”17 His book contains serious observations on the plants of Anatolia in the 1780s.

4–6 July 1809

James Morier

British diplomat; author of the novel Hajji Baba (d. 1849).

Born in Izmir, he served as a diplomat in Persia. In Amasya he also visited the rock tombs, but what stands out in his pages is people. Tuzcu gave the chapter this heading: “The city of generous, hospitable people, full of respect and affection.” Morier's own sentence points the same way: in Tuzcu's Turkish, it says that the people of Amasya show strangers outstanding courtesy, respect and hospitality.18 You can see Amasya's idea of the guest at the table, too.

June 1818

Colonel Rottiers

A colonel who travelled with his son; studied the plants of Anatolia.

Little is known about his life. But the image he found for the Yeşilırmak stays in the mind: “a medal pinned on Amasya's breast.”19

early 19th century

Sir Robert Ker Porter

British painter; history painter to the Russian tsar (1777–1842).

He looked again at Amasya and at the Rock Tombs of the Kings through Strabo's eyes.20 In a painter's hands, an eighteen-hundred-year-old text becomes a yardstick once more.

1820s

Victor Fontanier

French naturalist and diplomat (born 1796).

He stopped in Amasya on his way back from a research journey that lasted eight years. What he recorded is not beauty but heavy taxes, plague and prisoners of war.21 That two travellers can describe the same city so differently depends on when they came.

1833–1837, 1843

Charles Texier

French archaeologist, sent by the French government (1802–1871).

He saw a contrast in the city's landscape: “…the cheerful, pleasant scenery of the valley and the dryness and bareness of the mountain form a complete contradiction.”22 It is still what you see today when you look at Harşena.

He also mentions the tomb caves of the village of Kale, six kilometres east of the city: Barth found that ladders and ropes were needed to get up to them, even the villagers did not know the way, and after two-thirds of the way one could not go on, because it was impossible to walk on the smooth, shining rock.22 Sometimes describing a place means describing how you could not reach it.

11–15 April 1836

William John Hamilton

British geologist; secretary of the Geological Society.

At the castle he noticed secret underground passages that others had missed. The question on his mind was: in a siege, where did the castle get its water? With a guide and a strong light he went into one of the passages; on the worn, mud-choked steps he slipped and fell. After a long descent he found at the bottom a pool full of cold, clean water.23

The chapter's heading, however, comes from a completely different detail: tame white vultures.

between 1835 and 1839

Helmuth von Moltke

Prussian officer; later chief of the German general staff.

He toured Anatolia while serving as a fortifications expert in the Ottoman army. What stayed with him from Amasya is not a fortification but a Bayram (festival) morning.24 That a festival morning found its way into the notebook of one of Europe's most cool-headed strategists also says something about how the city is remembered.

12–14 July 1838

William Francis Ainsworth

British naturalist and traveller (1807–1896).

With the support of three societies he travelled for years in Anatolia, Mesopotamia, the Caucasus and Persia. Tuzcu's chapter heading tells us what caught his eye: the city's old-established Turkmen families. Ainsworth writes that most of the population was Turkmen, and that his party stayed as guests in the mansion of a wealthy Turkmen agha.25

1841 report

Robert W. Stevens

British consular official.

He left a detailed report covering Amasya, Tokat and Kayseri. Its subject is not a portrait of a city but silk and trade: European and Swiss trading houses modernising silk production in Amasya, the Austrians' monopoly on the leech trade, taxes.26 In other words, in 1841 Amasya was an address in Europe's economic rivalry. Tuzcu headed this chapter “German skilled labour and capital”.

1847 journey

Dr Perunak Feruhan Bey

A physician accompanying a palace official.

He set out with the mission that Sultan Abdülmecid sent to Baghdad. His travel book was printed in Armenian in 1868; Hrand D. Andreasyan translated the part on Amasya into Turkish. One piece of information he passes on is striking: according to him, after taking Amasya and enlarging its walls, Mithridates gave the city the name “the boundary of the world”.27 Tuzcu took the chapter's heading from here: “The boundary of the world: Amasya.”

12–14 May 1854

Henry John Van Lennep

Levantine born in Izmir; American Protestant missionary (born 1815).

He was an educator and a clergyman; he also worked on painting, archaeology, botany and zoology. He passed through Amasya on his way to Tokat, where he was to work for seven years. Tuzcu's chapter heading gives the subject of his Amasya pages: the settlement of Europeans in the city and efforts to spread Protestantism.28

1779 – 1859

Carl Ritter

German scholar, one of the founders of modern geography.

Tuzcu gave his Amasya pages the longest heading on this list: “The coy and weary queen mother of waters, greenery, delicious fruits, silk and wine.”29 The heading is not empty decoration: Ritter writes that silkworm breeding gave a living to twenty thousand people in the city. That silk heralds the story of the city's silk factory.

1850s

A. D. Mordtmann

From Hamburg; self-taught, without formal schooling (1811–1879).

What he recorded in Amasya is dark: a plague epidemic, an uprising and the murder of a physician.30 A city's history is made not only of its buildings but also of what befell it.

1858

Dr Heinrich Barth

German explorer and geographer who crossed Africa (1821–1865).

The man who had walked the Sahara and Central Sudan arrived in Istanbul in the spring of 1858 and crossed Anatolia. The subject he found in Amasya, in Tuzcu's heading: “Amasya's Alamans.”31 That is, German colonists who had settled in the city — the story of the Alaman Farm is told separately on this site.

1861

Georges Perrot

French professor of archaeology.

He came with the architect Guillaume and the physician Jules Delbet. He left Amasya two things. The first is the nickname the city still repeats today:

“Amasya is the Oxford of Anatolia.”32

The second is more tangible: the first photographs of Amasya and its surroundings were taken on this journey, by Dr Delbet.33 So the ancestor of the old pictures you see on this site is the camera of Perrot's travelling companion.

1869

William Gifford Palgrave

British consul in Trabzon (1867–1873).

What he wrote about Amasya is not literary but official: in 1869, a report on the general economic condition of the city and its surroundings.34 A portrait of Amasya written in figures.

1870s

Osman Hamdi Bey

Archaeologist and painter; founder of Turkish museology (1842–1910).

The only painter-archaeologist on the list. His record of Amasya is not stone but cloth: what the people of the region wore.35 Sometimes the way to understand a city runs not through its walls but through what its people wear on their backs.

18–21 July 1879

Henry Fanshawe Tozer

Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford, and clergyman.

Before coming to the Ottoman lands he learned Turkish and Armenian from an Armenian from Talas, near Kayseri. His subject in Amasya is political: unrest in the region and the British military consulates in Anatolia.36

1890

Vital Cuinet

French diplomat and financial official; worked for the Ottoman Public Debt Administration.

His is the most comprehensive record on this list; in Tuzcu's heading: the sanjak of Amasya in all its aspects, in the year 1890.37 Population, administration, production, trade — a document that describes a city in the language of the state's ledgers. Tuzcu also included in his book Cuinet's map of the sanjak of Amasya.

between 1898 and 1900

Ernst von der Nahmer

German geographer and traveller.

The date of his visit is not certain; but because he writes that the governor of the town was Mehmet Kemal Bey, it can be placed between 1898 and 1900 — a good example of how a travel account is dated. His subject continues Barth's; in Tuzcu's heading: “The Germans who became Amasyans.”38

Part fiveThe twentieth century

1911–1912

W. J. Childs

An Englishman who crossed Anatolia on foot; possibly a diplomat, according to Tuzcu.

According to his preface, a walk of some 1300 miles that took five months. Tuzcu dates his visit to 1916, the years of the First World War; but Childs writes in his own preface that the journey was made at “the time of the Italian war” (1911-1912). The book's table of contents sums up the Amasya chapter like this: “A singular ravine”, “The making of pekmez”, “An ominous noise” and “Amasia the most picturesque city in Asia Minor.”39 These are Childs's own English words, quoted from the original edition.

6–7 September 1914

Âşık Ahmet Cemal

Wandering minstrel. An axe in his hand, a segmented crown on his head.

The only saz poet on this list. He arrived in Amasya on 6 September 1914 and left for Samsun the next day. What he left behind is not a report but an epic: “Beş cemalli, müjdeli, cilveli, vatanî ve siyasî Amasya destanı” — roughly, “the five-cemal, joyful, coquettish, patriotic and political epic of Amasya”.40 Cemal means “beauty”; it is also the poet's own name, and the governor of Amasya in the poem is a Cemal too, Cemal Paşa.

Nothing is known of his life; all we have is his photograph and his words. The others wrote the city; he sang it, with his saz.

20th century

Albert Louis Gabriel

French architect and art historian (1883–1972).

The man who documented the Turkish architecture of Anatolia. The words that close the list are not a traveller's impression but a call. He says that the city's sons and daughters should work to bring Amasya back to its old, brilliant days, and adds: “They should always be proud of their city's past, present and future.”41

In a way, this site is a late answer to that sentence.

Where do the quotations on this page come from?
We have not read most of the travellers' original books. All forty were taken from Ali Tuzcu's compilation Seyahatnâmelerde Amasya (“Amasya in the Travel Books”), which brings together these travellers' pages about Amasya. That is why the sources say “naklen” (“as cited in”): the original work comes first, then the book that quotes it. Where a date in the compilation looked doubtful (Childs), we checked the original book.

Unless we say otherwise, what we give in quotation marks are the travellers' own sentences (in their Turkish translations). Wherever we quote one of the headings Tuzcu gave to his chapters, we say so — a heading is the compiler's summary of what the traveller tells, not the traveller's words.

On this English page the quotations are our English renderings of those Turkish translations — for most travellers, translations of translations. Where we could check the original English, we quote it (Strabo in H. L. Jones's translation, Childs); for the other travellers who wrote in English we paraphrase rather than invent their wording.

Sources

Forty-one entries. Each traveller with his or her own work and page. The shared compilation: Ali Tuzcu, Seyahatnâmelerde Amasya (Amasya: Amasya Belediyesi Kültür Yayınları, 2007) — referred to below simply as Tuzcu. Titles are given in their original form so that they can be found.

  1. Strabon, Geographika: Antik Anadolu Coğrafyası XII-XIII-XIV, çev. Adnan Pekman (İstanbul: Arkeoloji ve Sanat Yayınları, 2000), 49-52, naklen Ali Tuzcu, Seyahatnâmelerde Amasya (Amasya: Amasya Belediyesi Kültür Yayınları, 2007), 5-6. — The English quotation: Strabo, The Geography of Strabo, tr. Horace Leonard Jones, Vol. V (Loeb Classical Library, 1928), XII.3.38.
  2. Plinius, Naturalis Historia, naklen Tuzcu, 9-11.
  3. Anna Komnena, Alexiad, naklen Tuzcu, 12-18.
  4. Şerif İdrisi, Nüzhetü'l-müştâk fî ihtirâki'l-âfâk, naklen Tuzcu, 19.
  5. İbn Saîd el-Mağribî, naklen Tuzcu, 20.
  6. İbn Battuta, İbn Battuta Seyahatnâmesinden Seçmeler, haz. İsmet Parmaksızoğlu (Ankara: Millî Eğitim Bakanlığı Yayınları, 1970), 27, naklen Tuzcu, 21-22; Fatih Kertil, Büyük Selçuklu Döneminden Osmanlı Yönetimine Kadar Amasya Tarihi (Samsun: Ondokuz Mayıs Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü, Yüksek Lisans Tezi, 2014), 51; Emine Türkoğlu, Amasya İli, Hatuniye Mahallesi Geleneksel Yerleşim Dokusunun Analizi, Değerlendirilmesi ve Koruma Geliştirme Önerisi (Ankara: Gazi Üniversitesi Fen Bilimleri Enstitüsü, Yüksek Lisans Tezi, 2006), 19; Kani Kuzucular, Amasya Kentinin Fiziksel Yapısının Tarihsel Gelişimi (İstanbul: İstanbul Teknik Üniversitesi Fen Bilimleri Enstitüsü, Doktora Tezi, 1994), 48. — Year of the visit: Tuzcu gives 1339, Kertil 1329, Türkoğlu AH 733/1333. That the Rifâî lodge was in Sonisa, not in Amasya, and the omission in Parmaksızoğlu's translation: Kuzucular.
  7. Tüccar Basil, Seyahatnâme, naklen Tuzcu, 23-24.
  8. Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq, İstanbul ve Amasya Seyahatnamesi (İstanbul: Alfa Yayınları, 2021); ayrıca naklen Tuzcu, 25-32.
  9. Hans Dernschwam, İstanbul ve Anadolu'ya Seyahat Günlüğü, naklen Tuzcu, 33-51.
  10. Âşık Mehmed, Menâzırü'l-avâlim, naklen Tuzcu, 52-53.
  11. Polonyalı Simeon, Seyahatnâme, naklen Tuzcu, 54.
  12. Jean-Baptiste Tavernier, Seyahatnâme, naklen Tuzcu, 55-58.
  13. Boullaye le Gouz, Seyahatnâme, naklen Tuzcu, 59-63.
  14. Evliya Çelebi, Seyahatnâme, naklen Tuzcu, 64-76.
  15. Macarius, Seyahatnâme, naklen Tuzcu, 77-78.
  16. Kâtip Çelebi, Cihannümâ, naklen Tuzcu, 86-89.
  17. Domenico Sestini, Seyahatnâme, naklen Tuzcu, 79-85.
  18. James Morier, Seyahatnâme, naklen Tuzcu, 90-94.
  19. Albay Rottiers, Seyahatnâme, naklen Tuzcu, 95-98.
  20. Robert Ker Porter, Seyahatnâme, naklen Tuzcu, 99-107.
  21. Victor Fontanier, Seyahatnâme, naklen Tuzcu, 108-129.
  22. Charles Texier, Küçük Asya, naklen Tuzcu, 130-135.
  23. William John Hamilton, Researches in Asia Minor, Pontus and Armenia, C. I (Londra, 1842), 362-373, naklen Tuzcu, 136-146.
  24. Helmuth von Moltke, Türkiye Mektupları, naklen Tuzcu, 147-150.
  25. William Francis Ainsworth, Travels and Researches in Asia Minor, naklen Tuzcu, 151-154.
  26. Robert W. Stevens, consular report dated 1841, naklen Tuzcu, 155-160.
  27. Perunak Feruhan Bey, Seyahatnâme, çev. Hrand D. Andreasyan, naklen Tuzcu, 161.
  28. Henry John Van Lennep, Travels in Little-Known Parts of Asia Minor, naklen Tuzcu, 162-182.
  29. Karl Ritter, Die Erdkunde von Asien, naklen Tuzcu, 183-186.
  30. Andreas David Mordtmann, Anatolien: Skizzen und Reisebriefe aus Kleinasien (1850-1859) (Hannover, 1925), 90-100, 472-473, naklen Tuzcu, 187-195.
  31. Heinrich Barth, Reise von Trapezunt nach Skutari, naklen Tuzcu, 196-213.
  32. Georges Perrot, naklen Kültürel Miras Boyutuyla Amasya (Amasya: Amasya Üniversitesi, BAP Projesi SEB-BAP25-0233, 2026), 11-12. — The chapter “Coğrafi Konum ve Yerleşim Sürekliliği”; Perrot's description of Amasya in 1861 as “the Oxford of Anatolia” is cited here.
  33. Ali Tuzcu, Seyahatnâmelerde Amasya (Amasya: Amasya Belediyesi Kültür Yayınları, 2007), 214-244. — Perrot's journey of 1861, his companions (the architect Guillaume and the physician Jules Delbet), and the first photographs of Amasya, taken by Delbet.
  34. William Gifford Palgrave, consular report dated 1869, naklen Tuzcu, 245-250.
  35. Osman Hamdi Bey, Les Costumes Populaires de la Turquie, naklen Tuzcu, 251-258.
  36. Henry Fanshawe Tozer, Turkish Armenia and Eastern Asia Minor (Londra, 1881), 23-44, naklen Tuzcu, 259-272.
  37. Vital Cuinet, La Turquie d'Asie, naklen Tuzcu, 273-304.
  38. Ernst von der Nahmer, Seyahatnâme, naklen Tuzcu, 305-316.
  39. W. J. Childs, Across Asia Minor on Foot, 2nd impression (Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood and Sons, 1917), Preface and Contents (synopsis of chapter VII); also naklen Tuzcu, 321-341. — The Preface states that the journey was made at “the time of the Italian war”; Tuzcu dates the visit to 1916. Digital copy of the book: archive.org/details/acrossasiaminoro00chiluoft (Erişim 2 Ekim 2026).
  40. Âşık Ahmet Cemal, Amasya Destanı, naklen Tuzcu, 317-320.
  41. Albert Louis Gabriel, Monuments Turcs d'Anatolie, naklen Tuzcu, 342-346.

Some bibliographic details are missing on purpose. All forty travellers in Tuzcu's compilation have been covered; but because the compilation does not give full details of some travellers' original works (place and year of publication, translator), these have been left incomplete — not invented.