_ 303 _ December, we left in the morning and took the road to the west across a flat plain. It was all covered in snow, and we could not see the road, nor where it led. A little after midday we arrived at another caravanserai, near another village, called Muhalacan, with the same houses and people, also supplied by the rearing of livestock; for it is not possible to live from anything else throughout these places. On the Thursday morning we resumed our journey through the same snow, in the same direction, and over the same rough roads. At nightfall we put up for the night in a small place of wattle and daub houses, called Archão, peopled by Armenians, fertile, and with the rearing of all kinds of livestock, horses and mares. It has many provisions, as have all those districts, for they have great plains which are sown with crops. The snow which then covers the cereals buries them under it, and they germinate; for it does not normally rain in these parts except in February and March. In a north-westerly direction near this place are some large mountain ranges, along which there runs a watercourse called Amargós, which flows from north to south for about two leagues and is a good musket-shot wide. This forms an estuary and falls into the Sea of Van, which
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