June 23.--After fording the Aras we made our way for some considerable distance up the fairly broad valley of another little river, which was already close to its confluence. The valley favoured our course, having an almost meridional direction; the river was coming straight down from Bingöl. The peculiar charm of this region is the number of delicious streams which furrow the breezy downs. With their grassy valleys and blue surface they refresh and please the eye, and in part atone for the absence of trees. The sides of the valley were seen to consist of a very white lacustrine limestone; these rocks were varied a few miles further, and at length almost superseded, by sheets of dark brown tuff. Among such surroundings is situated the considerable Kurdish village of Kalaji, backed by a low cliff of rectangular blocks of tuff, and overlooking the stream from its left bank. At this point we crossed the river and regained the uplands; our landmarks were again in view. The snowy peak which we called Sheikhjik lay on our right, above high outlines of these undulating downs. Behind us stretched the outline of the Palandöken heights; while before us rose the western and more pronounced eminence of the long ridge of Bingöl. Our guide was making for a village at the foot of Bingöl which bears the name of Kherbesor. Hitherto we had been pursuing an almost southerly course; it was time that we should be turning towards the east. This wide curve is dictated by a block of limestone hills, which interposes a sea of peaks, with little relative height, between Khedonun and the plain of Khinis. We had now reached the base of the platform which supports Bingöl; it breaks off just on the south of the village of Kherbesor in a line of cliffs, which concealed the eastern summit. We were in the district of Shushar; our further progress was directed up a wide valley between those cliffs and the block of hills with the rounded peaks. The cliffs appeared to consist of a dark lava, overlying calcareous lake deposits, which again overlay the tuffs of the plain of Kherbesor. At a distance of some five miles, we crossed a col (7340 feet) over a ridge of limestone, joining the block of hills to the uppermost extremity of the cliffs. Thence we descended to a spacious and roughly-circular valley, a kind of caldron among the bleak heights. It sends its drainage to the Araxes in a stream which skirts the eastern outworks of the block of limestone hills. The hamlet of Ali Mur, which nestles in the lap of this hollow, has an elevation of 7180 feet. It belongs to the district of Khinis. It takes its name from a grey-beard who became our guide on the following day, and who was the founder of the settlement. Ali Mur and his people are Kizilbash Kurds. He told me that they had found on this site the relics of a village known as Kharaba, and a cemetery which he believed was Mussulman.