It was three o'clock; but the snow lay in sheets over the hollows, and the temperature was only 46° Fahrenheit. Grey clouds veiled the sky in the northern landscape, and were collected in inky masses about the snowy peaks of the Chorokh region. The view in that direction, and along the two parallel lines of heights which border the course of the Frat, impressed us in a double sense. On the one hand it was the great height of the summits in the north, which now showed up behind the cone of Sheikhjik; we concluded that they must belong to the group of mountains in which the Chorokh has its source. The other fact which appeared plain was the rising and massing of both lines of heights in the far west. Following the chain upon which we stood across the slopes of the Eyerli Dagh, or pursuing the outline of the opposite barrier across the plain, the long perspective westwards met in shining masses of mountain, covered with snow and with precipitous sides. In the case of the opposite barrier, Kop and Jejen and Akhbaba were dwarfed and humbled by those Georgian heights upon the one side, and, on the other, by those giants in the west. A soldier, muffled in an overcoat, descends upon us from the nearest fort, and bids us to desist from our investigations.--The tripod had been erected: and they could see us taking bearings, which in this country, devoid of maps, is regarded as spying. But the bearings had been taken, and we were not loth to leave. The road becomes a track as you descend the southern slopes; we might say farewell to roads for many weeks. Tekman lies before us--a vast plateau, a continuous basin, stretching towards the foot of a gently vaulted opposite mountain with long horizontal outline and shield-shaped slopes. It is the outline of the Bingöl Dagh; such its appearance at this distance; it is thirty-two miles away as the crow flies. It constitutes the opposite rim of the basin, the counterpart of these heights in the north. Snow is lying in large quantities even upon its lower contours, a fact explained by their northern aspect and rounded shape (Fig. 176). [221] The southern declivities of the barrier upon which we are standing are only flecked with snow. Bingöl is little more than the culmination upon the horizon of the long outline of the tableland--a snow-clad ridge of little relative height. In places hard, black rock shows through the shining canopy, just below the crest of the ridge. In the east the highest point is but an eminence of the cliff-like parapet; but in the west there is a low vaulting which resembles a peak. In front of this western summit rises a mass of dark rock.