SKETCH OF THE CITY. 
713 
buckets on their outer circles. The flow of the river keeps 
them in constant action ; ancb as they move round, the regular 
progress throws the water they have taken up into the wooden 
channel placed properly to receive it. Had I been resident in 
Amassia, the state of the water would have made me regret the 
neglected situation of the pure flood from the Derbend, which 
once reached the city through its long mountain-channel. 
In our exit from the town, a travelling merchant asked leave 
to join our party ; and from him I learnt, through the enquiries 
of Sedak, that the houses amounted to 6000 at least; and in 
calculating four inhabitants to each house, we have an amount 
of 24,000, which, I should suspect, exceeds the real population 
by one-third. Amassia has a manufactory of silk, which rivals 
that of every other place in the East, and is therefore its greatest 
object of commerce. Our course lay N. 55° W., continuing- 
down the valley, during which time I halted for a few minutes 
to take a sketch of the city and its adjacent rocks. * The vale, 
indeed, was a very smiling scene around us, producing great 
quantities of corn, which, with the harvests of other fruitful 
tracks more to the south, most' profitably to themselves, supply 
the neighbouring less abundant districts. 
After about half an hour’s sharp riding we began ascending a 
mountain, so rugged and steep, that we did not master its sides 
and summit under three hours’ hard toil. The opposite 
descent brought us down to a plain, where we crossed a small 
bridge over the then little river Sooja-toon-chai, but when it 
becomes an augmented stream, it ultimately falls into the Kizzil 
Irmak, the noted Halys of the ancients. By this time, night 
was drawing very heavily around; and, from the absence of the 
VOL. II. 
* See Plate LXXXVII. 
4 Y 
