Erzeroum is one of the most extensive and important Pashaliks in the Turkish dominions, inferior only to Egypt, and equal to Bagdad. It stretches from the frontiers of Russia to those of Persia, and includes in its superintendence the Begs of Koordistan. Ahmed, the Pasha at the time of Mr. K.'s visit, is described as a man of ability, accomplishment, and liberality. He had distinguished himself in the Russian war, and was made Grand Vizier; but having been beaten by Kutusof, he was sent into honourable exile at Erzerou, The province carries on a considerable traffic in leather, copper from mount Taurus, and other articles raw and manufactured; it is, besides, remarkable for the size and excellence of its cattle.

In arranging the journey through Koordistan, Mr. K. was anxious to follow the track of the ten thousand, and with that view chose the route by Betlis and Sert. On the first day's journey they lost their road, and it was with much difficulty that they recovered it. From the summit of Hamur Tegh, they contemplated the plain through which the Morad or Water of Desire flowed in a thousand serpentine curves;' and in the remote distance they distinguished the snowy peak of the Sepan Dag, which hangs over the lake Van, and is said to be too lofty for ascent. Its form is conical, and it exhibits volcanic appearances obsidian is found along the borders of the lake. Descending into the plain, they halted at an encampment of Koords, and found a cordial reception from the chief, a man of courteous and polished manners.

'He beckoned us to sit down, and ordered coffee to be served and dinner to be prepared. The tent was about fifty feet in length and thirty in breadth, made of coarse black woollen cloth, supported by nine small poles. The walls were made with cane bound together by twisted purple silk, and about four feet high; one end was allotted to the women, and the other to the chief, who sat on a silk cushion, having on each side long felts spread for the accommodation of the visitors. Soon after we were seated, he addressed the Tatar, desiring to know what sort of a place England was, since he heard the people there were wise, and made excellent cloth and pistols. Mahomed Aga, with great gravity, assured him that it was a city two hundred hours in circumference, completely filled with emeralds, rubies, and all sorts of rich merchandize; an account which seemed to excite the surprize of the Koord, although he did not express a doubt of the Tatar's veracity. He then ordered his horses to be brought out for us to look at, and we afterwards sat down to dinner, which consisted of a large dish of meat, two plates of cheese, two bowls of sour milk, and abundance of good bread, served up on a leather cloth.'

At an Armenian village called Leese, Mr. K. was visited by a party of Lesgæ.

These people are the scourge of all the neighbouring countries,

being generally employed as the guards of great men; they are mercenary troops, armed with carbines, pistols, and daggers, and during the period for which they engage themselves, will serve with great fidelity, even against their nearest relations. They are of a middle stature, firmly built, of black complexions, and a fierce menacing air.?

In the present instance, they were a detachment from the guard of the Pasha of Moush, who was encamped in the neighbourhood, and who had sent them with assurances of protection, which afterwards turned out to be in expectation of a valuable present. With a view to secure this, he threatened to send them by a different road from that which they had indicated. Mr. K. suspecting that the intrigues of his Tatar had some share in this, sent his servant with a resolute message, which produced the desired effect, and procured for them a guard, and permission to travel as they pleased. The ragged regiment appointed to escort them, was commanded by an old and strange looking Koord, who, however, conducted himself with great kindness and propriety. About half way on their first day's journey, Messrs. K. and C., who were in advance, met with the following adventure.

We encountered a party of the Lesgæ, who eyed us with a sus picious look, and seemed doubtful whether or not they might venture to attack us; they passed on, however, and soon afterwards we met some others of the same stamp, well mounted and armed, as were also the former. I was a few yards in advance, and they endeavoured to intercept me, but I avoided them: they then made a push at Mr. Chavasse, and stopped the Sooragee, demanding, with a menacing air, whither we were going: they held a parley for a few moments, and one of them cocking his carbine, rode up and seized a baggage horse. The guide and his attendants were not with us; but nevertheless, when we perceived that the Lesgæ had seized the baggage, we spurred our horses towards them with our pistols in our hands; finding us prepared and determined to resist, they abandoned their prey, and turning round, fled at full gallop, to call in, as we supposed, the assistance of their companions. During the whole of this scene Mahomed Aga remained absolutely in a state of stupor, with his back towards the banditti, betraying in his countenance symptoms of the most abject fear; and when Mr. Chavasse called on him to advance, he looked at him without appearing to understand what he said.The Koord and his followers coming up soon afterwards, we pursued our journey without further molestation.'

At Betlis they were left by their guide, whose close and diligent attention they recompensed by an additional present. Being dissatisfied, he found a pretext for requiring more, which being complied with, he then proposed to raise an additional ten shillings by way of loan. Not succeeding in this last application, he rushed from the room in great wrath, abusing the infidels till he quitted the house.

Betlis is a handsome well built city, with a fine old balfruined castle in the centre; the streets are steep and the houses are constructed of hewn stone. It is of great antiquity, having been founded, if our readers are disposed to believe the tradition of the Koords, a few years after the flood, by one of Noah's immediate descendants. The population is considerable, and consists of about an equal number of Christians and Mahomedans. Great attention is paid to the gardens, and notwithstanding the gross ignorance of the people, who are described as a rude, brutal, and contentious race, the construction of their aqueducts for the purpose of irrigation, manifests considerable skill in practical hydraulics. Betlis is nominally in the Pashalik of Moush, but is really subject to the Khan of the Koords,' as its feudal lord. The Beg or governor treated the Europeans with great courtesy.

He was a tall, handsome man, polite in his manners, and in all respects very different from his wild and clownish followers. He seemed very desirous of examining our arms, but expressed great contempt for our pistols, which, he said, were much too short, and not sufficiently ornamented. He had been in Egypt, and talked of Sir Sidney Smith, and other English officers, as if he then knew them intimately. The Koords delight in arms more than any other race of men I have ever met with, and pride themselves on the beauty of their horses, and value of their accoutrements. When a Koordish chief takes the field, his equipment varies but little from that of the knights in the days of chivalry; and the Saracen who fought under the great Salahadeen was probably armed in the very same manner as he who now makes war against the Persians. His breast is defended by a steel corslet, inlaid with gold and silver; whilst a small wooden shield, thickly studded with brass nails, is slung over his left shoulder when not in use. His lance is carried by his page or squire, who is also mounted; a carbine is slung across his back; his pistols and dagger are stuck in his girdle, and a light scymitar hangs by his side; attached to the saddle, on the right, is a small case, holding three darts, each about two feet and a half in length; and on the left, at the saddle-bow, you perceive a mace, the most deadly of all his weapons; it is two feet and a half in length; sometimes embossed with gold, at others set with precious stones; and I remember to have seen one in the ancient armoury of Dresden exactly similar to those now used in Koordistan. The darts have steel points, about six inches long, and a weighty piece of iron or lead at the upper part, to give them velocity when thrown by the hand.'

The guard from this place required the incessant vigilance of Mr. K. and his companion, to prevent them from plundering their baggage. They insisted on mounting the loaded horses, and were continually straggling from the road, with the evident intention of disappearing in the woods with their spoil. It was afterwards ascertained that they supposed Mr. Chavasse's port

manteaus were filled with gold. At their next halt, the Aga made very pressing overtures for the amber head of Mr. Kinneir's pipe, which, with a hundred piastres, procured him ́a passage throngh this place. Sert, the next important stage, appears to represent the ancient Tigranocerta, and is a place of some importance, in a tolerably cultivated country. The inhabitants of the surrounding tract are wild, savage, and faithless, but strongly attached to their chiefs, their mountains, and their national independence, which they boast of having maintained since the days of Noah, and which is secured by their defiles, passes, and inaccessible rocks. The Aga at first treated the travellers negligently, and pointed them to the lower end of the apartment; but on their haughty rejection of this incivility, he laughed heartily, and assigned them the place of honour next to himself. At this part of his work, Mr. Kinneir introduces, in a note, a very singular story. He had been much annoyed by the applications of invalids, who, as usual, supposed that all Europeans must be infallible physicians, and after observing, in connexion with this, that the Easterns also attribute to the Franks the possession of the philosopher's stone, he relates the following circumstance.

A few days before my arrival at Bassora, Mr. Colquhoun, the acting resident at that place, received a message from an Arabian Philosopher, requesting a private interview, in order to communicate a most important secret. Mr. C. consented, and next morning the mysterious stranger was introduced to him. Embracing the knees of the resident, he said that he was come to supplicate the protection of the English from the cruel and continued persecution of his countrymen, who, having understood that he had the power of transmuting the basest metals into gold, daily put him to the torture to wring his secret from him. He added that he had just made his escape from Grane, where he had long been starved and imprisoned by the Sheck, and that he would divulge every thing he knew to Mr. Colquhoun, provided he was permitted to reside in the factory. My friend agreed to receive him, and in return he faithfully promised to afford a convincing proof of his skill. He accordingly retired, and soon afterwards returned with a small crucible and chafing dish of coals, and when the former had become hot, he took four small papers, containing a whitish powder, from his pocket, and asked Mr. C. to fetch him a piece of lead the latter went into his study, and taking four pistol bullets, weighed them unknown to the alchy. mist; these, with the powder, he put into the crucible, and the whole was immediately in a state of fusion. After the lapse of about twenty minutes, the Arabian desired Mr. C. to take the crucible from the fire, and put it into the air to cool: the contents were then removed by Mr. C., and proved to be a piece of pure gold, of the same weight as the bullets. The gold was subsequently valued at ninety piastres in the bazar. It is not easy to imagine how a deception could have been accomplished, since the crucible remained unVOL. X. N.S.

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touched by the Arab after it had been put upon the fire; while it is, at the same time, difficult to conceive what inducement a poor Arab could have had to make an English gentleman a present of ninety piastres. Mr. C. ordered him to return the next day, which he promised to do, but in the middle of the night he was carried off by the Sheck of Grane, who, with a body of armed men, broke into his house, and put him on board a boat, which was out of sight long before day break. Whether this unhappy man possessed, like St. Leon, the secret of making gold, we are not called upon to deter mine; but the suspicion that he did so was amply sufficient to account for the unrelenting manner in which he would seem to have been persecuted by his countrymen.'

The only difficulty in this relation seems to lie in the statement, that the weight of the gold and that of the lead were equal; all the rest might obviously be nothing more than dexterous sleight-of-hand. But even this admits of explanation, on the supposition of what was probably the case, the weights being no more than a fair approach towards an equality. It was far more probable that a man possessed of the means of infinite wealth, should make a clear escape, than seek refuge in an asylum near at hand; and it does not even appear that he really sought that, for the narrative states that he returned to his own dwelling instead of remaining at the factory. The story is certainly a strange one, but it does not seem that Mr. Čok quhoun was sufficiently jealous of imposition, and the whole business was possibly nothing more than a scheme framed by the Arab and the Sheck, to extract money from Mr. C., who, if he had taken steps to rescue the alchymist, would probably have found the Sheck willing enough to part with his captive for a valuable consideration.

Mr. Kinneir endeavoured to prevail on the chief of Sert, to pass them forward to Jezira; but this he declined, stating that the place was a mere hold of banditti, and refused to hazard his followers on so perilous a track. Messrs. K. and C. determined therefore to proceed towards Merdin. On their road they halted at a village inhabited by a strange sect, who worship or rather deprecate the devil,' whose name cannot be mentioned in their presence without exciting an indescribable sensation of horror." They entertain an hereditary abhorrence of the Mahommedans, by whom they have been fiercely persecuted. At page 414 of this volume, it is said they are at enmity with the Christians; it is however clear, that it should have been at amity.

Near a village called Kiverzo, they found a Turkish detach ment besieging some refractory natives who had taken refuge in a church, before which these valiant and scientific warriors had been encamped during two months, and it was still in the full possession of its little garrison, of which not a man had