TABRIZ TO ARZ-ROUM. 
315 
Our host kept strictly to his word: we were sent forwards four miles 
further to the promised village of Molah Suleiman, escorted by two of 
his officers; and supplied with all that the place could afford, a sheep, 
fowls, and rice for ourselves, and corn for our horses. 
12th. We passed over a mountainous tract of country from Molah 
Suleiman to Deli-baba, a distance which we travelled in ten hours, and 
which I reckoned at thirty-five miles, on a bearing of N. 30 W. as well 
as the intricacies of the turns would permit me to observe. Before we 
entered the mountains, (when we had travelled about three miles, and 
just above the little village of Zadieh,) I had the parting view of Mount 
Ararat, which bore from us N. 80 E. We were told that the road was 
much infested by the Courds, particularly at a pass in the mountains 
called Gerdina , and we placed ourselves therefore in a posture of de¬ 
fence. But we traversed the whole extent without seeing a human 
being, till we reached Dakar, a village of Courds in the mountains 
twenty miles from Molah Suleiman. We then proceeded winding in 
a variety of directions, with a scorching sun over our heads, to the 
entrance of a pass which, through two stupendous rocks, leads into the 
plain of Deli-baba. This pass might be made an admirable military 
position, and in its present state is a most picturesque object. A 
stream from the mountains runs through it: on the left is a rock 
three hundred feet perpendicular, and on the other side is another of 
less height, but pierced with three holes, as if it were by the hand 
of man. 
On entering the plain we saw numbers of peasants with their arabahs 
or carts. They told us they had fled from their village in the fear of 
Abdulla Aga, who, from his station near Erivan, makes predatory 
excursions all over the country. They added that Deli-baba was 
totally depopulated; however we did not believe them, and proceeded. 
We found indeed a very bad reception, for the inhabitants mistook us 
for enemies, collected together at our approach, refused us admittance, 
and fired several muskets at us. At length the chief of the village 
came out to meet us, and we agreed to establish ourselves at a distance, 
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