Note 6 — Chapter XX · BACK TO THE CENTRAL TABLELAND

The most interesting occupants of such a village are, no doubt, the girls and young women. They retain their fair complexion even in this climate, as well as their roundness of face and form. Several among them would come to the margin of an adjacent stream, in order to wash their grain. Their bare feet were as shapely as their hands. From Charbahur we made an excursion to the passage of the Murad, riding first to the confluence of the important stream which collects the drainage of the southern slopes of the Bingöl plateau. A ridge from the Khamur heights extends across the wide valley, choking it up and checking the drainage of its considerable extension towards the west. The stream cuts through this obstacle a little west of Charbahur, issuing into the alluvial plain at the Circassian village of Charbahur Tepe. It joins the Murad at the egress of the river from the valley. It comes in beneath the shade of willows and silver poplars. It brings a large addition to the waters of the Murad, and is by far its most important tributary since it received the Bingöl Su. Unhappily this affluent bears the same name as that river; but I need not fear that my reader will confuse the two. This Bingöl Su had a width of about 30 yards; its depth was fairly uniform, and it reached above our horses’ knees.6 The Murad now becomes a stately river, recalling, both by its volume and the manner in which it flows, the course of the Danube in Upper Austria. We forded it at a point some 3 miles down the passage, where it was over 100 yards wide and reached above our horses’ girths. It had descended to a level of 4570 feet.