146 
BE-SITOON MOUNTAIN. 
grims; and after keeping the valley for a short time, took a 
south-western direction, which speedily brought us up into the 
passes of the mountains. For four long hours we travelled thus 
immured, till we came out upon the level of a little vale; but all 
was as waste and stony there, as above. The road lay at the 
foot of its western pile. We might have supposed that we had 
journeyed many hundred miles, instead of a few farsangs, from 
the luxuriant valley of Kangavar; so different was the scene 
around us; a region of naked rocks, where projections from the 
mountains stood out in gigantic masses, assuming more broken 
and detached appearances than any I had remarked before. As 
we rode on, I observed one of these crested heights standing 
considerably higher than the others, and of a peculiarly shattered, 
and therefore pinnacled brow, as if it had first received the 
thunderbolt which had scathed its humbler brethren. This, I 
learnt, was the celebrated Be-Sitoon mountain. “ Without pil¬ 
lars,” is the literal meaning of the term ; probably alluding to 
some ancient edifice, long since destroyed by time, or to one 
projected, and never finished ; vast traces of such a design being 
yet visible on the face of the rock. It gives its name to a village, 
which lies at the western base of the mountain. In our nearer 
approach, nature did not look quite so sterile ; we again encoun¬ 
tered streams, and tracks of verdure; and crossed a lofty and 
beautiful bridge of brick, which stretched its two noble arches 
over the whole expanse of the river-channel. It was erected by 
order of Sheik Ali Khan, one of the former governors of Ker- 
manshah. This stream is called the Gomassi-aub ; which, after 
flowing south-eastward to a great distance, falls into the Kara- 
sou. In marching forward, we saw several large pools, or ponds, 
collected from the mountain-brooks, for the purpose of irrigating 
i 
