TABRIZ TO ARZ-ROUM. 
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clothes and baggage, and materially increased the weight of the lading 
of our mules. Thanks to God, it did not rain in the night; and we 
slept soundly till about an hour before the break of day, when we 
quitted our black tents for the village of Cara-ainth. The distance, 
on a bearing of N. 20 W. is called five fursungs; but though we were 
nearly six hours on the road, I shall not reckon it at more than eighteen 
miles, because we were delayed in our progress by the mud, which the 
rain and hail had created. We took a turn to the Eastward from our 
encampment, and came to a village called Iekaftee, on the borders of 
a mountain torrent swoln and rendered so rapid by the late storms, 
that two or three of our mules had nearly been carried away by its 
violence. On the right of the road (at the distance of five miles from 
our last station) is a spring dammed up, except at an aperture in one 
of its corners, through which a small quantity of water is permitted to 
ooze out, called in Turkish, Ak-bolagh, or “ white springand three 
miles further, and distant from the road two miles, on the left, is a 
collection of a few wretched hovels called Kurkendeh, surrounded by 
cultivated fields. About this spot the road was formerly so infested with 
the Curdistan robbers, that it was never passed without danger: but since 
Prince Abbas Mirza has had the government of Adefbigian in his 
hands, he has so completely expelled the freebooters from their haunts, 
that no district is now so safe. We traversed a pass formed by the 
gradual meeting of the roots of the mountains, and then entered an 
oval plain, extending, on a rough calculation, in length eight miles 
from N. to S. and three in breadth. The village of Cara-aineh , our 
Menzil , is here immediately seen, and is easily marked by a square fort, 
which, rising from the midst of its miserable huts, appears a palace in 
comparison. This village is the chief of a Mahale of the same name, 
composed of about twenty-one villages, the principal of which are 
Hiderlou , Nabekandi , Gelish Acha , Sedel, Zaiveh , and Ak-dezeh. From 
Cara-aineh there is a road to Van , a distance of fifty miles, on a 
bearing of S, W. 
