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GTTLE-HISSA OYASST.

403

""i!



all that find root on this sandy district; but on our left be-
yond the river, whose course we still followed toward the
north, the soil was apparently good, and green with corn-
fields.

A considerable and permanent stream crossed our road
on its way to the river in the plain. This great river, which
rises in the south-east, is, I find, the ancient Calbis, the
modern Dollomon-chi, which we had crossed with such diffi-
culty above a hundred miles below, and within ten miles of
its mouth.

This village of Hoomarhoosharry stands upon the plain,
or rather on a bay out of the great plain, and has the pecu-
liarities of such agricultural places. The mountainous cha-
racter of the houses has changed, and mud walls and ditches
have supplanted the fences of trees and thorns. Flat-topped
mud houses, and a number of poles for drawing water from
the deep wells, were the features of this little village, in
which all our wants were soon supplied with fowls, eggs, and
milk. I was amused at seeing here, as I had formerly done
in the northern parts of Anatolia, agricultural implements
of the most ancient forms retained in use—"the threshing
instrument having teeth," mentioned by Isaiah#, and the
plough and carts described by the earliest classic writers.
Eising from the plain, at the foot of the surrounding hills,
was the village of Tourtakar, and about half-way up the
craggy mountain were some ruins of an ancient city. We
were told that several marble sarcophagi and columns, used
now at the mouth of the wells, had been brought from the
"old castles," but that all the buildings had fallen down.
We could see the ruins of a city, with extensive walls, high
up in the mountain, but the intense heat of the weather and
the fatigue of travelling made us satisfied with this informa-
tion, and we arranged to proceed on our route at two o'clock
in the morning,

* See page 51.
 
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