646 
TURKISH ARMENIA. 
slippery, our progress did not exceed three miles an hour; and 
ourselves became almost perished with cold. At the end, how¬ 
ever, of seven agatches (farsangs) we appeared turning the brow 
of the tempest. We were descending the heights; and having 
reached the little village of Marajuck, met a clearer sky, with a 
fine expanding view of the lower country. It lay rich in cul¬ 
tivation to a vast extent, with the north-west range of the 
Tchilder mountains, under the name of the Mossian Hills, bound¬ 
ing it in that direction. At the extremity of this noble vale 
stands the city of Kars. In our approach to it, I thought it 
very commanding; being built on the side of an immense rocky 
height, on the summit of which, to the eastward, rises its cita¬ 
del, of evident great antiquity. The walls of the town extend 
in a straight line east and west along the plain ; then run up the 
acclivity of the rock on each side till they reach its top, where, 
strongly protected with round and square bastions, they meet at 
the great towers of the fortress. Perhaps there can no where be 
presented a more perfect and interesting specimen of an Asiatic 
fortified city. Beyond the walls, a considerable suburb stretches 
out eastward ; but three or four pentagon batteries, each mounted 
with five pieces of cannon, seem the sole defences of the 
outer town ; and they were the only ones I saw, where guns 
were planted. Besides the majestic appearance of the place 
when seen at a distance, from the imposing aspect of its citadel 
and the extent of its walls, the houses being several stories 
high, and built mostly of stone, give it an air of peculiar mag¬ 
nificence. But the moment we entered its southern gate, the 
illusion vanished; instead of courts and avenues corresponding 
to the august castle I believed myself approaching, like some 
poor misled knight in enchanted land, I found long environs, 
