Born 1651.—Died 1716.
This distinguished traveller was born on the 16th of September, 1651, at
Lemgow, a small town in the territories of the Count de Lippe, in the
circle of Westphalia. His father, who was a clergyman, bestowed upon his
son a liberal education suitable to the medical profession, for which he
was designed. It is probable, however, that the numerous removals from
one city to another which took place in the course of his education,—his
studies, which commenced at Hameln, in the duchy of Brunswick, having
been successively pursued at Lunebourg, Hamburgh, Lubeck, Dantzick,
Thorn, Cracow, and Kœnigsberg,—communicated to his character a portion
of that restless activity and passion for vicissitude which marked his
riper years. But these changes of scene by no means impaired his ardour
for study. Indeed, the idea of one day opening himself a path to fame
as a traveller appears, on the contrary, to have imparted additional
keenness to his thirst for knowledge; his comprehensive and sagacious
mind very early discovering in how many ways a knowledge of antiquity, of
literature, and the sciences might further the project he had formed of
enlarging the boundaries of human experience.
Having during his stay at Kœnigsberg acquired a competent knowledge of
natural history and the theory of medicine, he returned at the age of
thirty to his own country; whence, after a brief visit, he again departed
for Prussia and Sweden. Wherever he went, the number and variety of
his acquirements, the urbanity of his manners, and the romance and
enthusiasm of his character rendered him a welcome guest, and procured
him the favour of warm and powerful friends. During his residence in this
country, at the university of Upsal and at Stockholm, he became known to
Rudbeck and Puffendorf, the father of the historian; and it was through
the interest of the latter that, rejecting the many advantageous offers
which were made for the purpose of tempting him to remain in Sweden, he
obtained the office of secretary to the embassy then about to be sent
into Persia. The object of this mission was partly commercial, partly
political; and as the Czar of Russia was indirectly concerned in its
contemplated arrangements, it was judged necessary that the ambassador
should proceed to Ispahan by the way of Moscow.
Our traveller departed from Stockholm March 20, 1683, with the presents
for the Shah of Persia, and, proceeding through Arland, Finland,
and Ingermunland, joined Louis Fabricius at Narva. On their arrival
at Moscow, where their reception was magnificent, the ambassador so
skilfully conducted his negotiations that in less than two months they
were enabled to pursue their journey. They accordingly descended the
Volga, and, embarking at Astrakan in a ship with two rudders, and two
pilots who belonged to different nations, and could not understand
each other, traversed the Caspian Sea, where they encountered a
violent tempest, and at length arrived at Nisabad. Here they found
the ambassadors of Poland and Russia, who had arrived a short time
previously, and were likewise on their way to Ispahan, and in their
company proceeded to Shamaki, the capital of Shirwan.
In this city, which they reached about the middle of December, they
remained a whole month, awaiting the reply of the shah to the governor
of Shirwan, who immediately upon their arrival had despatched a courier
to court for directions respecting the manner in which, the several
ambassadors were to be treated and escorted to Ispahan. This delay was
fortunate for Kæmpfer, as it enabled him to visit and examine the most
remarkable objects of curiosity in the neighbourhood, more particularly
the ancient city of Baku, renowned for its eternal fire; the naphtha
springs of Okesra; the burning fountains and mephitic wells; and the
other wonders of that extraordinary spot. Upon this excursion he set out
from Shamakia on the 4th of January, 1684, accompanied by another member
of the legation, two Armenians, and an Abyssinian interpreter. Their
road, during the first part of this day’s journey, lay over a fine plain
abounding in game; having passed which, they arrived about noon at the
village of Pyru Resah. Here a storm, attended with a heavy fall of snow,
preventing their continuing their journey any farther that day, they took
possession of a kind of vaulted stable, which the inhabitants in their
simplicity denominated a caravansary; and kindling a blazing fire with
dried wormwood and other similar plants, which emitted a most pungent
smoke, contrived to thaw their limbs and keep themselves warm until the
morning.
Next morning they continued their route, at first through a mountainous
and desert country buried in snow, and afterward through a plain of
milder temperature, but both equally uninhabited, no living creature
making its appearance, excepting a number of eagles perched upon the
summits of the heights, and here and there a flock of antelopes browsing
upon the plain. Lodging this night also in a caravansary in the desert,
and proceeding next day through similar scenes, they arrived in the
afternoon at Baku. The aspect of this city, the narrowness of the gate,
the strange ornaments of the walls, the peculiarity of the site, the
structure of the houses, the squalid countenances of the inhabitants,
and the novelty of every object which presented itself, inspired our
traveller with astonishment. It happening to be market-day, the streets
were crowded with people, who, being little accustomed to strangers,
and having never before seen a negro, crowded obstreperously around
the travellers, and followed them with hooting, shouting, and clamour
to their lodgings. An old man, who had officiously undertaken to
provide them with an apartment, conducted them through the mob of his
townsfolk, which was every moment becoming more dense, to a small mud
hut, situated in a deserted part of the city, and from its dismal and
miserable appearance, rather resembling the den of a wild beast than a
human dwelling. Having entered this new cave of Trophonius, and shut the
door behind them, the travellers, as Kæmpfer jocosely observes, began to
offer up their thanks to the tutelary god of the place, for affording
them an asylum from the insolence of the rabble. But their triumph was
premature. The mob, whose curiosity was by no means to be satisfied with
a passing glance, ascended the roof of the den in crowds, and before the
travellers could spread out their carpets and lie down, the crashing
roof, the lattices broken, and the door, which they had fastened with a
beam, violently battered, warned them that it was necessary to escape
before they should be overwhelmed by the ruins. It was now thought
advisable that they should endeavour, by exhibiting themselves and their
Ethiopian interpreter, whom the Bakuares unquestionably mistook for
some near relation of the devil’s, to conciliate their persecutors, and
purchase the privilege of sleeping in peace. They therefore removed the
beam, and issuing forth, Abyssinian and all, into the midst of the crowd,
allowed them time to gaze until they were tired. Presently after this the
governor of the city arrived; but, instead of affording his protection
to the strangers, as a man in his station should have done, he accused
them of being spies, and having overwhelmed them with menaces, which he
seems to have uttered for the purpose of enhancing his own dignity in the
estimation of the multitude, departed, leaving them to enact the spies at
their discretion.
Being now left in undisturbed possession of their hut, and there still
remaining some hours of daylight, they prevailed upon their host, by dint
of a small bribe, to show them the citadel, situated in the loftiest
and most deserted part of the city. Returning from thence, they were
met by the beadles of the town, who conducted them, with their beasts
and baggage, to the public caravansary, though their host and guide
had denied the existence of any such building; and while this ancient
deceiver was hurried off before the magistrates, our travellers sat down
to supper and some excellent wine. Next morning Kæmpfer issued forth,
disguised as a groom, to examine the remainder of the city, while his
companions loaded their beasts, and, the keeper of the caravansary being
absent, slipped out of the city, and waited until he should join them at
a little distance upon the road. Having escaped from this inhospitable
place, they proceeded to examine the small peninsula of Okesra, a tongue
of land about three leagues in length, and half a league in breadth,
which projects itself into the Caspian to the south of Baku. This spot,
like the Phlegræan fields, appears to be but a thin crust of earth
superimposed upon an internal gulf of liquid fire, which, escaping into
upper air through a thousand fissures, scorches the earth to dust in some
places; in others, presents to the eye a portion of its surface, boiling,
eddying, noisome, dark, wrapped in infernal clouds, and murmuring like
the fabled waters of hell. Here and there sharp, lofty cones of naked
rocks, composed, like the summits of the Caucasus, of conchylaceous
petrifactions, shoot up from the level of the plain, and on the northern
part of the peninsula are sometimes divided by cultivated valleys. On the
summit of one of these eminences they perceived the ruins of a castle,
in former times the residence of a celebrated imam, who had taken refuge
in these wild scenes from the persecution of the race of Omar.
Still proceeding towards the south they arrived, in about an hour from
these ruins, upon the margin of a burning field, the surface of which was
strewed with a pale white sand, and heaps of ashes; while, from numerous
gaping rents, rushing flames, black smoke, or bluish steam, strongly
impregnated with the scent of naphtha, burst up in a singularly striking
manner. When the superincumbent sand was removed, whether upon the edge
of the fissures, or in any other part of the field, a light rock, porous,
and worm-eaten, as it were, like pumice-stone, was discovered; which,
as well as the substratum of the whole peninsula, consisted of shelly
petrifactions. Here they found about ten persons occupied in different
labours about the fires; some being employed in attending to a number
of copper or earthen vessels, placed over the least intense of the
burning fissures, in which they were cooking dinner for the inhabitants
of a neighbouring village; while others were piling stones brought from
other places into heaps, to be burnt into lime. Apart from these sat two
Parsees, the descendants of the ancient inhabitants of Persia, beside a
small wall of dry stones which they had piled up, contemplating with holy
awe and veneration the fiercely ascending flames, which they regard as an
emblem of the eternal God.
One of the lime-burners now came up to the travellers, and said that for
a small reward he would show them a very extraordinary spectacle. When
they had given him some trifle, he plucked a few threads of cotton from
his garment, and twisting them upon the end of his rake, went and held
them over one of the burning fissures, where they were instantly kindled.
He then held the rake over another rent, from which neither flame nor
smoke ascended, and in an instant the gaseous exhalation, previously
invisible, was kindled, and shot up into a tall, bright flame, like that
of a vast gas lamp, which, after burning furiously for some time, to the
unspeakable astonishment of the strangers, died away and disappeared.
Similar phenomena are observed in several parts of the Caucasus,
particularly in the chasms of Mount Shubanai, about four days’ journey
from Okesra.
From this place they were conducted to the fountains of white naphtha,
where the substance oozed out of the earth as clear as crystal, but
in small quantities. Kæmpfer was surprised to find the wells left
unprotected even by a wall; for if by any accident they were set on fire,
as those near Ecbatana were in ancient times, as we learn from Plutarch,
they would continue to burn for ever with inextinguishable violence.
Having likewise visited the wells of black naphtha, where this pitchy
oil bubbled up out of the earth with a noise like that of a torrent, and
in such abundance that it supplied many countries with lamp oil, our
travellers repaired to a neighbouring village to pass the night. Here
they fared more sumptuously than at Baku; and having supped deliciously
upon figs, grapes, apples, and pomegranates, their unscrupulous hosts,
notwithstanding that they were Mohammedans, unblushingly offered to
provide them with wine and courtesans! Kæmpfer preferring to pass the
evening in learning such particulars as they could furnish respecting the
ancient and modern condition of their country, they merrily crowded about
him, and each in his turn imparted what he knew. When their information
was exhausted, they formed themselves into a kind of wild chorus,
alternately reciting rude pieces of poetry, and proceeding by degrees to
singing and dancing, afforded their guests abundant amusement by their
strange attitudes and gestures.
Rising next morning with the dawn, they proceeded to view what is termed
by the inhabitants the naphtha hell. Ascending a small hemispherical
hill, they found its summit occupied by a diminutive lake, not exceeding
fifty paces in circumference, the crumbling, marshy margin of which
could only be trodden with the utmost caution. The water, which lay like
a black sheet below, had a muriatic taste; and a strange hollow sound,
arising out of the extremest depths of the lake, continually smote upon
the ear, and increased the horror inspired by the aspect of the place.
From time to time black globules of naphtha came bubbling up to the
surface of the water, and were gradually impelled towards the shore,
where, mixing with earthy particles, they incessantly increased the
crust which on all sides encroached upon the lake, and impended over its
infernal gloom. At a short distance from this hill there was a mountain
which emitted a kind of black ooze impregnated with bitumen, which, being
hardened by the sun as it flowed down over the sides of the mountain,
gave the whole mass the appearance of a prodigious cone of pitch. In
the northern portion of the peninsula they beheld another singular
phenomenon, which was a hill, through the summit of which, as through a
vast tube, immense quantities of potter’s earth ascended, as if impelled
upwards by some machine, and having risen to a considerable height, burst
by its own weight, and rolled down the naked side of the hill. In this
little peninsula nature seems to have elaborated a thousand wonders,
which, however, while they astonish, are useful to mankind. It was with
the produce of Okesra that Milton lighted up his Pandæmonium:—
From the arched roof,
Pendent by subtle magic, many a row
Of starry lamps and blazing cressets, fed
With _naphtha_ and _asphaltus_, yielded light
As from a sky.
Returning to Shamakin, which Kæmpfer erroneously supposes to be the
Rhaya of the Bible, our traveller a few days afterward departed for
Ispahan, where he remained nearly two years. Shah Solyman, the prince
then reigning, whose character and court have been so admirably described
by Chardin, was a man whose feeble constitution and feebler mind rendered
him a slave to physicians and astrologers. He was now, by the counsel
of his stargazers, a voluntary prisoner in his own palace, a malignant
constellation, as they affirmed, menacing him with signal misfortunes
should he venture abroad. On the 30th of July, however, the sinister
influence of the stars no longer preventing him, he held a public levee
with the utmost splendour and magnificence; upon which occasion, as
Asiatic princes are peculiarly desirous of appearing to advantage in the
eyes of strangers, all the foreign ambassadors then in the capital were
admitted to an audience. Though the representatives of several superior
nations, as of France, Germany, and Russia, to say nothing of those of
Poland, Siam, or of the pope, were present, the ambassador of Sweden
obtained, I know not wherefore, the precedence over them all. Probably
neither the shah nor his ministers understood the comparative merits
of the various nations of Europe, and regulated their conduct by the
personal character of the envoys; and it would seem that Lewis Fabricius
possessed the secret of rendering himself agreeable to the court of
Persia.
Meanwhile Kæmpfer, who lost no opportunity of penetrating into the
character and observing the manners of a foreign people, employed his
leisure in collecting materials for the various works which he meditated.
He bestowed particular attention upon the ceremonies and observances
of the court; the character and actions of the shah; the form of
government; the great officers of state; the revenue and forces; and the
religion, customs, dress, food, and manners of the people. His principal
inquiries, however, both here and elsewhere, had medicine and natural
history for their object; and that his researches were neither barren nor
frivolous is demonstrated by his “Amœnitates Exoticæ,” one of the most
instructive and amusing books which have ever been written on the East.
Towards the conclusion of the year 1686, M. Fabricius, having
successfully terminated his negotiations with the Persian court, prepared
to leave Ispahan; but Germany being still, says Kæmpfer, engaged in
war with France and the Ottoman Porte, he preferred relinquishing his
office of secretary to the embassy, and pushing his fortunes in the
remoter countries of the East, to the idea of beholding, and perhaps
involving himself in the calamities of his native land, which, however
he might deplore, he had no power to remedy or alleviate. He therefore
took his leave of the ambassador, who did him the honour to accompany
him with all his retinue a mile out of Ispahan, and proceeded towards
Gombroon, or Bander-Abassi, having, by the friendship of Father du Mons,
and the recommendations of M. Fabricius, obtained the office of chief
surgeon to the fleet of the Dutch East India Company, then cruising in
the Persian Gulf. He long hesitated, he says, whether he should select
Egypt or the “Farther East” for the field of his researches; and had
not circumstances, which frequently stand in the place of destiny,
interposed, it is probable that the charms of the Nile would have proved
the more powerful. To a man like Kæmpfer, the offer of becoming _chief
physician_ to a Georgian Prince, “with considerable appointments,” which
was made him about this time, could have held out but small temptation,
as he must have been thoroughly acquainted, not only with the general
poverty of both prince and people, but likewise with the utter insecurity
of person and property in that wretched country.
It was during this journey that he visited the celebrated ruins of
Persepolis. He arrived in sight of the Forty Pillars on the 1st of
December, 1686; and looking towards this scene of ancient magnificence,
where the choicest of the population of a vast empire had once sported
like butterflies in the sun, his eye encountered about fifty black
Turcoman tents upon the plain, before the doors of which sat a number
of women engaged in weaving, while their husbands and children were
amusing themselves in the tents, or absent with the flocks and herds. Not
having seen the simple apparatus which enables the Hindoos to produce
the finest fabrics in the world, whether in chintzes or muslins, Kæmpfer
beheld with astonishment the comparatively excellent productions of these
rude looms, and the skill and industry of the Persepolitan Calypsos,
whose fair fingers thus emulated the illustrious labours of the Homeric
goddesses and queens. It was not within the power of his imagination,
however, inflamed as it was by the gorgeous descriptions of Diodorus and
other ancient historians, to bestow a moment upon any thing modern in
the presence of those mysterious and prodigious ruins, sculptured with
characters which no longer speak to the eye, and exhibiting architectural
details which the ingenuity of these “degenerate days” lacks the acumen
to interpret. Here, if we may conjecture from the solemn splendour of
the language in which he relates what he saw, his mind revelled in those
dreamy delights which are almost inevitably inspired by the sight of
ancient monuments rent, shattered, and half-obliterated by time.
Having gratified his antiquarian curiosity by the examination of these
memorials of Alexander’s passion for Thaïs, who,—