676 
PASSES FROM ARMENIA. 
ourselves, and inspected the priming of our fire-arms, we all 
moved forward in a pretty close phalanx; our guardian trium¬ 
virate, begging us to hold our pistols in our hands, and keep a 
sharp look-out in every direction. Thus, on a constant alert of 
eye and ear, we continued riding forward through, certainly, one 
of the most dismal scenes I ever beheld. Here were no mere 
legends of robbery and murder; the whole road was tracked with 
their dreadful verification, bearing distressful witness to the 
narratives of our conductors, while they pointed to the graves of 
the several travellers, some in groups, and others more solitary, 
whom the sanguinary heroes of their tales had laid low. One of 
my Tatars listened to what they said with a continually changing 
countenance; which symptom of a sickly courage absolutely de¬ 
clared it defunct, when turning his eyes to a couple of graves on 
the right of our road, one of the men told him they belonged to 
two Janissaries, his brethren, who he knew had met their fate 
in this defile some time before. In many places, a solitary pile 
of heaped-up stones marks the spot where some single traveller 
has fallen ; and in others, four or five little mounds, or some¬ 
times even ten or twelve in a group, shew where the contest has 
been more numerously fatal. In short, I believe I saw more 
than a hundred graves in the hollow of this valley of death. The 
Hill of Blood seems unstained innocence, when compared with 
what we saw, and heard, in this appalling scene. A very few 
months ago, one of the Tatars (or couriers) of the British em¬ 
bassy, and a merchant travelling under his charge, were way-laid 
and plundered in this vale, and only escaped with their lives by 
throwing themselves into the river. They remained concealed 
amongst its thickets till the next morning, when accident, or 
rather Providence, discovered them to some people travelling 
