OR GOURD OUGLY. 
689 
to the pummel of the saddle of the country ; and is also called 
Gourd Ougly, from its fastnesses having formerly been possessed 
by a freebooting chief of that name. The people who were with 
me described the habitation of his band as having been in the 
heart of the mountain • and that several large rooms, cut deep 
into the rock, still exist where he resided, and whence he com¬ 
manded a view over all the country. A thousand wild stories 
are even now in the mouths of the peasantry, respecting his 
extraordinary feats, robberies, gallantries, and generosity ; in fact, 
he was the Robin Hood of Ararat. But in these regions, making 
the sword a sickle, does not appear confined to one single 
Gourd and his myrmidons; I am informed that the whole 
northern bank of these mountains is infested by tribes of the 
same nation, who plunder every where with the most lawless 
perseverance. The immensity of their physical force holds the 
frontier districts in awe; and the well-timed presents of the 
chiefs to the governors, prevents all troublesome investigations 
beyond their lines, of any extraordinary little accident of rapine 
or murder which may have occurred on their borders. In short, 
what these very mountaineers were in the time of the passage 
of Xenophon, we find them now ; unsubdued, untameable, fierce, 
and inhospitable as their own slippery rocks on the verge of a 
precipice ; and such they extend all over the mountainous 
regions stretching hence, even to beyond Arzeroom. 
In about an hour after our starting, we passed close to the 
village of Shahargar. The next hour carried us by Kaleg-arkli, 
from whence we bent our course rather more to the southward 
to visit the village of Kara-kala, or rather the remains of the 
ancient city of Armavra, amidst whose ruins it stands. They lie 
on the banks of the Aras ; and on our approach to them, we found 
