_ 317 _ To the west one comes to a village peopled by Armenians, with houses like hovels, built under the ground, because it is very snowy and cold in winter and summer. For this reason one puts up here, for it is only a very short day’s journey away, when it is impossible to reach Betfiz. Sometimes caravans find it necessary to avoid the snow in boats. There are men who live by this, because the animals cannot get through the snow. Thus, in this village, as in many of the places mentioned earlier, livestock are gathered into the houses together with the people, because of the intense cold in this city of Taduan. We left on the next day two hours before dawn in the same direction as before across a great plain covered in snow which came up to the knee. With the other great amount which was falling, neither sky nor land could be seen, not even when it was light; only a white cloud. This is called the plain of Rauha, a name great and fearful to those who travel across it, because of the many caravans which have been and still are lost there as a result of the great falls of snow which block the roads. These are of such a nature that one sees only a great sea of snow, and people do not know in which direction they are going and are lost in it without finding the right road.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTg0NzAy