Usbek to his friend Rustan in Isfahan

We stayed just a week at Tokat [1] ; after thirty-five days’ march we have arrived in Smyrna. [2]

From Tokat to Smyrna not a single city is to be found that deserves mentioning. I have been surprised to see the weakness of the Osmanlin empire : this sick body is not maintained by a gentle, temperate regime, but with violent remedies which constantly drain and weaken it. [3]

The Bachas, [4] who acquire their positions only by paying, are broke when they enter the provinces, and pillage them like conquered lands. An insolent militia answers only to its own whims : the fortresses are dismanteled, the cities deserted, the countryside ravaged, the farming of the land and commerce entirely abandoned.

Impunity reigns in this harsh government [5] : the Christians who farm the land and the Jews who raise the tributes are exposed to a thousand acts of violence. [6]

The ownership of the land is uncertain, and as a result the eagerness to exploit it repressed ; neither title nor possession can stand against the whim of those who govern.

These barbarians have so abandoned the arts that they have neglected even military art. While the nations of Europe become more refined every day, they remain in their former ignorance, and it does not occur to them to adopt their new inventions until they have used them a thousand times against them.

They have no experience on the sea, no skill at maneuvers. It is said that a handful of Christian natives of a rock [7] harass all the Ottomans, and weaken their empire.

Incapable of carrying on trade, they almost reluctantly suffer the Europeans, always hard-working and enterprising, to come do it for them : they think they are indulging these foreigners by allowing them to come get rich off of them.

In this whole vast land which I have crossed, I have found only Smyrna that can be considered a rich and powerful city : it is the Europeans who make it so, and if it were up to the Turks it would be like all the others.

There you have, dear Rustan, a fair notion of this empire which in less than two centuries will be the theatre of some conqueror’s victories. [8]

Smyrna this 2^nd day of the moon of Rahmazan 1711