June 20.--Our course was directed up the fan of detritus to this Palandöken Pass. [220] Our little horses, full of corn, curveted along the path through the dreary waste of water-worn stones. Erzerum was soon behind us, lost already in the expanse. What a contrast between these cities of Asia and those of Europe with their suburbs and villas! These repose upon their plains like a ship upon the ocean, which you speak, and all is soon again blank. In half-an-hour from the enceinte we gained a metalled road, which follows the course of a torrent of some size. It leads to two modern forts, planted high on the southern slope, on either side of the pass. The pass itself is placed beneath the peak of Palandöken, upon its western flank. The road goes winding up the gorge, and along the eastern side of the so-called crater, crossing and re-crossing the torrent by a number of bridges. A nameless and minor mountain of symmetrical proportions and vaulted form rises on the northern margin of the cirque. We passed between it and the slopes of Palandöken, supported by the outworks of the larger mass. Patches of snow lay on the grass at this increased altitude, their melting remnants fringed by bright fieldflowers. On the banks were pulsatillas, with their drooping bells and scent of wine; buttercups and marsh marigolds in the beds of the runnels; forget-me-nots in profusion on every side. Still the scene was bleak in character; and the sailing cumulus clouds sent their shadows over a surface which has been worn by ice and snow and water, and seems alien even to the hardiest plants. Such was the appearance of the irregular caldron on our right hand--a yawning hollow sapping the bases of the adjacent peaks. Closed on the south, it sends its drainage through deep valleys to the plain. The white face of a limestone rock interrupts the more grassy spaces, and is varied by the darker serpentines. The soaring heights around the cirque are of eruptive volcanic origin, and display the lava flows. After a sharp ascent, the chaussée reaches the standing southern wall of this caldron, and is taken, in a fine gallery, for some distance along its northern slope. Its cliff-like outline extends from the heights of Palandöken to those of Eyerli in the west. A turn of the road conducts us to the pass (9780 feet).