678 
KARA-KOULAK. 
It was two o’clock when, leaving the Kara-sou winding through 
its vale of black deeds on our left, we began to ascend a steep 
path leading immediately over the mountains before us. The 
acclivities were not bold, but naked of verdure, with here and 
there a stunted fir-tree, appearing to wither amongst the quanti¬ 
ties of loose stones which covered the surface of the heights. 
o 
We were more than an hour in crossing this chain; but at the 
end of that time, happily descended into a cultivated little valley, 
lowing with cattle, and giving some promise of honest civiliza¬ 
tion with industry. An hour more, which was four o’clock, 
brought us to Kara-Koulak, our menzil for the night. It is called 
thirteen hours from Ash-kala; but I should calculate the distance 
to be no more than eight agatches, or thirty-six miles. Kara- 
Koulak is a small village containing about seventy Mahomedan 
families, and twenty of Armenian Christians ; and as our track 
for to-morrow bore nearly as bad a report as that we had passed 
to-day, we immediately applied to the chief of this little com¬ 
munity, for a few of his subjects to escort us through his danger¬ 
ous neighbourhood ; but neither persuasions, threats, nor money, 
could prevail on him to grant us a single man ; his excuse being, 
what at first my Tatars did not seem to believe, that an open war 
was then subsisting between his people and the Gourds of the 
southern mountains, which demanded all his strength to oc¬ 
casionally defend his own quarters. Even in the midst of the 
parley, a sudden uproar at the end of the village proved the 
truth of what he said, by the presence of the fact. The Gourds 
had appeared within a few yards of the place, and all in an instant 
was noise and confusion; but on looking out, the expected 
sackers of the village were for the present, only seen driving off 
several flocks of sheep and buffaloes, after having set half a dozen 
