Note 2 — Chapter XVI · AKHLAT

I was anxious to visit Akhlat during the course of my first journey; but the lateness of the season compelled me to push on. The project so long deferred is at length realised. The conception of the place which was present in my mind, before we commenced to investigate the ruins, may be expressed in a few words. A number of beautiful mausolea, illustrating the best traditions of Mohammedan art in a manner by far surpassing the similar buildings we had seen elsewhere—a ruined city with mosques and minarets standing on the margin of the lake, and backed by the remains of a still older city, which perhaps dated from the period of the caliphs—such was the idea, so full of promise, which I had gathered from the oral accounts of travellers or formed from conversation in the country. Not much more is to be gleaned from books.2 Writing now that we have completed our plan of the place, examined the monuments, and copied the inscriptions, I propose, in the first place, to submit a few general remarks, and then to resume the experiences of our several excursions, blending them into one.