Note 2 — Chapter XII · ACROSS THE CENTRAL TABLELAND TO KHINIS

Tekman lies before us—a vast plateau, a continuous basin, stretching towards the foot of a gently vaulted opposite mountain with long horizontal outline and shield-shaped slopes. It is the outline of the Bingöl Dagh; such its appearance at this distance; it is thirty-two miles away as the crow flies. It constitutes the opposite rim of the basin, the counterpart of these heights in the north. Snow is lying in large quantities even upon its lower contours, a fact explained by their northern aspect and rounded shape (Fig. 176).2 The southern declivities of the barrier upon which we are standing are only flecked with snow. Bingöl is little more than the culmination upon the horizon of the long outline of the tableland—a snow-clad ridge of little relative height. In places hard, black rock shows through the shining canopy, just below the crest of the ridge. In the east the highest point is but an eminence of the cliff-like parapet; but in the west there is a low vaulting which resembles a peak. In front of this western summit rises a mass of dark rock.