'A second journey through Persia, Armenia, and Asia Minor, to Constantinople, between the years 1810 and 1816. With a journal of the voyage by the Brazils and Bombay to the Persian Gulf. Together with an account of the proceedings of His Majesty's embassy under Sir Gore Ouseley, Bart. K.L.S. With two maps, and engravings from the designs of the author.' [‎315] (368/516)

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snows melt it is generally the deepest and the most rapid; in the sum-
mei it is almost dry. We passed it when at the lowest, at about two
hours after sunrise, and found it then half-way up the breasts of our
horses.
On the 10th, instead of travelling in the middle of the plain, and pass
ing through the gap at Sherour, which is the regular road, we kept to
the right nearly at the foot of the hills; and having passed several large
and flourishing villages, reached our tents at Sadrek, a village which
gives its name to the district. At a distance the houses appeared
intermixed with small white tents ; but we learnt that the musquitoes
are here so extremely numerous, that the inhabitants are obliged to
secure themselves against their attacks, by sleeping in linen chambers,
or musquito nets, which they erect on the tops of their houses between
two poles. In addition to these, each village is crowded by storks,
which build their nests on the tops of the highest houses and happily
destroy that monotony of view which Persian villages too generally
present.
The next day, on the same direction, we reached Develu, a large
village, the Ketkhoda of which was an old soldier who had served Aga
Mahomed Khan m all his wars. On many of the mountains towards
the Russian frontiei, the Persians have placed pillars of stone to serve
as scarecrows, which at a distance look like sentinels.
The following morning, the 12th, we entered upon another most ex
tensive tract of fertile land, called Gerni, from a river of that name that
flows through it. It extends between a chain of hills on one side that
border the Lake of Si van, and Mount Ararat on the other. Every
acre seems to be turned to account in the cultivation of corn and rice;
and villages stand so thick, that it is difficult to go a mile without pass
ing one. On the left of our road, near two low hills, is the monastery of
Virab, built over a well, in which the Armenians say that their Saint
Gregory was confined and miraculously nourished.
Our tents were pitched at the village of Ak-bash, or white-head, close
to the stream of the Gerni, which takes its rise in the neighbouring
mountains, and flows into the Araxes. Before we reached them, when
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