108 - HORMUZD RASSAM, ESQ., 
not be out of place, I think, if I quote his words. He says, 
“We had to proceed beyond the head-waters, at nearly the 
same level, to the foot of the Nimrud Tagh, a group of 
nearly conical mountains, having on this, its southern front, 
six distinct summits, all essentially of volcanic origin, and in 
part clad with brushwood of deciduous oak. We then 
turned to the left over the plain of Tacht Ali (the throne of 
Ali), when we began our descent towards the sources of the 
Kara Su, and the extensive plain of Mush. 
“ Hitherto, as previously remarked, till the publication of 
the map acvompanying Mr. Brant’s memoir, the Nimrud Tagh 
has universally been adopted as the great mountain chain of 
Southern Armenia; as at once the easterly prolongation of 
Taurus, and corresponding to the Mons Niphates of the 
ancients, but it is not so; the great chain here alluded to is 
the Ali Tagh, the Nimrud Tagh being a local volcanie group 
rising out of the upland beyond. In Armenia as in Kurdistan, 
and in Lesser Asia, the great rivers tributary to Euphrates 
and Tigris, or flowing direct to the sea, as the Seihun and 
Jeihun, pass through the main chain of mountains, which is 
here, as just said, the Ali Tagh, and to confound which with 
the Nimrud Tagh, does not lead simply to a verbal, but also 
to a geographical error, by which the range of Armenian 
Taurus is made to course north of Betlis, instead of south of 
that place.”* 
In another place the same anthor says—‘ Passing the 
large Kurdish village of Nurshin, we arrived at a kumbet or 
tomb, standing in an isolated bunial-ground. It is a very 
pretty edifice, with a semi-circular dome, and pointed arched 
windows, with a bevelled basement of black, the upper part 
being constructed of red lava. This tomb is erected in the 
immediate vicmity of a fountain which constitutes the head- 
waters of the Kara-Su. We were surprised to find a natural 
artesian spring coming up from a deep cireular hollow in 
voleanic rock. The waters poured out in two abundant 
rivulets, over the opposite lips of the crater, each stream 
being upwards of 30 feet in width at its ongin, and both 
uniting shortly afterwards. The crater itself was 220 feet in 
vircumference, and at an elevation of 4,540 feet above the 
level of the sea. It is curious that Mr. Consul Brant, who 
must have passed close to this spring, did not hear of it from 
his guides. The Rev. Mr. Southgate, who also travelled this 
road, notices, however, a tradition of fountain of unknown 
* Ainsworth’s Zravels in Asia Minor, vol. ii, page 374. 
