A Journey from London to Persepolis Volume 1 ; including Wanderings in Daghestan, Georgia, Armenia, Kurdistan, Mesopotamia, and Persia; with numerous coloured illustrations - Tapa blanda

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1865 Excerpt: ...he checked any disposition to plunder the property of a friendly tribe, sometimes even ordering the death of the culprit. His house, situated at the top of the aoul, was a low shed-like building, a single storey high, running along one side of a courtyard, another side being occupied with a higher tower-like structure, to the upper part of which access was obtained by means of a broad ladder. The whole was formerly the residence of the chief man of the village, and had been appropriated by Schamyl when he dispossessed the previous inhabitants. The view from the top of this extraordinary natural fortress was, as might be supposed, very extensive, extending to the snowy range of the Caucasus towards the south, and reaching far and wide over the broken and jagged outlines of the surrounding mountains. To the west, in the distance, was Khunsakh and the country of the Avars, between which and us lay, far beneath, the deep and wide valley in which was the Eussian encampment where we had spent the night. To the north, a few trees appearing on the verge of the horizon showed where the forest commenced which covered the flank of the hills descending into the steppes, while to the east a mass of rocks of gigantic and fantastic forms extended as far as the eye could reach. When darkness fell we returned to the house, where our host, the Polish captain, who had served in Siberia for some time, and who had long resided among the frontier Tatars on the remote borders of the empire, including a sojourn of some months at Kiachta, the mart for the exchange of Chinese PREPARATION FOR FETES AT GOUNIB. 175 produce, made the evening pass very pleasantly with stories of his travels and adventures in those little-known lands. He informed us that it was the intention of the Eussia...