The hills which we entered near Urfa are the first outposts of these mountains, but at this point of their line the outposts are very far advanced. We must push on for two or three days across a broad undulating upland before we find ourselves approaching the foot of the main chain itself. On the whole it is a dull enough journey; for though the snow summits rise nobly on the horizon ahead of us, the heathlands immediately round us are as barren as land can be. There are a few sordid Kurdish villages at four or five hours intervals, but apart from these there is nothing for the eye to rest on; and our own little party, crawling slowly across the landscape, seem to be the only living creatures except the ubiquitous hooded crows. During the second day, however, we became aware of another feature, which, if it adds no beauty, at least lends interest to the scene. A layer of higher ground is thrust across the plateau. It radiates out into long flat tongues; and its steep escarpments are littered all over with the big black boulders that have fallen from the bristly fringe along the upper edge. These boulders are covered with a grey-green lichen, and mottled with patches of moss of a warmer and richer green; but no other kind of vegetation seems able to flourish among them, and the prevailing tone of the landscape is a gloomy bilious grey. To those who have seen it before such a picture needs no commentary. A vast outpouring of volcanic scoriæ has covered the whole countryside. As we pursue our way further the signs become yet more pronounced. The Acropolis of the little town of Severek is perched, like Bamborough Castle, on a platform of basalt rock. Not far off at the village of Kainak is an isolated cone--once doubtless a miniature crater: and we remember that Diarbekr is built of basalt also--Diarbekr, two days' journey away. Whence came this prodigious outflow of seventy miles in diameter, and of four thousand square miles in area--as large as the county of York?