ARZ-ROUM TO AMASIA. 
m 
liad to pass, and wore accordingly a coat of mail under his clothes, and 
a burnished helmet on his head, and was armed with two heavy rifle 
guns, a pair of pistols, a long kunjitr , and a sword, besides a variety 
of powder flasks, &c. which, altogether, made him weigh thirty 
stone. 
On the 21st we left Arz-roum , and proceeded across the plain to 
Iliya, a distance of five miles only, on a bearing of N. 80 West. The 
plain is covered with villages: I counted thirty on one part, and the 
cultivation is proportioned to the population. The season was advanc¬ 
ing : in some places the corn was a foot from the ground, and there was 
besides much fine pasture. 
Close to the village we crossed a bridge oyer a nice stream, there 
called the Kara Sou , which flows in this quarter from Er. to W. and 
according to the information which I procured on this spot, finally flows 
into the Euphrates. On comparing, however, my authorities and 
my observations, I suspect that it is itself larger than its confluent 
stream, and deserves therefore to be considered as the primary 
river. Its sources are in the mountains at Suzdan , about nine miles 
from Arz-roum; and it meets another river at Serchembeh. The sources 
of the Tigris are said to be at a village called Nehel , near Gever 9 
a place ten fur sungs from Oroumi. 
At Ilija are warm springs, two of which are enclosed within walls, 
for the separate use of men and women. Large parties had collected 
from Arz-roum to bathe here, and had pitched their tents among .the 
rocks to pass the night. During the night an alarm was given in the 
village, that a number of Dclhis (who have been called the “ Enfans per - 
“ dus” of the Turkish army,) had taken up their quarters among us, and 
that every one must in consequence look to his own property. Perhaps 
there were not two hundred of these desperadoes, yet they had given more 
trouble to the Government of Arz-roum than an army of ten thousand 
men could excite in any European country. They commit with impu¬ 
nity every act of cruelty and extortion; no one dares to reprimand or 
to punish them; and a few days before our rencounter with them, they 
