ANCIENT MINES. 
697 
Khan, are deemed of great antiquity, and called Malett and 
Jumbish. They have recently been opened anew. From the 
earliest times all these districts, to the very margin of the 
Euxine, have also been famous for workers in iron ; and they 
bear the same reputation now, as when peopled by the 
Chalybians of Xenophon ; not only manufacturing the material 
when imported from the Crimea, but digging it from the bowels 
of their own mountains. Besides, the gold and silver mines in 
the same region leave me no doubt of its being the country of 
Homer’s and Strabo’s Alybians. 
November 16th.—This morning nine horses were mustered for 
our departure, but eleven having been the number required and 
paid for, in waiting for the remaining two the day wore so sadly 
away, I requested Ahmed Aga to do the best he could with those 
we had, and let us mount. Four were then burthened with the 
whole of the baggage, and the other five with ourselves. But 
when my conductor began the point of disbursing with his surly 
countryman, for those not produced, the answer he obtained was 
— “ Go as ye are, or wait till the others be forthcoming!” Such 
an alternative being more likely to decrease than augment our 
stock, Ahmed Aga gave him a hearty Tatar s blessing as he threw 
himself into his saddle, and at the same moment we all mounted. 
It was three o’clock in the afternoon before we turned our 
faces from the village, and began the western steep of the chasm, 
in a direction N. 40° W.; the immediate summit of which, having 
ascended, brought us into a succession of woody hills. As we 
advanced, the evening became exceedingly cold; and marching 
at a loot-pace, on account of the walking peasants who owned 
our horses, made us feel it the more severely. Night darkened 
around us ; and after five hours’ ride from the valley of Koyla- 
VOL. II. 4 u 
