IN PONTUS. 
701 
ing, crossing to the castelled side of the town over a bridge of a 
single arch, and not of very recent architecture. Our road then 
lay S. 20° W. through the valley, where, at the end of two miles 
we crossed a second bridge over the main river flowing north¬ 
ward, which there bears the name of the Shawr-Mawggi-sou, and 
into it falls the tributary stream of the Nisksar vale. We kept 
near to the left bank of the river for more than an hour, and 
then turned into a jungle glen, considerably more to the west¬ 
ward than any of our former courses. Thus shut up in thicket 
and shade, we gradually ascended for about six miles, when it 
opened into the expanding bosom of another richly cultivated 
valley. Here we halted, to breathe our horses for a few minutes, 
and then started in full gallop. All before and around us, as we 
proceeded, was field and garden, till, in about an hour (six miles), 
we came to the shore of a considerable river, flowing to the 
south-west. Its source, my companions told me, was not far 
distant in the mountains to the north-east; here it was called the 
Tokat-chai. Having joined it, we kept close to its luxuriant 
banks, and varied windings, on a particularly good road ; while 
over the minor hills to the south-west, directly before us, rose 
the grey heights of the lofty chain of mountains, now called the 
Ildiz-daghler, but were the Paryadrae of the ancients. In 
journeying forward, we passed close to a prodigious mass of solid 
stone, or block of rock, standing to our right, having an excava¬ 
tion made in the face of it, shaped like a small door-way with an 
arched top. I could not get any further information respecting 
it, than that “ it was the big stone with the hole in it , made, 
nobody knew when, by the unbelievers !” 
By half past one o’clock we reached the city of Tokat, having 
just before forded its river. The distance we had travelled this 
