PLAIN OF ARARAT. 
181 
be bj some of us; though it, certainly, was something new to 
an Englishman of the 19th century, to find himself thus at the 
head of a band with such habits. 4^7 
On the morning of the 17th November (O. S.), we left, our 
hospitable Mussulmans : for, whether they were so inclined, or 
over-awed by the fierce looks and glittering arms of my attendants, 
I will not pretend to say, but I had no reason to complain of 
their want of civility. We set forth over a road as bad as that 
of the day before, in a direction south-east, and gradually 
descending from a great height, through a very extended sloping 
country, towards the immense plain of Ararat. In our way we 
passed the relics of a considerable town, called Talish. ' A little 
farther, we saw the ruins of what had been a fine caravansary, 
on the side of a mountain stream; and, from amidst the moul¬ 
dering walls, we observed a few half-starved wretches creeping to 
the air, as if that were their only aliment. Indeed, sterility seemed 
to have been the curse of this immediate spot. Not a trace 
of verdure was discoverable on the ground; all parts were covered 
with volcanic stones, or rather masses of cinders, as if thrown 
from an iron-forge, black, heavy, and honey-combed. Lower* 
down, upon this long declivity, rises a mound of earth and rock, 
which, in any neighbourhood but that of Ararat, would be called 
a mountain. Here, it appears scarcely a hill. Its form and 
substance are evidently those of an extinguished volcano; but 
in what ages it has been at work, we have not means to guess; 
no authors of established verity, ancient or modern, having said 
one word of any known volcanic eruption in the regions of 
Ararat. Besides the cinders above-mentioned, I observed in 
several places, during our downward march, large portions of 
