We were in want of another pony, which we were able to hire at Talin; his owner, a Tartar belonging to Akhja Kala, accompanied or followed us on foot (Fig. 67). Measured on the map, it is a distance of sixteen miles from the village to the point at which we struck the Arpa Chai. We owed it to the nature of the ground and to the sorry condition of our horses that we were four and a half hours in performing the stage. It seemed an interminable ride; the landscape was monotonous; and we soon lost any glimpse of the valley of the Araxes, as we continued our north-westerly course. We crossed the neck of the ridge which culminates at its western extremity in the crag of Bugutu; and, on its further side, descended into the little Tartar settlement of Birmalek, where a stream trickles down from Alagöz. A dam had been constructed which, aided by the nature of the ground, had forced the waters to collect into a small lake. Beyond Birmalek a second ridge was placed athwart our way, and constrained us to deviate towards the west. In the hollow we passed a small settlement of Kurds, called Sapunji, of which the inhabitants were the wildest people we had yet met. It speaks well for the Russian officials that they did not dare to lay hands upon us, travelling, as we were, alone and unarmed. This second ridge was succeeded by another, similar in character, which was followed by several more. They are the outworks or spurs of the central mass of the mountain, from which they radiate outwards in a westerly direction towards the trough of the Arpa Chai. Although their relative elevation above the valleys is not considerable, our guide preferred to turn them than to take them in face. Their sides were clothed with burnt grass, or were sterile and strewn with stones, like the depressions which they confined. For more than two hours we continued among such dreary surroundings, crossing the western basal slopes of Alagöz. These decline, by an almost imperceptible transition, into a tract of open and undulating ground. We were refreshed by the sight of a village, which stood alone and without neighbours on the bare surface of the more even land. It belonged to a colony of Armenians from the plain of Alexandropol. Let us hope that they will be followed by further migrations of their countrymen into the valley of the Arpa Chai. That classical river of their ancestors crosses a region which was long famous for its salubrious climate and productive soil. It has not yet recovered from the state of abject desolation to which it was reduced when it formed the borderland between the Turkish and Persian empires. During a ride of nearly two hours from this settlement to the bank of the river, we were not aware of any sign of the presence of man.