CALLED THE HILL OF BLOOD. 
661 
one of the western heads of the Euphrates. At the division of 
the roads, the Armenian priest and his serving-man left us ; pro¬ 
ceeding on his way to a monastery of his confreres, dedicated to 
the Holy Virgin ; rather a strange consecration for an establish¬ 
ment of monks. Our path was now one unimpeded slope, 
quickly passed over, and bringing us down into the extensive 
valley I had contemplated from above. Mountains quite sur¬ 
round it, excepting to the east, where opening, they leave a 
passage for the Aras; but the expanse of the valley is at least 
twenty miles from hill to hill. We reached it when the evening 
was beginning to close in; and the casualties of the season soon 
rendered it darker than the time of day, by the gathering clouds 
rapidly shrouding the mountains, and leaving us only the wide 
shadowing horizon of a then seemingly boundless plain. At 
half-past five we reached the environs of Hassan-kala, supposed 
to have been the ancient Theodosiopolis : more of it to-morrow. 
After winding round the foot of the rocky hill, on which the 
town appears to be built, we entered a gate ; and proceeding 
about fifty yards, passed under a second ; both in a ruinous state, 
but still guarded by their ancient massy doors, strongly enclosed 
with iron. 
Our quarters, in point of gloom and suffocating crowd, were 
little better than those of the foregoing night; though I found 
the keeper of the choppar-khanah very civil; and on the whole, 
the Ottomans of Armenia so much more generally familiar with 
Christians than the lower orders of Persians, that the former 
will readily eat and drink from the same bowl, while the latter 
would consider it defilement. Yet the usages of the Great King 
permit the followers of Issau (Jesus), to give blow for blow to any 
person who assaults them; while those of the Turkish government, 
