The upper course of the Euphrates lies among lofty mountains and near the village of Pastash, it plunges through a gorge formed by precipices more than a thousand feet in height and so narrow that it is bridged at the top; it shortly afterwards enters the plains of Mesopotamia. How accurately this portion of the river answers the description of Esdras of the "narrows," where the Israelites crossed! From the Euphrates the wandering host could take but one course in their journey northward, and that was along the back or eastern shore of the Black Sea. All other roads were impassable to them, as the Caucassian range of mountains with only two or three passes throughout its whole extent, ran as a lofty barrier from the Black to the Caspian Sea. To go east would take them back to Media, and a westward journey would carry them through Asia Minor to the coasts of the Mediterranean. Skirting along the Black Sea, they would pass the Caucassian range, cross the Kuban River, be prevented by the Sea of Azof from turning westward and would soon reach the present home of the Don Cossacks. It is asserted, on good authority, that along this route and for "an immense distance" northward, the country is full of tombs of great antiquity, the construction of which, the way in which the dead are buried therein, and the jewelry, curiosities, etc., found on opening them, prove that they were built by a people of similar habits to the Israelites. Dr. Clark, a well-known traveler, states that he counted more than ninety such mounds at one view near the Kuban River.