Note 279 — A NARRATIVE OF ITALIAN TRAVELS IN PERSIA. (continued 2)

Shirvan, the largest and most important division of the Southern Caucasus, is watered by numberless rivers, the largest of which is the Kur. Its capital is Schamachi, under which name, according to Kinneir, there are two cities, the old and the new. He says: “New Schamachi is situated in a plain on the river Aksui, about fifty versts from the Kur, and the same distance from the sea. The form is quadrangular, each side being eight hundred paces in length. The walls are in tolerable repair, built of unburnt brick, and surrounded with a very deep and broad ditch. When this town was taken by Aga Mahomed Khan in 1795, the inhabitants were supposed to amount to six thousand souls; but the city, as well as the villages nearest the plain, were reduced to ruins by that relentless tyrant, who did not retire till the month of February of the following year. The ruins of the old Schamachi, once a large and populous city, are still extant, but they are almost hid from the view by thick brushwood. This is the Schamacha of the ancients and stands in a fine situation, in an angle formed by the southern branch of Mount Caucasus.”