No intervening forms obstruct the view over the basin to that long, low, east-west ridge. Nor further round, towards the east, is the landscape interrupted, except at an immense interval and by imposing shapes. At a distance of fifty-two miles, a second shield-shaped giant is less conspicuous because only streaked with snow. It is Khamur, a volcanic mass beyond the plain of Khinis--a plain concealed by these higher levels, but indicated in places by a sharp edge, where the plateau breaks abruptly to the floor of the plain. As the train of Khamur declines, a very lofty and pronounced mountain towers up into the sky. None of our attendants know its name; but it is the Akh Dagh, seen in profile, the boundary of the Khinis region on the north. It is forty miles distant; such are the limits in that direction; while in the west the eye is arrested by outlines from the adjacent heights. We cannot see Sipan for haze. A better standpoint than that of the pass from which to realise this region is afforded by the brow of a hill a few miles west of the village of Madrak, to which we mounted on the following day. What a bleak and lonely scene! A country of rolling downs extends on every side, framed by the distant landmarks just described. Yet the prevailing hue is not that of grass, even at this season; but of naked limestone, weathered a pale ochre, or of serpentine, dull-green or bluish-grey. Both rocks compose hills of a gently rounded character; the limestones are most often capped by slabby lavas, which resist the crumbling and contribute to the horizontal appearance of all higher forms. The few clouds which have scaled the barrier of the Palandöken send liquid shadows over the undulating expanse. Of cultivation there is little--in places a patch of light reddish-brown; the stones are thickly strewn upon the fallows. The sparse hamlets, built of mud and stone, are lost in the folds of the hills.