Approaching closer, the road is seen to find a passage between the hills on the south and the adjacent flat-topped mass. The width of this passage may be about half-a-mile. Once within the answering horns you cross a spacious amphitheatre, in which the secret of the formation is revealed. The two hills belong to the southern wall of mountain, but so also does the mound. And a line of heights circle inwards from behind the two hills, to protract the circle outwards to the horn of the mound. Hills and mound are left behind before those heights are breasted; or, to continue the figure, you scale the tiers of the amphitheatre at the point most remote from the narrow opening on its eastern side.
Such is the position which, due not to man, but to a freak of Nature, arrests the flow of traffic or the tide of battle. The linking heights—the opposite curve of the circle—are widely known through the literature of travel and of Asiatic warfare as the Deveh Boyun, or the camel’s neck. The humps and head are represented, the first by the two hills, and the second by the mound. The pass, to which the road climbs, is situated on the neck of the camel; but a second ridge must be surmounted, which is a little higher, and has an elevation of about 6850 feet.
From the Deveh Boyun to Erzerum must be a distance of several miles, since, although we rode at a rapid trot, we did not reach the city in less than fifty minutes. Two facts, which were unexpected, became clear as we proceeded. In the first place, the position is by no means so strong as it might appear, even to a near view, from the eastern side. There is at least one, and there are probably more than one passage between the mound and the northern wall of the plain. This circumstance, and the peculiar character of the ground on the west of the barrier, which is broken up into precipitous heights, are in favour of the attack, in so far as they necessitate the employment of a considerable defensive force. The second surprise was perhaps more personal; I had formed the conception of a transverse parapet leading immediately into the plain of Erzerum. But the parapet is succeeded by the broken ground of which I have spoken, and of which the heights are crowned with batteries. The road is taken along the face and among the recesses of the southern barrier; and you are already above the picturesque site of the famous fortress before you overlook the full expanse of the level land. We arrived within the enclosure of the circumvallation at a few minutes before three.[22]
[1] This total is distributed, according to my estimates, as follows:—
| Mush–Surb Karapet | 25 | miles | ||
| Surb Karapet–Gumgum | 28½ |
| ||
| Gumgum–Khinis | 24 |
| ||
| Khinis–Kulli | 23½ |
| ||
| Kulli–Mejitli | 13 |
| ||
| Mejitli–Hasan Kala | 22½ |
| ||
| Hasan Kala–Erzerum | 23 |
| ||
| Total | 159½ | miles. |
[2] I should like to refer my reader to Mr. Ainsworth’s valuable book (Travels and Researches in Asia Minor, etc., London, 1842, vol. ii. p. 383) for a description of the two interesting old bridges which he found, one spanning the Murad, some distance east of our ford, and the other a former bed of the Kara Su. See also Koch, Reise im pontischen Gebirge, etc., Weimar, 1846, pp. 410, 411. [↑]
[3] The head man in a Christian village is called kiaya, and in a Moslem village mukhtar. He is responsible to Government. There is no official chief of agglomerations of villages, like the Russian Pristav. [↑]
[4] The accepted average elevation of the plain of Mush appears to be 4200 feet. The readings of my barometers agree fairly well with this figure. [↑]
[5] I have already mentioned the presence of gypsies in the caza of Garchigan. I did not meet with any during my first journey. [↑]