ITS FINE SCENERY. 
689 
portions of bread since the night we halted at Bagdali. We 
fortunately found horses ready for immediately proceeding; an 
advantage not to be postponed, for fear of being lost; and though 
starting again the same evening, by bringing us into night tra¬ 
velling, would deprive me of much singularly fine scenery, I 
could not deem it prudent to delay till morning, for that object 
alone; and therefore at half-past four o’clock we remounted, 
and left the Kara-Hissar, which name literally means the Black 
Castle. 
Our direction was S. 45° W. on a gentle descent into a coun¬ 
try of the wildest character; the whole consisting of endless 
ranges of dark stupendous mountains, hurled together in the 
most rugged forms of chaotic contrasts. But this august assem¬ 
blage of nature’s vastest materials expanded to even a terrible 
Sublimity as we approached a higher region, where some tremen¬ 
dous convulsion of the earth seemed to have rent its mountain- 
piles with more than ordinary rage. Heights, and depths, and 
yawning darkness, affrighted the eye in our advance; though I 
thought it not improbable that the closing gloom of the evening, 
added to the natural blackness of the mountains, might, by con¬ 
fusing the outlines of objects and mingling shadows with reality, 
exaggerate the awful appearance before me. About an hour and 
a half brought us unto the plain of a very extensive valley, en¬ 
circled by mountains; no mode of passing from it appearing, 
except through an immense chasm, apparently torn through the 
heart of one of them towards the south-west. In our approach, we 
passed a huge naked mass of rock standing in a towering pyramidal 
form to our left. It is called Damon-ga-ya, the cloud-enveloped 
hill , and the name will give some idea of its piercing altitude. 
Part of its base is washed by the main current of the great river 
4 T 
VOL. II. 
