We mounted to the top of the cliff on the right or eastern side of the ravine, in order to obtain a view on either hand. Towards the east stretched the contours of the upper portion of the base, clothed with withered grass and strewn with stones. Abich tells us that these fragments are different in origin and character from the boulders and stones in the trough of the ravine; and, as we have seen, he uses the fact as a powerful weapon against the eruptive theory which Wagner propounds. Looking across the valley, our eyes rested on a little settlement on its opposite or western flank. It occupies a higher site than that of the Kurdish village, and may have been about a mile distant from where we stood. It interested us as well by its lonely and dangerous position as by an adjacent and isolated group of trees. It is called New Akhury, and, according to the official statistics, contains a population of some 400 Tartar inhabitants. It is the seat of a Cossack station, and bids fair to increase in size before the next earthquake shall sweep it away. Makar directed our attention to some fallen gravestones, not many yards distant from where we stood. They are the remains of the cemetery of the old Akhury, and among them we admired several crosses with rich chasing in the old Armenian style. We found them overgrown with a thick, orange-hued lichen, resembling the appearance of rust. He told us that many of his relations had been buried in this graveyard, and he pointed out in particular a group of seven stones. He said that they marked the graves of seven brothers who had been killed in the gardens of the vanished township by the attacks of a single snake.