610 
RUINS OF ESKI JULFA. 
Tabreez is called ten farsangs; and by measurement from a 
perambulator it gives forty-three miles. 
September 20th. — Left our quarters this morning at six 
o’clock, the road stony and troublesome; and arrived at the 
village of Gurgur, our menzil, at half-past two o’clock; the 
distance computed eight farsangs ; measured, thirty-two miles. 
September 21st. — Started this morning at half-past seven, 
and in two hours reached the banks of the Aras, or Araxes. I 
found the stream very low, but extremely rapid; the latter 
striking feature being occasioned by the visible long descent of 
land over which it rolls to the eastward. After wandering like 
troubled ghosts for near an hour on its southern margin, we at 
last got ferried over in one of the lozenge-shaped boats I de¬ 
scribed in my former passage two years before. The bridge in 
the vicinity having for nearly two centuries been impassable, 
the government of Azerbijan established the present ferry at its 
own expence, for the accommodation of merchants and others. 
Having passed, I ordered my baggage to proceed, and went off 
the road myself across some barren hills, which form the bank of 
the river in a western direction for about four miles, and then 
suddenly terminate in a vast naked flat expanse, once consti¬ 
tuting the fertile plain of Eski Julfa, (or Julpha,) marked out into 
fruitful fields, and blooming gardens. At this point the Aras 
makes a bend ; and here the ruins of the bridge just mentioned, 
form a picturesque and melancholy object. Its remains appear 
a few hundred yards from the spot which once supported the 
great arch of the eastern gate of the city. The masonry of the 
bridge is of the first order, finely hewn, and the stones admirably 
joined. Only two of its immense arches have been required to 
stand immediately over the stream ; and their lofty and massy 
