"استطلاعات في بلاد الرافدين وكردستان وشمال غرب بلاد فارس ولرستان في الفترة من أبريل إلى أكتوبر ١٨٨٨، كتبها المقدم ف. ر. مونسيل، فرع الاستخبارات. يوجد مجلدان. المجلد الأول: تقرير سردي ووصف للمدن الكبرى والطرق المؤدية منها. شيملا: فرع الاستخبارات، إدارة قائد الإمداد والتموين، ١٨٩٠" [ظ‎‎٦‎٠] (٣١٢/١٢٥)

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filling the rough places, a road, practicable for artillery, could be made in a
short time. If more used by caravans, this road would probably improve. '
Most of the trees were well grown oaks, S' to 3 (*" diameter, of the gall-
bearing kind. The district is uninhabited, and consequently the trees do not
suffer from cutting for firewood.
After 7 2 miles the track improves rapidly, with fewer stones and more
clay soil and the valley gets broader also as we go on. q
The rock strata here are very marked. To the right they slope up from 20
to 25°, and to the left they have been forced into a vertical position, the valley
forming the dividing line of these two slopes. Both ridges are well wooded
almost to the summit.
At 8 | miles the valley is | mile wide. Our path winds over a succession of
small spurs from the left. The trees along the lower part of the slopes, as we
near the inhabited districts, become more stunted and cut for firewood.
The track is broad and easy, and we passed a few patches of cultivation
and vineyards.
Gurrawan . —At 9 miles rounded a spur and passed through the village
of Gurrawan (8,400'), at the mouth of a narrow rift opening from a upper
plateau to the west, 6 miles long and 3 broad. A large stream emer^ps from
this rift, and is used to irrigate terraces of cultivation, lining the stream
for a mile from the mouth of the gorge.
In these terraces were a great variety of fruit trees and large ash, oak,
sycamore, and walnut; mulberry, pomegranates, figs, pears and apples; vines
and roses twining up the trees.
The soil seemed capable of producing anything. High up through the
gorge to the south-west was an upper plateau, with slopes covered with vine
yards and thickly wooded. > .
A few small villages were hidden away in the most inaccesible places.
Guillau. —On the north-east side of the valley is another similar elevated
basin called Guillau, and communicating with this through a deep rift or gorge
down which a large stream flows. It is shaped like a crater, about 3 miles
diameter, bounded by a circular wall of cliffs 1,000 to 1,500 feet in height,
and streaked with snow along the summit : the slopes were well wooded ; a
few patches of cultivation and vineyards and two small villages were seen in
the most inaccessible and precipitous places. Altogether a most extraordinary
place with cliff scenery of marvellous beauty. These people, the Akoyeh Kurds,
perch their houses in these out-of-the-way clifts in the mountains so as to be
able to defy Turkish authority more easily.
In Gurrawan the people looked half-starved and in rags. At first supplies
were refused, the people thinking we were Turks, but on hearing we were
English, bread, sour milk, and dried fruits, all they possessed, were produced.
ff'he road from Gurrawan continues down the valley, crossing several low
spurs from the left and is quite passable for artillery if some of the narrower
places were widened. Several wooded glens join in from the ridge to the
left and some well-tended vineyards were passed, and small patches of wheat.
Trees get fewer and more stunted as we go on, although the upper slopes of
the ridges are still well wooded.
Fickead. —At 13 miles (2,500') Fickead, a small village, is passed. Like
Gurrawan, it is at the mouth of a gorge in the hills to the left, through which
flows a large stream, irrigating terraces of orchards and vineyards below.
The Guillau stream flows along the north-east side of the valley, here
£ to ^ mile wide. An old watch tower on a spur, a relic of the times of the
independent Kurdish chiefs in Rawanduz, is passed here.