_ 324 _ situated to the west of the road between two mountain- ranges. It consists of very good houses and buildings in French-style wattle and daub, with flat roofs. It must have about one thousand five hundred citizens, all for the most part Armenians, who dress in the Persian style as in all the places before. They live in more freedom than those of Tabriz, and their churches are more public. Most of them live by trading merchandise, others by rearing livestock or by cultivation. There are some Kurds, by whom the land is also peopled. It has a very rough access between mountains, and a stream which passes through the middle of the city, and this is the one which joins that of Altun Copri and the River Tigris, as already mentioned, and goes into the main part of the city. From where one enters there is a large spread of houses, separated and apart from one another, situated on the same mountain, built in stone and wattle and daub like small towers, consisting of two storeys, with windows and flat roofs. A good part of the city extends in a southerly direction. In the other direction there is a fine castle on a rough outcrop, all encircled by a very high, strong wall of stone and lime, well-towered with castellations for the guard, and emplacements between the battlements, which looks impossible to capture.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTg0NzAy