_ 130 _ That afternoon we encountered a courier with four riders on its way from Aleppo to Urfa. They took two horses from us, as is the custom of couriers in Turkey, and we waited two days for a Moor to bring them back, and we paid him to go and bring them back. We left there in the early morning, travelling all the time to the west, and we passed at midday through a city called Bireuk, “small passage”, because there the River Euphrates, which is not very large here, is crossed, and also small dues are payable, one xain per load. Item: Bireuk(A), a city at the crossing of the Euphrates or a tributary of that river, is situated to the eastern side, on a rock above the river, on the landward side it is enclosed by a strong stonework wall, and towards the river by many buildings in the same stonework, founded and built in the water, and this side is better fortified than by a wall. The houses inside the city are of wattle and daub, stone and mud, with flat roofs and narrow, dirty streets and has perhaps two thousand Armenian and Turkmen citizens, all of whom use the Arabic language. On one side of the city, near the river, there is a well-fortified castle at the steepest and strongest point of the rock. To the east of the city is a great desert which (A) Formerly [Binta].
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