Beyond this cañon of the Kur, which is distant some twenty miles, ridge upon ridge of lofty and barren mountains are massed upon the horizon from south-west. They belong to the Dochus-Punar volcanic system, and they overpower all the ranges about us, with the exception of the dim Caucasian chain. From those slopes, as from these slopes upon which we are standing, lavas have streamed over the surface of the intermediate country and levelled the inequalities of the ground. That eruptive action is long extinct; the fires are dormant; no wreath of smoke crowns the familiar volcanic forms. The system is seen to sink to the cañon upon the north, where a gap in the outlines gives a passage to the Kur. On the northern side the heights are resumed by a long, serrated ridge, which belongs to the northern border mountains, and which extends from west by south to east by north. A little west of north lies Lake Tabizkhuro, with the dome of Samsar rising from its shores. The foreground towards the north is filled with mountain masses, with vaulted summits and rounded slopes. Our guide was unable to name them to us, and I therefore busied myself with an outline sketch. A long ridge sweeps away from Abul on the north-eastern side in a hemicycle concave to the west. It mingles with the forms of the nearer masses, of which the most prominent may, I suppose, be identified with Kör Ogly and Godorebi, members of the Abul-Samsar eruptive group. The long bulwark of the Trialethian chain is either hidden by these nearer mountains, or only disclosed through brief vistas to a sea of outlines beyond. The northern horizon is closed by the snowy peaks of Caucasus, over a hundred miles away. Towards the east we were not impressed by any commanding features in the mountain landscape, although we were overlooking the eastern wing of the meridional eruptive system, flanked by the Somkethian ridges on the further side. Between us and those vague shapes was lapped an extensive lake, Lake Toporovan, broken by the outline of the eastern fang of Abul. But what are those gleaming snows, just protruding above the horizon from a snowless vaulted ridge in the south-east? The flat horizontal outline is broken towards the centre by a low serration of snow-clad peaks. It is Alagöz, seventy miles distant in a straight line; it is even said that from here the dome of Ararat is visible, when it is not concealed by its faithful wreath of cloud. Compared to these, the nearer heights in the south are thrown into insignificance; the eye completes the circle to the point from which it started, the lofty ridges in the south-west.