VISIT TO THE RUINS OF KARA OGHLAN. 
675 
paralleled in any part of the world. The 
natives are obliged in consequence to take 
refuge in cellars under ground, and at night 
to sleep on the roofs of their houses, the 
rooms of the house during that period being 
uninhabitable. The thermometer generally 
rises to 115®, in a shady verandah, and it 
has been seen as as high as 120®, in the 
middle of the day, and 110® at ten at night. 
Great are the sufferings from a burning hot 
wind, smelling strong of sulphur. To escape 
the great heat of a Bagdad summer Mr. Rich 
determined to visit the mountains of Koor- 
distan. Another inducement for him to 
visit these mountains was that they were 
little known in Europe. Mrs. Rich accom- 
panied the traveller, who was obliged to pro- 
ceed in his official character: the former was 
obliged to submit, therefore, to the disagree- 
able restraint of performing the journey in a 
covered litter or takht-revan, attended by 
women servants, and all the state of a haram. 
Nothing occurs worthy of our notice until 
Mr. Rich arrives at Kifri, where he found a 
small community of Jews who had a syna- 
gogue. The following is a description of a 
visit to the ruins of Kara Oghlan. 
“ About half a mile S. E. of Kifii, in the 
bed of the loi rent, aie some appearances of 
low walls or foundations, which were laid 
open by the late rains. One of the walls ex- 
hibited a piece of plaster of stucco, with or- 
naments on it. I was anxious to lay open 
more of the ruins, in order to come at some 
notion of the design and age of if. By dint of 
digging we laid open a small room, or rather 
all that remains standing of it, viz., about 
four feet high of wall with a door-way ; the 
room is very small, say about twelve feet 
square ; the walls are built of unshapen stones 
(as at Kasri ,Shireen), of gypsum covered 
with plaster, on which are wrought ornaments 
in compartments. We dug out pieces of plas- 
ter, with ornaments of flowers or arabesques 
painted on them in fresco, the outline being 
black and filled up with bright red, and the 
ground being the colour of the plastei ; the 
colours were beautifully fiesh. As the sides 
bore no appearance of painting, I imagine 
these pieces to be fragments of the ceiling. 
Some pieces of chaicoal were also found. 
We laid open this room and part of another. 
This appealed to form part of a range of cells, 
extending a short way W.S.W. andE.N.E., 
of which there seem to be traces of five or six : 
they are in single file. The north side is 
strengthened with small round buttresses. 
East of this, under the hills on the margin 
of the torrent, (by which its west face has in- 
deed been out down,) is a very large high 
mound, of a square figure, from which a 
quantity of earthen jars have been dug out, 
so'tie pieces of whicir were brought to me. 
They were of coarse earthenware, varnished 
bl.nck in tlie inside, and perfectly resembled 
those found at Seleueia ami Babylon. I 
have also a small earthen lamp which was 
found iheie. It is like the lamp novv used by 
the villagers. 
Gold and silver coins are also f:eqnently 
found here, whicii the villlagers immediately 
melt down. I much regret not having f een 
able to see any one of these, wiiicii might have 
enabled me to form some l etter genera! idea 
of tiie age of ih-se luitis. d'he jars or sepul- 
chral urns, however induce me to refer them 
to the Sassanians. On the top of this mound 
are traces of buiUling ; ami all along to the 
foot of the hills, and up as far as opposite 
Kifri, are also vestiges of buildings, many of 
which consist of square basements, something 
like ihO'C at Kasr Shireen and Maoush Kerek, 
though not standing so high above the soil. 
'I'he extent of the ruins in length may be a 
mile ; in bieadth about a quarter of a mile. 
We (iug in several places, but found notliing. 
Tiieie are also some vestiges of a wall on the 
western bank of the torrent ; and, crossing it 
diagonally about Kifri, are fragments of im- 
mense solid buildings, oveiibiownby the floods 
which the peasants suppose to have been a 
damaciossthe torrent, but which 1 rather 
imagine to be the city wall. The style is just 
like the other pai ts of the ruins, ol rough stones, - 
strongly cemented together with linie. It is 
evident, fioni the remains in the very centre 
of the torrent, that it could not have flowed 
in this way when the city existed. Indeed, in 
all likelihood it was confined, and diiected to 
cultivation. 
The inhabitants attribute these works to the 
Gliiaours, or infidels. What place this real- 
ly was it would be difficult, from our imper- 
fect knowledge of the Sassanian empire, to 
say. I doubt its being in any line of the 
Roman operations against that empire, by 
which alone we know anything about it. 
Farther up the torrent, on the N.N.W., are 
some excavations in the rock, called Ghiaour 
houses. Mr. Bellino went to see some of the 
same kind in the hills, ten minutes’ ride from 
the S. extremity of the ruins. He found ex- 
cavated sepulchral chambers, with very low 
doors, and, in the inside, three places to lay 
out bodies, but they were of small dimensions, 
about five feel long. The plan of these exca- 
vations resembled the Achaemenian sepul- 
chres at Nakshi Rustam ; but there was no 
writing or carving of any description about 
them. Faither on, about three miles from the 
ruins, on the top of a hill, are some vestiges 
of building, which the people ca'l KizKalasi, 
or the Gil l’s Castle. Here urns and bones 
are found ; Mr. Bellino saw one of the former ; 
but the place has nothing else remarkable : it 
is nearly opposite Oniki Imaura.’’ 
Approaching Eski Kifri is an immense 
artificial mount, like the Mujelibe, with al- 
most perpendicular sides, except where the 
