In many respects the region resembles Tekman; the higher levels over which we passed have an elevation of from 6000 to 7500 feet. But the lavas have played a greater part in its configuration; and the streams, which were mere runnels, have eaten to an immense depth and flow in meridional valleys. Thus we were always either picking our way over a sheet of lava, crumbled into boulders and yellow with fennel, or descending hundreds of feet into a deep valley through which trickled a rivulet. We crossed only one considerable stream--the Kersuk or Kersik. It was winding through a gorge composed of limestone overlying serpentine, and was changing its course from south-east towards the south. At the bend, on the left bank, at some height above the river, is situated the picturesque village of Alkhes. The channel had a breadth of only a few paces; but the water reached to our horses' girths. The district about Alkhes, and for some distance west and east, is known by the name of Elmali Dere, or the vale of apple trees. These pleasant trees, with their grey-green foliage, are found in abundance in the valley and side valleys of the Kersik. But the dreary fennel is almost the only plant on the higher levels; nor can the eye, far and wide, thence discern the shape of a tree. In the north the mournful landscape is framed by the mountains which bend south-eastwards into the Kilich Gedik. At Alkhes they were known under the name of Khalias Dagh; at Tutakh, where our informants were better educated, under that of Mergemir. Towards the south, upon the limits of a wide semicircle, rose the snow-clad and still distant summits of the Ala Dagh, rose Sipan and Bilejan. An unknown mountain, of relatively humble proportions, concealed the western slopes of the giant of Lake Van; it proved to be Kartevin, a volcanic and insular mass, on the left bank of the Murad. CHAPTER XIV DOWN THE MURAD TO MELAZKERT [226] The perfume of a hayfield, in which the mowers were busy, greeted our approach to the town of Tutakh. It came as a refreshing change after the dreary lava-sheets overgrown with fennel, and the stony paths, down and up, across the valleys. Great rivers impress their dignity upon their surroundings; and, although we failed to discover the Murad until we were close upon it, the larger folds of the down-like country, and the growing sense of space, appeared to indicate that we were already near our goal. Twenty minutes before our arrival on the outskirts of the settlement, the white waters were seen winding far below us, at the foot of the hills. In the bare brown mountains from which they had issued, curving towards them from the outlines in the north, we recognised the distant horn of the crescent to which they had pointed at Alkhes as the heights overlooking Tutakh.