[EVLIYA IN EGYPT, SUDAN AND ETHIOPIA] Evliya Çelebi seyahatnamesi. Vol. 10: Misir, Sudan, Habes, (1672-1680)

EVLIYA ÇELEBI [MEHMED ZILLÎ B. DERVIS], (1611-1685)., Devlet Basimevi, Istanbul, 1938.

Original grey cloth bdg. Roy. 8vo. (25 x 17 cm). In Turkish. [xxviii], [4], [4], 1112 p., 2 full-page color maps. The first map is the most famous one showing the Nile and the second one shows the Mediterranean shores and cities of Egypt.

Rare first edition of the 10th, and the last volume of the Evliya's travel corpus including his descriptions of Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia in the late 17th century. This legendary travel account was published between 1896-1938 respectively in ten volumes.

"Book X lands him in Egypt and takes him up the Nile to the Sudan and Ethiopia. When Evliya reaches Ibrim on the Nile, the southernmost limit of the Ottoman Empire, he remarks on the intense heat of the place; contrasting it with the intense cold he experienced at the northernmost limit, Azov; and with the mild climates at the eastern and western frontiers, Baghdad on the one hand, and Istolnibelgrad on the other. Apparently, Egypt suited him best, and he found Cairo a worthy counterpart to Istanbul; for he settled there to work up his memoirs of forty-one years of travel. He died around 1683, and there is controversy over whether a certain cryptic passage refers to the Ottoman defeat at Vienna.". (Evliya Çelebi's book of travels. 2. Evliya Çelebi in Bitlis).

Evliya Çelebi visited Suakin during one of his journeys across Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia, Djibouti, and Tanzania. He describes this territory under the title "The characteristics of old throne center Suakin" as "we stayed in this city for 12 days, trading with all kinds of people with camel trains. I sold 40 dromedaries in return for 500 piasters and also disburdened, sold 50 tusks for 500 piasters. Then we started to wander around the city. The Suez Sea is to the north of the island, and it takes 12 hours to reach Mecca from the island. Therefore, the direction of Mecca from this city is to the north. Suakin is a little island stretching three miles from east to west. (Afyoncu, Daily Sabah).

Further travels in the 1670s took him to western and southwestern Anatolia and Syria. He completed the Hajj again and appears to have settled in Egypt for several years. He traveled in Upper Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia searching for the sources of the River Nile, before settling down to compile his great travel book.

OCLC 630428224 (with four copies).