A Brief Account of Some Travels in Divers Parts of Europe

We proceeded to Prestina [Pristina], a good city, and where we expected good accommodation; but when we entered a good room, we found a man lying in it, sick of the plague. So we consulted our security and stayed short; and having a Rom for a guide, we traveled through a country sparsely inhabited, but fruitful and pleasant, and greatly refreshed ourselves with beautiful cornelians, which grew abundantly in the road: we also passed near a hot bath, a little in right. The bath was an arched room well built and very refreshing for travelers. It has a red sediment and is saturated with succus lapidescens, which makes the stone ash-colored. [...]

It was no small consolation for us to find the country completely free of plague, which in fact we encountered only in Prestina, a large city, in a part of the Kosovo Plain; when we came to that place, we were entertained at a very good house, and brought into a large room, well furnished with carpets and other ornaments; there we found a Turk lying sick of the plague. To the Kaurs, according to the Turkish style, it did not seem like a big deal; but some others were not so pleased; and therefore we left and traveled by night, till we came to a gypsy house among the hills, where we found good shelter.

The Turks were very pleased to see me write; when I entered a house, I took out my paper book, to record the things I had noticed; when they saw this, they all came round me, looking at the paper and the binding of the book, and being astonished to see me write so quickly, and with such a pen, which was made of a goose quill; these [Turks] usually write with a strong reed, cut like our pens. Many of them carry about them a beautiful bronze paint, which they hang at their side; their ink is good, the paper smooth and light; through which they write very correctly, as evidenced by [the notebook] The Passage of the Sultans, which I brought home with me.

Source: Brown, Edward (1673). A Brief Account of Some Travels. London: T.R.. p. 49, 78. Printed book. (Translation: Yll Rugova).