About fifty yards west of the tomb of Karanlai Agha lies an almost circular pool. It is slightly embanked for the purposes of irrigation, and, in places, on its margin there are distinct vestiges of masonry. It is thirty-five yards in diameter; and, in the centre, did not appear to be much more than five feet deep. But our guide from the village believed it to be deeper, adding that it had recently drowned a bullock, which had ventured too far in. There is no trace of this pool having arisen in a crater, although the material, through which the spring wells up, is a tuff. The water is crystal-clear, and is furnished in abundance, giving rise to a little river. It is extremely pleasant to the taste, like water which has come from the chalk. It is cold too; for at 7 P.M., while the temperature of the air was 80° Fahrenheit, that of the water was only 51°. The villagers believe that it is derived from the lake on Nimrud. It is much more likely to be in connection with the springs of the chain on the south. The tomb exactly recalled those of the same period at Akhlat; indeed it is of the same date. The upper portion has fallen into ruin. In the adjacent cemetery there are the same headstones with the honeycomb friezes which we admired about the site in the ravine at Akhlat. A stork was standing on the topmost pinnacle of the crumbling edifice, of which the outline was clearly defined on the western sky. The great plain was veiled in haze, due to the intense heat. Beyond the headlands and little promontories, the sun—a red orb—sank behind delicate beds of perfectly settled cloud.
The situation of the pool of Norshen is well adapted to serve as a standard of the elevation of the head of Mush plain. Tested by boiling-point, the level is 4630 feet, which represents a decline of 1000 feet from that of Lake Van. This difference in level is mainly responsible for a distinct change of climate; the plain of Mush is quite a furnace in July. Norshen itself, although high-seated above the floor of the depression, must be one of the hottest places in the plain. It is screened by the volcanic plateau and by the outworks of the great range, under the wall of which it lies. The level ground at its foot has been flooded with lava; and the pavement, thus formed, glows in the sun. There are a few shady trees on the outskirts of the village, but we were obliged to erect our tents in the open, for want of a suitable place among those groves. In the morning the heat became unbearable under canvas. The inhabitants are a surly, unmannerly set of people, all of Kurdish extraction. The news of the death of the Vali of Bitlis had already reached them; and they were evidently quite out of hand. Our zaptiehs—an abominable lot, sent from Bitlis by the deceased Governor—came near to exciting a serious affray. It did not promise well for the success of an excursion into the wildest districts, that those blackguard Kurds at Bitlis had poisoned the Vali, and that our escort seemed as much pleased by the removal of the least vestige of discipline as the unruly people through whose country we were about to pass.
July 30.—Starting at eleven o’clock, we made our way across the plain towards the lofty block of heights by which it is confined upon the north. We could already see our track, showing white among the brushwood towards the summit of that long barrier. Even at its upper end, the plain of Mush is of considerable breadth, the distance, measured direct, between Norshen and the foot of that parapet being about eight miles. Two gently vaulted hills, standing close together, are conspicuous features in the plain. We reached the base of the largest and most easterly of the two in about three-quarters of an hour. Oswald rode off at the canter to examine its composition, while we continued our course. He found it to consist of a cindery lava, the flows radiating outwards, especially towards north-east. It has therefore been an independent centre of emission. The ground which we had been crossing is not cultivated, from want of streams, and the slabby lava was aflame with sun. Pushing our horses, we distanced the hill and were approaching the opposite confines of the plain, when I called a halt in the hamlet of Göl Bashi, the first that we had seen. It takes its name from a delightful spring that wells up in the village, with a temperature of only 55°. Inasmuch as the stream was dry which passes Morkh and Norshen, this pool is perhaps entitled to be regarded as the source of the Kara Su, owing to the permanence of the water which it supplies. Another such source is the pool beside the tomb.
A little river collects below Göl Bashi, fed by this and by other springs. The plain is perfectly flat in that direction, and was green with cultivation. The adjacent farms belong to a bey in Bitlis, who has built a good stone house for his steward in the hamlet. Proceeding on our course, and when near the foot of the wall before us, we rose gradually over the surface of a flow of lava. The flow skirts the base of the opposite parapet for some distance towards the west. At the same time it radiates into the plain. It is strewn with blocks and small fragments of jet-black obsidian, which have come from the cliffs above. High up on the terrace, thus formed, is a grove of lofty oak-trees, by the side of water running down from the face of the cliff. A small Kurdish hamlet nestles beneath them, and an ancient cemetery, buried in foliage. Cattle and a flock of sheep were resting in the shade, the sheep panting, and the bullocks lolling their tongues. Black goats, alert and elastic with life, browsed the lower shoots of the oaks. The ascent of the wall begins at this hamlet of Karnirash, and took us over half-an-hour to complete.
The face of the parapet was seen to be the side of a stream or streams of rhyolitic lava with the usual obsidian. They are overlaid, towards the summit, with a pavement of basaltic lava. These lavas have probably proceeded from Nimrud; but at a time when the crater was in its infancy, and when its walls had not yet reached their ultimate height. For those walls towered high and abruptly above us, nor did we think that these lavas could have welled over from that lofty rim. How far west the emissions may extend it was impossible to determine exactly; but the appearance of the block in that direction, when we reached the summit, seemed to disclose, at no great interval, the stratified rocks. The upper slopes of the barrier are abundantly wooded, though only with dwarf oak. We were astonished at the great size and beauty of the hollyhock petals, large as clematis on our English garden walls. The hollyhock is the flower of the surroundings of Nimrud, as the yellow mullein is the flower of Bingöl. It flourishes on the plateau of tuff to which this pass leads over, blossoming white and, much more rarely, a purple pink. The pass has an elevation of 6950 feet or of 2300 feet above the plain.
We soon lost the little wood as we proceeded over the plain of tuff in a north-north-easterly direction. Nothing but the bare pavement, and here and there a patch of burnt herbage; and only those large white flowers to refresh the eye. On our right hand the vast crater, steeply contoured down towards us; before us Bilejan, again exposed. But the stifling atmosphere of the trough behind us had given place to pleasant breezes, and we rode along gaily over the even ground. All of a sudden I hear shouts in the direction in which we are going; and, coming up, observe a group of men in fierce altercation by the side of a small drove of cattle. They prove to be one of our escort and another zaptieh, unknown to me; the rest are peasants, on foot. Our man is threatening a peasant, bending over on his horse; his comrade has blood on his face. The fellow pays not the slightest heed to my peremptory orders; so I send for the zabet or officer of the company, in whom, however, owing to his fussiness and manifest cowardice, I have not the slightest confidence. The zabet, with his extravagant verbiage, does nothing better than inflame the matter; and the wretched wayfarer is on the point of being murdered when I seize his assailant and pull him off. The would-be murderer then faces round, and, as we are both on horseback, extricates himself and turns on me. In an instant he levels his rifle at my chest, and brings it to the cock. Happily for me, my companions all ride up at the same moment, and force his arm up from behind. None of us can learn the cause of the dispute. I take the man on with the greatest reluctance, fearing he may do worse harm if allowed to rove.
For some short time we had been skirting the immediate outworks of the Nimrud mass; a new feature was introduced when these turned off to the east-north-east, and gave us space in the direction we were pursuing. Before us lay a wide depression of the surface, the levels about us tonguing into that lower ground. The heights on the further side were of no great relative elevation, but they screened a considerable portion of the pile of Bilejan, and they completely concealed Lake Nazik. We could see, at this distance, our track winding across them; they were evidently of volcanic origin. Sipan now came in view; and those heights stretched across the horizon towards the heights on the west of Sipan. The depression did not appear to have much westerly extension; but it was continued, mile after mile, towards the east. I can scarcely doubt that the drainage which collects within it finds its way into Lake Van.
We forded a nice stream of crystal-clear water, flowing into the plain, along the base of Nimrud. At this point we passed an extensive cemetery. Perhaps there was a village in the immediate neighbourhood; but we saw no habitations as we rode across the plain. The trough of the shallow basin is followed by the course of a rivulet, which, at this season, had run dry. According to a single reading of the aneroid, it has an elevation of 6460 feet. The ground consists of a decomposed lava; nor did we observe lacustrine deposits, though one cannot doubt that this plain was once the bottom of a shallow lake.
It was six o’clock before we reached the opposite heights, and commenced to mount the side of a ridge covered with a pavement of lava. But from the summit of this low vaulting we overlooked a second ridge, with a grassy valley of some breadth at our feet. Not a glimpse as yet of the lake. After fording the stream in this hollow, which was flowing towards the plain, we rode through the Armenian village of Mezik, situated at the base of the second and principal ridge. A short ascent brought us to the slope on the further side, whence, at last, the long-hidden waters came to view. We had struck the lake close to its south-western extremity, towards which we lost no time in directing our course. At this upper end there is a marsh and a considerable stretch of alluvial soil, which, however, does not extend to the east of the beginnings of the lake. It was a tedious ride over stony slopes to the floor of these meadows; but still no village was in sight. Mistrusting our escort, but without a guide, I hesitated for a moment whether to follow them up the valley towards the west. But one of them was so positive he knew well where the village lay, that I resolved to try him for a certain time. He proved to be in the right; but the light was already failing when we entered the Kurdish settlement of Nazik.
It is situated out of view of the lake, on the right bank of a pleasant stream, which feeds the marsh along which we had passed. The ridge, against which it lies, is the same that we had crossed, and the same that we had seen from afar. It had first attracted our attention as we descended into the great depression, having a bold conical peak, a little west of the village. The people received us with marked coolness; and no sooner had we commenced to erect our tents by the side of the stream than they offered objections, and bade us remove to some other place. They said that our tent would face that of a great bey on the opposite margin of the water. I answered that I should place ours in such a way as to respect decency; but that, if it were a question of either party moving, it would better become the bey than us, who were his guests. This speech had a good effect; but supplies were not forthcoming, and, as usual, I summoned the mukhtar (head of the village). After much delay they bring me a lean greybeard, with sunken cheeks, beak nose, long yellow teeth and a cavernous voice. He laughs grimly when I address him as mukhtar. It is evident that these people hate the Turks.