Note 10 — Chapter XXIII · GEOGRAPHICAL

A fairly level country extends from the territory of Kharput eastwards to the confines of Palu. The Murad wanders in many channels over the expanse, approached at an interval which is always diminishing by the Tauric barrier. The river is forded to the right bank before the castled rock is reached, past which it flows in a single stream. It washes on three sides the steep declivities of the platform upon which the town is built. Palu is described to me as a thriving borough with about 2000 houses, which gives a population of from 10,000 to 12,000 souls. Six hundred are said to belong to Armenian families and the remainder to Kurdish people. A bridge with eight arches and a length of 190 yards connects the place, just to the east of the loop described by the river, with the opposite or left bank. On the north extends a plain in connection with that of Kharput and productive of abundant crops. Rock chambers and a cuneiform inscription of the Vannic king, Menuas, recording his conquests and emblazoned with the name of Khaldis, his supreme god, remind the traveller that he is already approaching the centres of that old civilisation which existed before the Armenians, and was perhaps the highest that these lands have known.10