FOOT OF TARANTA. 
229 
tliers and sons you were instrumental in killing ?" And you 
also were one among them/' said Sheik Ummar to the Chelika^ 
as I recollect seeing you from yonder hill ; but you missed the 
feest plunder, for in a deep nook not a mile from this, six hun-^ 
dred oxen were concealed/' When this singular conversation 
had ended and our baggage had passed, we fired a general 
volley, and then proceeded on our way in the rear of our people, 
till half past eight, when we arrived at the foot of the mountain 
Taranta. 
Here we encamped, close to two daro trees, in one of the most 
picturesque situations that I ever beheld, called Tak-kum-ta, 
imder the shelter of a high overhanging rock, forming the angle 
of meeting to two immense ravines, one of which leads up in a 
westerly direction, to the central summit of Taranta, and the 
other in a more irregular and winding course, to its nb'rthern 
point. This station, at which all cafilas halt, is furnished with 
water from a bason, formed by nature in a rock, at a short dis^ 
tance up the northernmost ravine ; down which, in the rainy 
season, a tremendous torrent occasionally rushes. The whole of 
the rOcks consist of a I'eddish species of granite, which from the 
repeated action of the stream, have in some places acquired a 
brilliant polish. A spring which rises about a mile higher, affords 
a supply of water throughout the year, and falls seventeen feet 
perpendicular into the bason, over a solid block of granite. 
We this evening experienced some difficulty in supplying our 
followers with provisions. Part of them being Christians, and 
part Musselmauns, it became necessary, (as neither would eat of 
the meat slain by the other) to kill two cows each day, and, owing to 
