I asked the Kaimakam whether he could tell me the number of the inhabitants; and, forthwith, he most kindly consulted his registers. According to his figures there are 387 houses in Khinis, besides numerous shops. Of the dwellings 250 are inhabited by Mohammedans and 137 by Armenians. The former are censused at 1350 and the latter at 586. But there is a large discrepancy between males and females in the case of both denominations in favour of the males. He was of opinion that the figures for the Armenians were too low; they evade the census in order to avoid the military tax. Small and large, he put the total of villages in his caza at 287. It forms part of the vilayet of Erzerum, and its borders march with those of the caza of Erzerum. [169] He knew of no Yezidis within the limits of his district; but gypsies wander through it in summer. Of Kizilbash Kurds he believed there to be about fifteen villages. The principal tribes in the neighbourhood are the Haideranli and Zirkanli, besides about eight villages of Jibranli Kurds. Four battalions of Hamidiyeh are said to be enrolled in the caza. I am sensible of the defective standpoint of my photograph of Khinis, taken, to avoid suspicions, before entering the town. [170] But it clearly shows the mingling rivers, with their cavernous beds, sunk into the volcanic soil. It shows the castle--of which the ruins display a face of hewn stone upon a structure of agglomerate rubble--and, in the background, behind the picturesque disorder of the clambering township, the distant terrace of the Bingöl plateau. At eleven o'clock on the 3rd of December we were winding our way in the shadowed gorges, about to issue upon the plain on the north.