Our mid-day halt was spent beneath the shade of a grove of willows, on the margin of some fields of hemp and cabbage, which softened the site of Karaogli. But, the village left behind, we soon entered the narrows, the track being taken along the cliff-side, at some considerable height above the hissing, silvery water. The Murad pierces a mass of lava belonging to the ridge on its right bank. It seemed a wayward thing to do; for the ground is lower just south of the gorge, and appeared to invite the river. While still within the cleft, it was spanned by a wooden bridge resting on several piers of solid masonry. This is probably the first bridge over the Murad below Tutakh. Issuing from the cliffs, the tortuous reaches opened out into an easier country, and a wider prospect was unfolded on either side. For the first time we obtained a view over the plain on the west of Bilejan, bordered on the south by the still distant heights, on this side of the depression of Mush. But the volcanic hills on the left bank were not long without a successor; the outline was taken up by a second block of similar origin; and the scene again became restricted to the immediate surroundings of the river, which were stony and bare and bleak. We passed only a single Kurdish hamlet during our ride to the cirque or caldron of Shakhberat. There the river makes an S-shaped bend through a fairly wide valley, enclosed on all sides by volcanic heights. The ridge and peak of Kolibaba is seen to full advantage, confining the valley on the west. Two little Kurdish villages, Arenjik and Shakhberat, lie on the slopes and in the lap of this spacious cirque.
August 11.—The level of the Murad at Shakhberat was tested by two readings of the boiling-point apparatus on successive days. It was found to be 4900 feet. The village commands a view of the summit of Khamur, the highest point of the amphitheatre in which the hamlet is placed. But that lofty ridge is in part screened by the slopes of Kolibaba, and by the parapet which has skirted the right bank of the river all the way from Karaogli. That parapet joins the mass about opposite the summit; and it is only at the head of the valley between Khamur and Kolibaba that the outline and slopes of the principal ridge are fully exposed. The shortest way to the summit, but certainly the steepest, would lead up that valley by a fairly direct course. But our guide preferred to take us by a more easterly approach, up the face of the parapet. He was a very pleasant fellow, a khoja or village priest; and he looked well with his clean white cottons, astride upon his mare. But the notion that we really intended to mount to the actual peak was repugnant to his good sense. Climbing Khamur meant to him proceeding to an adjacent eminence and thence contemplating the airy heights above your head. Such a spot was provided under circumstances of luxury by the site of a hamlet high up on the ridge. A rustling stream flows through it, which has been dammed and made into a lake; and round the pool trees have been planted to shade the flocks. It was indeed a charming foreground to the immense landscape which already extended to Nimrud. But the khoja’s dallying was soon cut short; the track ceased at this village, which bore the unworthy name of Ganibuk. He was forced to lead us across a beach of large boulders, and through some thickets of oak scrub. The ascent became pronounced, and, when at length the flat top was reached, the main mass was still distant, and looked very high.
The composition of the ridge, which we had now surmounted, is at once interesting and typical of the whole region. It consists of a series of deep beds of lake deposits, separated one from the other by bands of lava. At first the lava was seen to be basaltic in character and compact; but towards the summit it became scoriaceous. The fact would seem to indicate that, while the earlier issues were submarine, the latest flows were outpoured when the land had risen above the water, and the present configuration was being attained. The platform upon which we stood was composed of a sheet of lava, and so was the summit of the opposite ridge of Khamur. But as we rode into the shallow trough which separates the two eminences, the greyish-white marls again came to view. We could see them on the escarpments of both ridges, which, further east, became gradually separated by a deep latitudinal valley. We could observe the soft material where it was baked into a yellow porcelain by contact with the cap of lava on the Khamur ridge. Far and wide, towards east and south, the landscape wore the same hues and appearance; the same character appeared to belong to the heights on the north of Mush plain. Descending into the depression and rising again on its further side, we reached the actual peak or highest part of the Khamur ridge after a zigzag climb up a slope overgrown with fennel. We had attained an altitude of 9850 feet.
Although the outline of Khamur assumes a somewhat pointed shape when seen from the south, as from the cirque of Shakhberat, yet the summit is nothing more than a fairly flat and narrow platform, which slopes away with some abruptness on the north and south. The lava upon this platform is slabby in character and may be described as an augite-andesite. There is no crater on the summit and one cannot speak of Khamur as a volcano in the proper sense. In fact it is a considerable block of elevated land, in the western portion of which volcanic action has played a great part. The foundation of the block is probably composed of Eocene limestone, which has been overlaid by later lake deposits. This limestone comes to view in a remarkable manner as you survey the eastern half of the mass. The ridge upon which you stand extends for a mile or two in that direction, and presently sinks to a somewhat narrow upland valley. This depression can be clearly seen from the adjacent region, whence it has the appearance of a notch in the outline of the mountain. Its eastern slope leads over into a very broad block of mountain, of which the central region is hollow and basin-like in shape, and the outer sides steep and high. They are perhaps steepest and most lofty on the south. It is in fact one grand synclinal, described by beds of hard limestone, which, from a distance, groups with Khamur in a single mass. The axis of the mass in that direction is about east-north-east.
The prospect towards the west is not of lesser interest, and is certainly even more strange. Time was wanting to examine this extraordinary region, which, indeed, it would require several days to explore. The ridge of Khamur is joined on to the northern portion of another great block of elevated land. The eastern wall of this plateau projects some distance towards the south, almost up to the right bank of the Murad. But the deep valley, which is formed by this projection and by the ridge of Khamur, is filled up by the lofty pile of Kolibaba—a peninsular mountain, only connected beyond a considerable depression with the slopes of the main ridge. It is plainly of eruptive volcanic origin, and it is somewhat circular in form. Its sides are strewn with talus and clothed with oak scrub. Our guide and the people of the district knew it under the name which I have given, and which they averred to have been that of a holy man who had been buried there. Though who this prophet might have been, or what he wrought, or when he lived, not a soul among them knew. Throughout this district, as far as Bingöl, the tops of mountains will be often crowned by the rude enclosure of some sage’s grave. Such a monument was a conspicuous object on the very peak of Khamur; and with its headstone, a huge slab grimly resembling a human bone, might have been disposed to receive a giant’s remains ([Fig. 189]).
But to return to the scene before us—this adjacent plateau on the west extends all the way to Bingöl. Indeed it is connected with the southern margin of the Bingöl pedestal by a bold saddle, due to a flow of lava. This feature was, of course, scarcely visible from Khamur; but the continuation of the Khamur ridge might be traced throughout the region, being distinguished by a succession of bold bosses, rising along its northern margin. These peaks are especially pronounced at their inception, and appeared to rise almost immediately from the northern shore of a large lake which was irregular in form. Near its south-east corner lay a second, much smaller and circular lake. Neither figure on any map which I have seen. They are evidently rather deep, for their colour is an intense blue. Such are some of the characteristics of this curious region, which may be included among the Khamur heights. It rises above the Murad with cliff-like sides, which scarcely decline at all to the elevated level of these lonely azure lakes.
The view from the summit of Khamur may be divined by my reader; nor need I attempt to describe it in any detail. It embraces Palandöken and Bingöl on the north; Nimrud, Bilejan and Sipan on the south. On one side lies the plain of Khinis, bordered by the peaks and ridges of the Akh Dagh, which are seen to their fullest advantage. On another it is the basin of the Murad, with Sipan rising in all his majesty from an expanse of level and cultivated ground. In yet another you overlook the plain and village of Liz and the course of a winding river. From no standpoint does the character of the country, as a succession of sea-like plains, become imprinted with greater clearness on the mind. Nor is any district in the nearer Asia better adapted to become the granary of a prosperous and highly civilised land. We descended in failing light by the valley on the side of Kolibaba, and reached our camp with some difficulty in three hours.
August 12.—On the following morning we set out to follow the Murad, as far as its egress from this region through the heights which border the depression of Mush. Much the same features were continued throughout the stage. The cirque of Shakhberat is enclosed upon the west by a stream of lava from Kolibaba. This emission has flowed in an almost meridional direction, and has forced the river to bend away to the south. After passing through the Armenian village of Akrag, which is placed on a higher level of the basin-like area, we breasted the bold ridge which has been formed by this lava, and crossed it just south of a little parasitic cone, emerging from the side of the mountain. Some low oaks flourish among the boulders; the rock is a glassy augite-andesite. The ridge leads over into a little plain, bordered upon the north by the wall of the Khamur plateau, and with a high rim upon the side of the river, which cannot be seen. The plain has evidently been covered by a lake in fairly recent times. A crack in the rim of the basin displays the channel through which it was drained. On the side of Kolibaba an old beach line was visible, some fifty feet above the level of this plain. The soil consists of a black clay which is not cultivated, but which must be very rich. It took us nearly an hour to cross to the opposite side, where it is confined by an outwork of the Khamur heights.
Our further journey, which occupied the better part of a whole long day, need not be followed step by step. We had arrived at a spot where the dominant lineaments of the landscape had already become pronounced. These prevailed with little variety all the way. On the right bank, at an interval of two to three miles or more, rose the wall of the Khamur plateau. The further west we proceeded the more irregular it became, the less distinguishable from the massive spurs which it put out. These outworks descend into the river valley, which is flooded and choked by the lavas. Both in the valley and on these slopes the lavas have the upper hand; but the grey lacustrine marls are seldom absent or for long. They provide favoured stretches, covered with luscious herbage, where a little stream may trickle down from the barren heights. Still the scene remains wild, bleak rather than of impressive ruggedness; there is space along the margin of the river, which flows in a deep cañon through the sombre eruptive rock. Some stunted oak springs from the crevices among the boulders, but it rather enhances than relieves the mournful aspect of the surroundings.
On the left bank a new feature came into prominence: a long and fairly lofty ridge, with perfectly horizontal outline, many miles away on the south. But the slope of this broad mass was continuous to the brink of the river, where it was broken by the stream into cliffs. Its gentle gradient and almost level surface somewhat softened the rigour of the landscape. It was seen to consist of a sheet of lava, which had covered up the marls, and which must have issued in a very liquid condition. The heights upon which it is built are the northern border heights of Mush plain; and this block of heights approaches closer and closer to the Murad, as it eats its way through the district on a westerly course. Such was the character of the country beyond the winding, hissing river throughout the whole stage. Villages there were none, and hamlets few. A single oasis of any importance was observed high-seated upon the slope in the south, near the break in the outline where the Murad pierces through the block. We should have been pleased to spend the night in that extensive and leafy grove, which belongs to a village called Ali Gedik. But we were assured that the river was not passable, and we were obliged to push on to Charbahur. After following a romantic gorge where the Murad has again been wayward, and has preferred to saw a passage through a towering parapet of lava rather than to follow easier ground upon the south, we rode for some distance along a wide stretch of alluvial soil in which the river at length reposes from its arduous labours. The Circassian village of Charbahur is placed at some distance from the waters, on the northern margin of the broad strip of willow-grown land.[5]