704 
YEKIL-1RMAK, ANCIENT IRIS. 
artificial hill of prodigious dimensions, at present called the 
Gour’s Mount, but, with D’Anville, 1 should suppose it the cele¬ 
brated Mount Stella, “ given to fame,” from having been the 
scene of Mithridates’s total defeat by Pompey. Soon after pass¬ 
ing it, we bent our course west-north-west, entering a deep chain 
of barren and stony hills, which led us again into a very close 
country, occasionally interrupted by higher detached rocky 
masses, starting up like mountain-giants in our way. At the foot 
of one of them stood our purposed menzil, the village of Turkul, 
reckoned nine hours from Tokat; we made it in six and a-half, 
the distance, I believe, twenty-seven miles. The place is large 
for a village, and was once the renowned city of Sebastapolis, 
built by Augustus Caesar. On its commanding height still stand 
the ruins of its citadel. The river of Tokat flows through this 
narrow vale, but here takes the name of the village, being called 
the Turkul-chai. This localising mode of nomenclature is often 
the occasion of much confusion in tracing the main branches of 
rivers, and the stream under my hand, like most others in the 
East, has almost as many names as tracks of irrigation ; its chief 
appellation, however, is the Yekil Irmak, the Iris of the ancients. 
It falls into the Black Sea not far east of the city of Samsoon. 
November 19th. — Left our night’s quarters this morning at 
six o’clock, keeping up the valley in the same direction as yes¬ 
terday, and with the river on our left. At the end of six miles, 
we suddenly plunged N. 20° E., into a deep and narrow glen, 
gradually winding to the west for three hours, during which time 
our road was not only most abruptly uneven, but particularly 
toilsome, from having to break our way through closely inter¬ 
woven thickets of low underwood, interspersed with huge im¬ 
pediments of rock besides. These difficulties mastered, we 
