266 
TEHERAN TO TABRIZ. 
in fact he threw down most violently with his fore feet, though the 
final and furious gripe was prevented. 
Auk-ken cl is now the frontier place in Aderbigian; the original 
boundary was the river Kizzil Ozan, but it has been thus extended 
through the King's favour to his son Abbas Mirza, the Governor 
of the province^ Auk-kend indeed is in the district of Khalcal, which, 
though certainly under the jurisdiction of the Prince, is immediately 
administered by two Khans, and contains two hundred villages, extend¬ 
ing between Resht and Ardebil. Formerly it was a very flourishing 
region; but the war with Russia, in which it has been obliged to 
supply troops, and at its own expence pay, feed, and clothe them, has 
much impoverished it, and, as the Persians say, “ Kharrab Shoud, it 
is ruined." 
18th. We proceeded from Auk-kend , at twenty minutes before five, 
and arrived at MiaunSh at one o'clock. We stopped on the road to 
feed our horses, which detained us one hour and an half, so that we 
had six hours and forty minutes riding, which, at three miles and a 
quarter in the hour, gives a total of twenty-two miles : I reckon thus 
little to the hour, because the whole of our march was over moun¬ 
tainous country. Our road was much to the Westward.: The mountain 
Coflan Kbit , which rose above us, bore S. 80 W. but, as we went some¬ 
what more to the W. I shall place the general bearing at W. 
The whole country here (and particularly that to the W. and N.)‘ 
seems to have been just formed by a great convulsion of nature; there 
are lands of every soil, of every colour, and of every form. At the 
distance of six miles from Auk-kend we came to a small village called 
Kultepe; we should have stopped here to have fed our horses, but 
there was nothing but wheat-corn growing around the place; from this 
our suite always abstained most religiously, though they never scrupled 
to enter any barley field that might border on the road, and turning 
their cattle into the very middle without their bridles suffered them to 
eat their fill unlimited, nor was there any one that dared oppose 
