Note 565 — A NARRATIVE OF ITALIAN TRAVELS IN PERSIA. (continued 3)

Sultan Khalil, the Eioobite. His tomb exists there yet. Hesn el Kahef or Hesn Keyf, three hours and a half from Redhwanis, mentioned by Procopius as Ciphas, while an Armenian author, writing about the first crusade, speaks of it under the name of Harsenko, and says that after the defeat of Baldwin de Bourg, Count of Edessa, and Jocelyn de Courtenay by Dejekermish and Soukman, which resulted in the capture of those two chiefs, Jocelyn was sent a prisoner to Hesn Keyf, while Baldwin was incarcerated at Mosul. They were ransomed for a considerable sum, but fell into the hands of Balak the son of Behram, the son of Ortok, who confined them at Kharput. The modern town is perched on the top of a steep and nearly inaccessible rock, having at the eastern end the old castle built by the Ortokides on the ruins of a more ancient edifice. In a small plain at the foot of the mountains that here press down upon the Tigris, are the ruins of the old town of the same name, the seat of the Ortokides and Eioobites. A noble bridge of three large and three smaller pointed arches, but now in ruins, spanned the river close under the town. But by far the most interesting relics of the place are the myriads of grots that stretch for three miles in one direction, and occupy the sides of six other separate ravines, scooped out of the hills to the east of, and round the town. They exist, tier above tier, in parallel lines all up to the top, communicating with each other by stairs and by a narrow zigzag path, that passing each cell reaches from the highest cave to the plain. In the same manner the water of some springs on the top of the hill was conducted by a narrow channel past each of them and within easy reach of their inhabitants.