FATHOMLESS GULF. 
557 
wound down into a deep sinuous hollow of nearly two miles 
long* which at that extremity conducted us into a pretty smiling 
vale, near a village called Gashappery. The cultivation was 
considerable, consisting chiefly of castor and tobacco. We 
crossed it, only to mount again, and that on a very rugged 
path, over the opposite hills. Their declining side towards the 
east, was just as bad; but it brought us down into a still more 
luxuriant valley, watered by the Sarak, which poured rapidly 
along between very highly fertile banks. Our menzil was the 
village of Chok-Chok, about three farsangs from Taskund. 
August 30th. — We started at four o’clock this morning, on 
a course north-east, up the valley, and keeping the river on our 
right. In two hours we crossed it, and soon arrived at the foot 
of a conical hill, which, from its insulated situation on the flat 
of the vale, and so distant from the range to the eastward, at 
first gave the idea of its being artificial; but it is the growth of 
nature. It stands about 250 feet high, and terminated by a 
mass of rock, the diameter of which, measuring at the summit, 
is fifteen yards. This stony diadem gradually sinks down to¬ 
wards the middle, like the crater of a volcano, till the deep 
concave takes the shape of a funnel, leaving a round aperture 
the size of a large well, quite open and fathomless. I stood 
over it, but could not discern any sulphuric smell; and threw 
down several stones, without hearing the least consequent 
noise. The native people about me gazed as if I were perform¬ 
ing the act of a magician, and solemnly declared “ it went 
through to Yankey Doonia !” the new world. 
From thence we journeyed due east, over a fair pasture coun¬ 
try of the fine down-like herbage ; and in half an hour reached 
the ruins of a city called Tackt-i-Solomon. It stands near the 
