John Cartwright, always called ‘The Preacher’ despite never having been recorded as doing any preaching, is one of the lesser known travellers in the Persia of Shah Abbas. Usefully for me, finding out about Isfahan and Shah Abbas at or before the time the 1000km walk started in 1601, Cartwright left England in April 1600. He then travelled via Aleppo, Armenia and Kurdistan to Persia, later becoming the first Englishman to visit the four key sites of antiquity in the Near East: Persepolis; Susa; Nineveh; and Babylon.
‘The Preacher’ had strangely mixed views about Shah Abbas – discussing on the one hand the “infinite . . calamities” that Abbas had brought down on his brothers, father, and the “ancient families” of the court; whilst also suggesting that “this Prince [Abbas] is very absolute both in perfection of his body and his mind (but that he is in religion a professed Mahumatine), excellently composed in the one, and honourably disposed in the other”.
Cartwright gives some fascinating insights into how Abbas spent his days in Isfahan:
“Usually every morning he visiteth his stables of great horses . .”
“After he hath viewed his horses, he passeth into his Armoury, certain buildings near to his palace, where there are made very strong Curiasses, or Corselets, headpeeces and targets, most of them able to keep out the shot of an arquebuiser . .” [click here to see a replica 1602 arquebuisier in action] ”
“By this time having spent most of the forenoone, he returneth into his palace and there remains until three of the clock in the afternoon, at which time he makes his entry into the At-Maidan, which is the greatest marketplace or high street of Hifpaan [Isfahan]; round about this place are erected certain high scaffolds where the multitude do sit to behold the warlike exercises performed by the King and his courtiers, as at their running and leaping, their shooting with bows and arrows, at a mark both above and beneath, their playing at tennis [Cartwright means polo here: as shown to the right], all of which they performe on horseback . .”
Like the 1595 festival account in an earlier blog entry; this must be a description of the first phase of the Maydan development. Although much has changed since then – the extra, inner row of shops and the second storey of ‘apartments’ was added in 1602 – there are still polo goalposts in the Maydan today.