1 
2.56 MOUNTAIN OF AKDAGH. 
persuasion we may attribute the preservation of the library, a feeling 
which we found to be strong in the breasts of its present administrators, 
as they decidedly refused to dispose of any one of the books, although 
large prices were offered to them. 
The last curiosities brought to our notice, were a koran, six hun¬ 
dred years old, made of the thick silky paper of Khatai, so large and 
heavy that two men could scarcely lift it; and a book in the Cuffick 
character, containing several chapters of the koran, as we were assured, 
written by the hand of Ali, seven years after the hejra. 
The original endowment of the whole establishment was of 18,000 
tomauns per annum, which, like the endowments of mosques, consists 
in unalienable grants of land, the revenues of which are assigned for 
the maintenance of the mollahs or priests. 
We departed from Ardebil and pitched at Kurehim, after six hours 
slow travelling over a good road, through a cultivated country, in the 
warm glens of which we saw many tents of the Eelauts, whilst their 
cattle was spread over the surrounding hills. On the 22d we reached 
Sengavah, having passed over a most dreary and cheerless track, with 
a strong south wind blowing right in our faces, and the next day 
we rested at Iris, situated in a well cultivated country, producing 
a great deal of corn. On our road to Iris we first saw, on a south¬ 
easterly bearing, the mountain of Akdagh, which, in the Turkish lan¬ 
guage, means white mountain, and is so called from its being always 
covered with snow. Its first appearance was like the cone of De- 
mawend as seen from Teheran, but it is more expanded when beheld 
from Iris, and bears from that village S. 40° E. We may judge how 
little the geography of this part of Persia is known, when so remarkable 
a feature as this mountain should to this day have been neglected, for 
I am not at present aware that it has been noted in any map. An old 
villager informed me that at its base is the town of Herab, about as 
large as Zengan, whose name may lead to more speculation about the 
situation of the ancient Hara. 
We had now entered the large and fertile district of Khalcal, which 
is looked upon as the granary of Aderbigian, and esteemed the finest 
